What can we learn from teams in the 5-7 range since the NBA changed lottery odds in 2019?
The tanking gods were unkind to the Sixers this past weekend. On Saturday, the Brooklyn Nets blew a double-digit fourth-quarter lead to the LaMelo Ball-less Charlotte Hornets, while the Toronto Raptors lost to the Washington Wizards after Jamal Shead’s would-be game-winning layup got overturned for coming right after the buzzer. The Sixers made matters worse on Sunday by beating the Utah Jazz in a good ol’ fashioned Tank Bowl.
Luckily, Monday undid all of that damage. The Nets beat the LeBron James-less Los Angeles Lakers, the Raptors smashed the Wizards, and the Sixers got spanked by the Trae Young-less Atlanta Hawks. All three teams are now tied at 22 wins apiece, while the Chicago Bulls continued to widen their lead for the No. 10 seed in the East with their third straight win.
At this point, it’s increasingly likely that the Sixers will finish the season between the fifth- and seventh-worst records in the NBA. Exactly where they land will have mammoth ramifications, as they owe their 2025 first-round pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder if it falls outside the top six.
As Liberty Ballers’ Erin Grugan highlighted in mid-January, the Sixers will have a 63.9% chance of keeping their pick if they finish with the fifth-worst record, a 45.8% chance with the sixth-worst record and a 31.9% chance with the seventh-worst record. In other words, Wednesday’s game against the Raptors is one of their biggest games of the season for all the wrong reasons.
Before the tank race comes in for a landing, we wanted to look back at how teams in the Sixers’ likely lottery range have fared since the NBA changed how the lottery worked in 2019. Probabilities for each spot are pure math — these outcomes have zero bearing on what’s to come this year — but the superstitious among us might prefer to avoid the No. 6 spot based on what has unfolded over the past half-decade.
5th-worst
2024: San Antonio Spurs, 4th—Stephon Castle
2023: Portland Trail Blazers, 3rd—Scoot Henderson
2022: Indiana Pacers, 6th—Bennedict Mathurin
2021: Cleveland Cavaliers, 3rd—Evan Mobley
2020: Detroit Pistons, 7th—Killian Hayes
2019: Atlanta Hawks, 8th—Jaxson Hayes
6th-worst
2024: San Antonio Spurs (via Toronto Raptors), 8th—Rob Dillingham (traded to T’Wolves)
2023: Orlando Magic, 6th—Anthony Black
2022: Portland Trail Blazers, 7th—Shaedon Sharpe
2021: Golden State Warriors (via Minnesota Timberwolves, 7th—Jonathan Kuminga
2020: New York Knicks, 8th—Obi Toppin
2019: Washington Wizards, 9th—Rui Hachimura
7th-worst
2024: Memphis Grizzlies, 9th—Zach Edey
2023: Indiana Pacers, 7th—Bilal Coulibaly (traded to Wizards)
2022: Sacramento Kings, 4th—Keegan Murray
2021: Toronto Raptors, 4th—Scottie Barnes
2020: Chicago Bulls, 4th—Patrick Williams
2019: New Orleans Pelicans, 1st—Zion Williamson
The team with the fifth-best odds is now on a four-season run of finishing within the top six. Regardless of whether you buy into superstition or simple probability, that’s clearly the spot that the Sixers should be targeting (if not higher).
What’s amazing is that the team with the sixth-best odds has finished in the top six only once in the past six years, while the team with the seventh-best odds did so four times (including No. 1 overall in 2019). Those results defy the probabilities, which is reflective of the small sample size with which we’re still working. In other words: The sixth-best odds would still be better than the seventh-best odds from a mathematical perspective, even though the outcomes from 2019 through 2022 would very much suggest otherwise.
Barring a complete collapse from the Victor Wembanyama-less San Antonio Spurs, the Sixers should finish the season with at least nearly a 32% chance of keeping their pick. They should hope that the New Orleans Pelicans go on a late surge and push them down to the fourth-worst record, which would give them a 81.0% chance of keeping their pick.
Either way, lottery night is going to be a franchise-altering sweat.
Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Salary Swish and salary-cap information via RealGM.
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