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2024-2025 Tank Race

Jazz's next 5 games: BOS, CLE, MEM, HOU, DEN...all easy Ls. That'll put us at 16-59. Then we have HOU, OKC, ATL, IND, MIN remaining, all playoff teams with a desire to win. That should put us at 16-64.

The other two games are @CHA and POR, who could maybe stick a win on us. Let's say we split those and finish 17-65.
 
How big a deal is beating the wizards?
The most likely outcome for both the worst and second-worst records is to get the 5th pick (the worst record has higher odds than second-worst because their floor is 6th).

I think it’s actually bad to be last. If there is any chance whatsoever that these things are rigged (and that the league can’t LIKE tanking), then being last might be something of a curse without a corresponding stronger upside.
 
Jazz's next 5 games: BOS, CLE, MEM, HOU, DEN...all easy Ls. That'll put us at 16-59. Then we have HOU, OKC, ATL, IND, MIN remaining, all playoff teams with a desire to win. That should put us at 16-64.

The other two games are @CHA and POR, who could maybe stick a win on us. Let's say we split those and finish 17-65.

yeah i've thought for a while it'll be about 17 which really is perfect v happy
 
The most likely outcome for both the worst and second-worst records is to get the 5th pick (the worst record has higher odds than second-worst because their floor is 6th).

I think it’s actually bad to be last. If there is any chance whatsoever that these things are rigged (and that the league can’t LIKE tanking), then being last might be something of a curse without a corresponding stronger upside.
It would be interesting to see someone do a statistical analysis of some sort on how the lottery has panned out over the years. Wonder if there’s a way to show if there’s a true random statistical distribution or if there’s evidence that thumbs have tipped the scales at times.
 
It would be interesting to see someone do a statistical analysis of some sort on how the lottery has panned out over the years. Wonder if there’s a way to show if there’s a true random statistical distribution or if there’s evidence that thumbs have tipped the scales at times.
The sample sizes are too small (you’re looking at a sample of ~30). But it’s also complicated because it can’t take into effect lots and lots of noisy data. I’m going to make a larger post about this later. I think too often people have a very all-or-nothing view of this, like the league is sitting in Secaucus planning every point of every game. It’s don’t believe anything is tightly controlled, but there are things that can have varying level of influence. I believe there are certain outcomes that can be problematic, and the league can pull certain levers to prevent, or at least reduce risk of, certain outcomes. Thus think the false dichotomy of “if there’s not evidence that every single thing is rigged in its entirety, then no undue influence happens anywhere” is a bit of a straw man and silly.
 
Lottery odds were flattened in 2019.

Ever since, 3 teams that have finished 2nd worst or tied have gotten the 1st pick 3 times.

That’s 3/6, or a 50/50 odd of winning.

So based off of that, 2nd worst is where I wanna be.
 
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