I've worried before that sometimes we don't understand lottery odds very well. Today on Locked on Jazz, Leif Thulein gave at least two statements that lead to misunderstanding:
- "... once the odds reach 4th, they drop precipitously" & "once you reach 4th, you are in a scary position"
- then he goes on to talk about how top 3 lotto positions have a 52% chance of drafting top 4. While holding that thought he says, 50% isn't a guarantee you're drafting top 3, and then proceeds to talk like the odds for drafting top 3 (he somehow slid from talking about top 4 to top 3 without noticing) with a bottom 3 finish are 52%. He then goes on to imply that the "franchise altering talent" of Flagg, Harper, and Bailey that can only be had in the top 3 are vital for the Jazz -- that it will have been a kind of waste of the year if we don't draft top 3.
Why is he wrong?:
A bottom-3 finish only gives you 40% (not 52%) of drafting top 3. It's more likely than not (no matter where we finish, that we won't get franchise altering talent, even if we agree with Leif that Flagg, Harper, and Bailey all possess it).
Odds for finishing 4th are not much lower for getting the top talent than the odds for finishing 3rd. As I've argued before the difference in odds between 4th and 1st (or 2nd or 3rd) odds only matter mathematically (if you're talking about the number one pick) once every 67 years. If you're worried about the difference in the odds of getting Ace Bailey at number 3, then this difference only matters once every 125 years. Even if you decide that getting any one of the top 4 players is what really matters, the difference in those odds between 4th and 1st come into play mathematically once only every 25 years. So describing being in the 4th position (while being fairly safe, for the time being at least, out of danger of dropping to 5th) as a disaster is either terrible hyperbole or basic misunderstanding of how the lotto odds work.
