NBA Draft Lottery Thoughts: Big Winners, Celtics Got Screwed (?), and Possible Lottery Tweaks

One quick rant: Buy.com finally issued me a refund on my order! I'm still not through with them, though; instead of crediting me $29.98, they came up with the idea of refunding me $18 instead!

I gotta contact their "support" yet again tomorrow.

- Anyway, the NBA Draft Lottery happened yesterday, and three prevailing themes arose from the proceedings in Secaucus, NJ:

1. Portland, Seattle, and Atlanta (even though the Hawks missed out on the top two picks) are the big winners.
2. The Celtics got screwed! If you don't believe me, go ask a Boston Celtics fan.
3. The lottery system needs a fix. If you don't believe me, go ask a Boston Celtics fan. However, perhaps the system can be tweaked slightly.

Portland gets to add Greg Oden to a lineup including this past year's ROY (Brandon Roy, who was fleeced from Minnesota last year), skilled big man LaMarcus Aldridge, Zach Randolph, and Jarrett Jack. Even in the loaded Western Conference, I wouldn't be surprised to see this team contend for a title in the next few years. Yes, Greg Oden can be that good in the pros, assuming he develops a consistent offense.

As for Seattle, not a bad consolation prize in Kevin Durant, eh? First of all, Durant allows the Sonics to let F Rashard Lewis go. Also, Durant may be the big name that will keep the Sonics from leaving Seattle. Atlanta wins as well, even though they will miss out on Oden and Durant. By landing the third pick, they get to keep the pick (had the pick dropped outside the top three, it would have gone to Phoenix). Also, they get Indiana's pick, giving the Hawks two top-15 picks. Hopefully Atlanta doesn't blow these picks, the same way they have blown their high picks in recent years.

By the way, Celtics fans, YOU DID NOT GET SCREWED BY THE NBA JUST BECAUSE YOU DID NOT GET A TOP TWO PICK! A lottery is just that; a lottery. There is an element of luck involved! Just because a coin is supposed to land on heads as often as it is supposed to land on tails doesn't mean you can always expect one of each result with two coin flips. And no, just because you guys got "screwed" by the NBA lottery doesn't mean the lottery needs to be fixed next season. More on fixing the lottery later...

If anything, the fact that the Celtics tried to intentionally lose games this year, only to miss out on a top-2 pick, is simply a case of bad karma (please don't deny the tanking your team did, Celtics fan). All is not lost, though, Celtic fan; just because Oden and Durant are clearly the two best prospects in this year's draft, they're still nothing more than prospects. Who says Oden and Durant will pan out? Besides, you still have the #5 pick; you are still likely to get a nice player (Horford, Brandan Wright, Jianlian, etc.).

Don't worry, Celtic fan: Bill Simmons feels for you.

(As an aside, thanks Bill for realizing that the announcement of Milwaukee picking #6 sealed your Celtics' fate at #5, unlike some people who wrote that the Celtics' nightmare was made official when the Celtics were announced at #5).

Personally, I think the NBA Draft Lottery doesn't need to be changed; people whining that it's unfair and stupid don't offer enough compelling reasons for me to change my stance. One idea that's floating around is to give the worst team in the league the #1 pick, the second worst #2, and so on. That's nice and all, but how does that prevent tanking? In fact, I see no feasible solution that will prevent tanking.

That being said, I think the lottery could be tweaked a bit. Right now, the lottery is weighted in favor of the worst teams; I think the NBA should weigh it even more in favor of those bad teams. Yeah, this won't prevent teams from tanking, but it'll give the worst of the worst a better chance at getting the help they need.

Another suggestion I was kicking around is to have two different lotteries for all non-playoff teams. The first lottery could be held for, say, the first five picks, and the odds of winning could be heavily weighted in favor of the teams with the worst records. A second lottery could then be held to determine who picks 6-14, again heavily favoring the worst teams. This will add a bit more excitement to the lottery, as well as offer the best of the worst teams (the teams that didn't tank) a chance to get a better draft pick. As it stands now, the best of the lottery teams has only a 0.5% chance of winning the lottery; with my suggestion, the best team has a decent shot at any pick from 6-14.

I'm feeling a lot worse than I have felt in the past couple of days, so I'm going to go to bed early tonight.

Happy blogging!