Side note: Basketball News said both Cato and Mobley are expected to be secured into the starting lineup permanently... personally I think they were a tad late with that scoop, but oh well. As of this moment I believe we're the 6th worst team in the league. Now lottery/draft experts please correct me if I'm wrong, but if the season were to end today (yes I realize how premature this is and yes I realize this may insult some) the Rockets would be guaranteed no worse than the 9th pick in the draft (that is only if the three top ping pong balls for 1-3 are teams with better records than ours .. meaning in the 7-13 range). The Rockets would also have about 64 of 1000 ping pong balls in the lottery for one of the top three picks. I "think" having the 5th worst record improves your chances significantly, pushing the # of balls for your team to close to 100. Again, I realize how tacky this is ... we just haven't had much experience with the lottery, so thought I would note some of the specifics. ------------------ Clutch Confident the Rockets would be title-less had they drafted Leon "The Dream" Wood CLUTCHCITY.NET -- SPREAD THE WORD
Yeah having the worst record really helps the chances of the lottery. We will get more lottery balls to go our way and could end up with a good pick. So basically Losing this year is not BAD.
Wow talk about the lottery already. Well even I must admit I'm even starting to feel the lottery is our destiny this year.
This is how I think it works: Following are the chances out of 1,000 for teams in the 2000 NBA Draft Lottery: <table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="1"> <caption> 2000 NBA DRAFT LOTTERY CHANCES (Out of 1,000)</caption> <tr><td>Team</td><td>Record</td><td>Chances</td><td>Pick 1</td><td>Pick 2</td><td>Pick 3</td></tr> <tr><td>Worst team </td><td>?</td><td align=center>250</td><td>25.00%</td><td>21.55%</td><td>17.84%</td></tr> <tr><td>2nd worst team</td><td>?</td><td align=center>200</td><td>20.00%</td><td>18.91%</td><td>17.22%</td></tr> <tr><td>3rd worst team</td><td>?</td><td align=center>157</td><td>15.70%</td><td>15.84%</td><td>15.70%</td></tr> <tr><td>4th worst team</td><td>?</td><td align=center>120</td><td>12.00%</td><td>12.71%</td><td>13.43%</td></tr> <tr><td>5th worst team</td><td>?</td><td align=center>89</td><td>8.90%</td><td>9.77%</td><td>10.82%</td></tr> <tr><td>6th worst team</td><td>?</td><td align=center>64</td><td>6.40%</td><td>7.21%</td><td>8.26%</td></tr> <tr><td>7th worst team</td><td>?</td><td align=center>37</td><td>3.70%</td><td>4.28%</td><td>5.06%</td></tr> <tr><td>8th worst team</td><td>?</td><td align=center>36</td><td>3.60%</td><td>4.17%</td><td>4.93%</td></tr> <tr><td>9th worst team</td><td>?</td><td align=center>18</td><td>1.80%</td><td>2.12%</td><td>2.56%</td></tr> <tr><td>10th worst team</td><td>?</td><td align=center>11</td><td>1.10%</td><td>1.30%</td><td>1.58%</td></tr> <tr><td>11th worst team</td><td>?</td><td align=center>7</td><td>0.70%</td><td>0.83%</td><td>1.02%</td></tr> <tr><td>12th worst team</td><td>?</td><td align=center>6</td><td>0.60%</td><td>0.71%</td><td>0.87%</td></tr> <tr><td>13th worst team</td><td>?</td><td align=center>5</td><td>0.50%</td><td>0.60%</td><td> 0.73%</td></tr> </table>
A couple of wins DO MAKE a difference. Say, the rocks finish with 15 wins(6th), and the clips finish with 14(5th), and warriors 13(4th). The warriors would have TWICE as many balls so they would have a tremendously advantage over just 2 wins. I can totally understand why u would want more wins, but that could cost us the difference between a 5 pick and 10 pick. A top 5 means a franchise player while a 10 means a star. [This message has been edited by rocketsfan34 (edited January 06, 2000).]
RF34: thanks for the info. If we were going to tank, BETTER TANK ALL THE WAY! The worst thing that can happen to you is if you're the 10th or so worst team. So I say try to make the playoff if we have a chance (which doesn't seem likely right now, but still possible), or go all the way (you know what I mean). Just don't get stuck in mediocrity . Sailor
As long as we beat the Jazz in the three remaining games with them this season it would not bother me to lose nearly very game. Really a 20 win season should get us one of the worst 5 records.
Here's my thinking when it comes to the NBA lottery. Try not to worry and position yourselves to attempt to get the most ping pong balls. This is not the NFL where the worst record automatically ensures you the #1 pick in the draft. If you look over the 15 years of the lottery, the worst team has rarely received the first year of the draft. What you should be aiming for is that the Rockets play and win as many games as they can, because the never know. The team with a better record could be the team that wins one of the top 3 spots in the draft. You can't predict random chaos and you shouldn't try to. Just let the chips fall where they may.
Yeah Clutch I think that Bill that rocket Stud is right on, yo're far too negative man. He's right we should support our team not hope for ping pong balls with little mad Rocket logos on them bounce into David Stern's fingers (which smell like MJ), so why talk lottery so soon?
The whole lottery leaves me divided. I loved the orginal concept. One ball per team, boy was that fun to watch, but boy did that screw the clippers and other bad teams. The new system is boring as hell. I don't even consider it fun anymore. Who can figure it out. It's kind of stupid and boring, just like the dunk contest. It should simply be that the worst team picks first. I find that to be fair. The bulls and rockets should agree. Hakeem and Jordan.
Curly...LOL!!! All this talk of tanking...maybe the Spurs vibe Clutch had on April Fool's hasn't worn off yet
We have several teams picks, so I think we may be able to move up in the draft. I would rather just play the young guys, let them learn, then either draft high or trade the picks for a proven star front court player. DaDakota PS...Cuttino is a free agent after this year, but we have a right of first refusal on any deal he may get.
There is another factor in winning the lottery: having to admit that the team you do have currently (and the players have to start thinking about themselves in this light) SUCKS. I don't think we do, yet, and I don't like to think of having extra mental baggage to overcome for next season. Rookies can't make or break a team, at least none who're coming out next year although they may be good. But it is a team effort and team chemistry wins games more than individual efforts.
This harks back to Jordan's second year in the NBA. After he broke his foot and went through rehab, he wanted to get right back into the mix and play his little heart out. Guess who said no. Reinsdorf and Krause at first said forget about it. Jordan was pissed and has been ticked off at Krause the whole time because Krause blathered on with his usual "no person is more important than the organization--read: me". What Jordan and many others suspected is since they had lost out on any shot at making any noise and lost the gate receipts the whole time Jordan, the young phenom, was injured, he was trying to tank as bad as possible to get a very high draft pick. What eventually happened was the now-famous equation Krause came up with for a gradually increased number of minutes per game as the last of the season progressed. Because of Jordan's desire to be a fighter and play, the Bulls missed the lottery, made the playoffs, and made history with Jordan's awesome 63 point performance in the 2nd game against Boston which the Bulls lost in double-overtime. Who's to say what will happen? But speaking of balls, that is how all of the Rockets should play from here on out. Just get those young guys flying around and playing balls-out to see how good they can end up. Even if they get the final playoff spot, who's to say what Francis will do that can be looked back upon much like Jordan's indelible game. P.S. Judging from the 6 titles later on, things worked out okay for the Bulls even though they missed the high draft pick. Also, Krause still seems to have a penchant for trying to shoot for high spots in the lottery.
