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Lakers: Using History to Predict the Outcome of the 2016 Draft

By Ed Schrenzel

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With the Kobe’s farewell tour and the coaching fiasco out of the way, attention now turns to the May 17th draft lottery. But history shows that Lakers fans may not like the results…

There is plenty of excitement in Laker-land these days. Will the upcoming draft lottery contribute to the sense of optimism fans are feeling about the team? The NBA uses a weighted lottery system for the 14 teams that fail to make the playoffs. Ping pong balls are drawn to determine which teams get the first three picks. The other 11 teams then pick in the 4th through 14th slots in inverse order of their won-lost records. The Lakers, by virtue of finishing with the second-worst record in the league this season, have a 19.9 percent chance of winning the lottery and getting the top pick, 55.8 percent of keeping the pick at all. They would then presumably choose between drafting 6-10 forward Ben Simmons of LSU or 6-9 Duke forward Brandon Ingram, or trading the pick for an established star. After compiling the worst record in franchise history, the Lakers and their fans certainly hope that Lady Luck is with them on lottery day. Just for fun, let’s look back at what has happened over the past 20 years and see what history teaches us. Or maybe we shouldn’t, because the results are not encouraging.

  • During that 20-year period, the team with the second-worst record moved up to the top pick just once, way back in 1996. The 76ers used it to select Allen Iverson.
  • Over the same 20 years, the second-worst team stayed in place and received the second pick of the draft only twice- the Knicks in 2006 and the Bulls in 2002.
  • And in the last 20 years, the team in the pre-lottery #2 position dropped to third pick five times, most recently Chicago in 2004.

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So that means over the last 20 years, teams in the Lakers position have finished with a top three pick only eight times, 40 percent of the time… which of course is far less than the odds of 55.8 percent. That’s not exactly what Lakers fans want to hear. Mathematicians will tell you that each lottery is a totally random event, independent of any other lottery that came before or after it. In other words, what happened in past lotteries has absolutely no bearing on what will happen in this one. But maybe, just maybe, the law of averages will apply, along with a ‘regression to the mean’. That’s another way of saying that perhaps in this year’s lottery, good fortune will indeed smile on the Lakers, and they will land that coveted top-3 pick, thereby pushing the overall percentages closer to 55.8 percent. Wishful thinking? Who knows? But here’s something that is certain: 20 years ago, in the same year that the Philadelphia 76ers celebrated their leap up from the second spot to the top of the draft, the Lakers engineered a draft day deal for a 17-year-old kid who just graduated high school by the name of

Kobe Bryant

, and also signed that year’s top free agent, Shaquille O’Neal. As all Lakers fans know, those moves of course catapulted the team into a new championship-contending era, laying the groundwork for five NBA titles in 2000-02 and 2009-10.

Next: Kobe Bryant to Create 'Dear Basketball' Short Animated Film

Perhaps history will find a way to repeat itself on May 17

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