Lottery changed in weaker teams’ favor

November 11, 1993

NEW YORK -- The NBA Board of Governors changed the rules of the league’s draft lottery Thursday, increasing the chances of the teams with the worst records to get one of the top three picks and reducing the chances of the teams with the best records from getting one of them.

The action came after Orlando, which missed the playoffs on the final weekend of last season, came away with the No. 1 lottery pick for the second consecutive year. Dallas, saddled with the worst record in the league, earned the No. 4 pick in the lottery.

“It was the consensus of the teams that the NBA draft lottery serves an important purpose and should be maintained,” deputy commissioner Russ Granik said.

Under the new system, the team with the worst record will have a 25 percent change at the No. 1 pick, up from the previous 16.7 chance. At the same time, the team with the best record among lottery teams will have a 0.5 chance at the first pick, down from 1.5 percent.

The new arrangement will use 14 pin pong balls numbered 1-14 in a drum with four drawn to the top, creating 1,001 combinations.

Each of the 11 non-playoff teams in the lottery will have numerical combinations assigned to it in declining order. The team with the worst record gets 250 combinations, or a 25 percent chance at the winning combination. The team with the next worst record gets 203 combinations, a 20.30 percent at the No. 1 choice. The number of combinations continues to decline down to five for the team with the best record for an 0.50 percent chance at the top pick.

The drawing will be repeated for the second and third picks. The remaining selections, 4-11, then will be assigned based on inverse order of regular-season records.

The previous lottery system gave the team with the worst record 11 chances out of 66 to draw the first pick. The team with the second worst record had 10 chances on down to one chance out of 66 for the team with the best record.

Source: Associated Press,