I've seen some confusion recently regarding how the odds will work if we tie with one or both of the Spurs or Hornets, so I decided to do a quick rundown to address how it works:
The Process
First off, it's important to understand how the NBA gives odds to each team. As you probably know, numbered ping pong balls are drawn to determine picks. How these work, however, is a little complicated. First of all, the only real "lottery" is for the first four picks, after these are drawn, the rest of the picks are assigned based on record, from worst to best, with a coin flip breaking ties. There are 14 ping pong balls in total, each numbered 1-14. When determining pick order for the first four picks, four balls are drawn, and each team "owns" a certain number of the combinations for the numbers on these four balls. There are 1001 possible combinations in total, and one is thrown out to make the number an even 1000. Here is a list of how many combinations each team owns based on record:
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1 (worst record): 140 combinations, 14.0% chance of receiving the No. 1 pick
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2: 140 combinations, 14.0% chance
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3: 140 combinations, 14.0% chance
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4: 125 combinations, 12.5% chance
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5: 105 combinations, 10.5% chance
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6: 90 combinations, 9.0% chance
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7: 75 combinations, 7.5% chance
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8: 60 combinations, 6.0% chance
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9: 45 combinations, 4.5% chance
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10: 30 combinations, 3.0% chance
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11: 20 combinations, 2.0% chance
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12: 15 combinations, 1.5% chance
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13: 10 combinations, 1.0% chance
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14: 5 combinations, 0.5% chance
So, obviously, the more combinations you have, the better your chances of getting a top pick. That much is usually evident to most people. However, what happens if two (or three or more!) teams end up tied in the standings?
Lottery Tiebreak Rules
In the event of a tie, the number of combinations are added together and then divided evenly between the tied teams (aka averaged). However, this doesn't always result in a clean split. If the average isn't an integer (a whole number), a coin flip is used to determine which team gets the final combination. If there are three+ teams tied, the coin flip becomes a little more complicated. Each team flips their own coin until one team has a result that differs from the other two, thus winning and claiming the final combination.
I couldn't verify that the NBA actually uses the three team flip method specifically, but I'm certain they do something equivalent.
How This Affects the Blazers' Shot At Pick #1
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If we end up winning today and SAS loses, we get the 5th worst record, thus getting 105 ping pong ball combinations, which is a 10.5% chance at the 1st pick.
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If we win and SAS wins, we tie with SAS for the 4th worst record, thus getting 115 ping pong ball combinations, which is a 11.5% chance at the 1st pick.
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If we lose, SAS wins, and CHA loses, we get the 4th worst record, thus getting 125 ping pong ball combinations, which is a 12.5% chance at the 1st pick.
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If we lose, SAS loses, and CHA loses, we tie with SAS for the 4th worst record, thus getting 115 ping pong ball combinations, which is a 11.5% chance at the 1st pick.
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If we lose, SAS loses, and CHA wins, we tie with SAS AND CHA for the 3rd worst record, thus getting at least 123 ping pong ball combinations and potentially 124 if we win the 3 way coin flip, which is a 12.3% or 12.4% chance at the 1st pick.
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If we lose, SAS wins, and CHA wins, we tie with CHA for the 3rd worst record, thus getting at least 132 ping pong ball combinations and potentially 133 if we win the coin flip, which is a 13.2% or 13.3% chance at the 1st pick.
Conclusion
It's easy to look at 1 or 2% changes to our chances and thinking it won't matter at all, but it's important to keep in mind that our number of pick combinations affect not only our chances to get pick one, but also picks 2-4, and can affect how far our pick can fall. Our "best case" scenario of tying for third with CHA will boost our odds of getting a top for pick by about 8% vs our "worst case" scenario of getting the 5th odds, which is a pretty big swing for a single day of games. Additionally, with a tie for third and a coin flip win, our pick can only fall to 7, however with the 5th best odds, it could fall all the way to 9th. Overall, this year has been pretty brutal, and it'd be nice to get a good pick in the draft at the end of it. Hope this helps alleviate some confusion, and go Blazers!
TL;DR: There are 1000 ways the ping pong balls can fall, worse teams get more chances at getting the 1st overall pick. If teams are tied, their chances are averaged. If we lose vs the Kings, our pick will be a little better.
