The Daily Sport-February 4th

See: Look at me; Waking up early and posting this Blog to ALL (again, I know there’s very few of you  but still, I’ll keep referring to you all as “ALL” so I can feel proud, or at least motivated enough, to write each and every post). I’m on my way to the gym this morning so I’ll try to keep it brief. The Daily Sport today will take a bit of a different approach…meaning I’m going to get my fat-ass up on “my Soap Box” and rant. I’ll be ranting on a particular topic that is relevant right now (especially for me and all other fans of terrible NBA Franchises) so yes, Heat fans please click away immediately (and pretty much stay away because I don’t like a good lot of you-although there are a few that are such good friends I have to put up with your awful taste in basketball loyalty). The topic: the NBA Draft Lottery. 

I don’t know how many of you know this (I’m hoping most of the people that may or may not be reading this) but the NBA Draft differs from almost every other professional sporting league in the way they order draft slots to its teams. However, the NBA likes to sell this off to its fans as meaning any team outside of the playoff teams can gain the 1^st overall draft pick in any given draft year even if this simply isn’t the case. The likelihood a team outside of the top five losing-record teams in the league obtains the first overall pick (that means the chances that any of the 6-14 teams have their lucky combination of ping-pong balls drawn) is less than 1-in-5. 

The exact process (courtesy of NBA.com) is explained as:

To determine the winner, fourteen ping pong balls numbered 1–14 are placed in a standard lottery machine and four balls are randomly selected from the lot. Just as in most traditional lotteries, the order in which the numbers are drawn is not important. That is, 1-2-3-4 is considered to be the same as 4-3-2-1. So although there is a total of 24 (4!) orders in which the balls numbered 1-2-3-4 can be picked, they are all treated as the same outcome. In doing this, the permutation of 4 balls from 14 becomes the combination of 4 balls from 14. That is, the total of 24,024 (14! / 10!, or 14x13x12x11) possible permutations is reduced by a factor of 24, to 1,001 combinations (or 14! / (10! x 4!)). Of these, 1 outcome is disregarded and 1,000 outcomes are distributed among the 14 non-playoff NBA teams.   

The exact chances and number of combinations (listed in order of worst record to best of the non-playoff teams) for each team is as follows:

1. 250 combinations, 25.0% chance of receiving the #1 pick
2. 199 combinations, 19.9% chance
3. 156 combinations, 15.6% chance
4. 119 combinations, 11.9% chance
5. 88 combinations, 8.8% chance
6. 63 combinations, 6.3% chance
7. 43 combinations, 4.3% chance
8. 28 combinations, 2.8% chance
9. 17 combinations, 1.7% chance
10. 11 combinations, 1.1% chance
11. 8 combinations, 0.8% chance
12. 7 combinations, 0.7% chance
13. 6 combinations, 0.6% chance
14. 5 combinations, 0.5% chance

I’m sorry but the chances of winning need to be completely re-evaluated. The fact that the worst team in the league has 50 times better of a chance of getting the top overall pick than the team who fought hard to make the playoffs and barely missed out is simply wrong. It’s no wonder the biggest problem the NBA faces is how to stop the bottom dwellers of the league from attempting to be bad, or purposely “tanking” a season in order to have a better draft slot. 

The next problem with the current system is that after the first there combinations are drawn, the NBA then reverts to the system of every other professional sports league as picks 4^th-14^th are assigned according to results  with the worse teams as being rewarded with the higher picks. I’m one of the believers in the philosophy of “IF you’re going to do something, do it fully or all the way instead of just doing it half-ass”. Ok-so that’s probably not a philosophy and more of just a saying that I say way too much, but still, you get the point. Could you imagine the possibility of a team that fights hard and barely misses the playoffs but then, literally wins the lottery, and gets to add the most talented player in the draft pool to an already competitive NBA roster.  

I would be a pretty lousy person if I were to just complain and rant about something without at least the smallest semblance of a possible solution in mind. Even if I may be a lousy person in my other endeavors, I try not to be one with sporting matters at least. My suggestion: Each team receives the antithesis of its non-playoff team pool standings meaning the worst team in the league gets 14 ping-pong balls with its logo on them entered into a giant pit, and the 14^th worst (best team to not make the playoffs)team gets one single ball entered. Then, the 14 spots are all drawn live at halftime of a prime-time event the first night before the playoff commence. This would create a live, prime-time television event for the NBA to market and enhance its image among the public as well as fairly compensate the non-playoff teams while adding intrigue and excitement to the lottery event. 

So that’s it for this morning, sorry to start the day off a negative note, but if you are reading this Adam Silver, congratulations on taking over David Stern’s position, me doing your job for you, AND for having every NBA game ball now proudly bear your signature.

And no matter how negative you (or more likely I) get, try to remember and tell yourself:

Today will be better than yesterday.