The NBA Lottery is mere hours away and the Golden State Warriors are keeping their fingers, toes, and any other possible body part crossed as they try and retain their top-seven pick when the ping pong balls drop this evening.
The Warriors have a great chance to retain a top-seven pick this evening (72.66 percent to be exact), but the possibility of falling out of that group (26.33 percent) or even vaulting atop the draft could occur as well (3.6 percent), so make sure you have your rabbit's foot on hand just in case.
Here is the San Jose Mercury News Tim Kawakami with some thoughts on tonight:
According to the odds I see, it looks like the Warriors have a 6 in 10 shot to stay at No. 7, which is by far the most likely scenario.
If you're going to be watching the proceedings and you have a Warriors' interest, you'll want..
1) Either to see the Warriors decal come up when the commissioner unveils the team in the 7th slot...
2) Or see the 7-10 slots filled without the Warriors decal showing up, which would mean they've jumped to 1, 2 or 3.
The W's braintrust obviously is trying to keep this top-seven pick at any costs, even trying to broker a deal with the Utah Jazz, who get the pick if they fall out of the top-seven, for something akin to a 23 percent chance of getting the pick. Pretty tough to trade for intangible things like possibilites though; that's essentially gambling with the pick, which the W's chose wisely not to.
The odds are in Golden State's favor but it is the lottery, so you never really know until the balls are dropped.
-Here are the odds for each team landing the top pick, as well as for top 3:
1. Charlotte: 25% for No. 1... 64.19% for top 3.
2. Washington: 19.9% for No. 1... 55.74% for top 3.
3. Cleveland: 13.8% for No. 1.... 42.57% for top 3.
4. New Orleans: 13.7% for No. 1... 42.33% for top 3.
5. Sacramento: 7.6% for No. 1... 25.5% for top 3.
6. Brooklyn: 7.5% for No. 1... 25.19% for top 3.
7. Warriors: 3.6% for No. 1... 12.66% for top 3.
8. Toronto: 3.5% for No. 1... 12.32% for top 3.
9. Detroit: 1.7% for No. 1... 6.1% for top 3.
10. New Orleans (via Minnesota): 1.1% for No. 1... 3.97% for top 3.
11. Portland: 0.8% for No. 1.... 2.9% for top 3.
12. Milwaukee: 0.7% for No. 1... 2.54% for top 3.
13. Phoenix: 0.6% for No. 1... 2.18% for top 3.
14. Houston: 0.5% for No. 1... 1.81% for top 3.
Coverage of tonight NBA Lottery can be found starting at 5 p.m. PT with coverage on ESPN.
For more on the Warriors, head over to Golden State of Mind and SB Nation Bay Area.
