NBA Lottery Primer-What Kings Fans Need to Know
It's better to be lucky than good. Lately, the Sacramento Kings haven't been either. The Kings are hoping that luck will be on their side tonight when they enter the NBA draft lottery for the 20th time in the 30 years of existence.
The only team that has been in the lottery more than the Sacramento Kings is the Los Angeles Clippers. The Clippers have seen the lottery 22 times. The Kings have 20 trips to ping pong fest while this year's NBA favorite, the Golden State Warriors have also been to the lottery 20 times.
In the 30 years of the NBA lottery, the Sacramento Kings have moved up just one time. That happened in 1989 when the Kings won the lottery and selected Pervis Ellison. In the last 23 years the Kings have been in the lottery 14 times with just 3 top 5 picks. Tyreke Evans #4 in 2009, DeMarcus Cousins went 5th in 2010 and Thomas Robinson also 5th in 2012.
The Kings have picked 7th (6 times) and the only other spot they picked multiple times was 5th and 6th (twice). This year the Kings are slotted to pick 6th. They have a 6.3% chance to win the lottery. The last time a team with those odds won the lottery was back in 2005 when Milwaukee got the top pick and landed Andrew Bogut.
So the Kings will pick either:
1st (6.3% chance)
2nd (7.1%)
3rd (8.1%)
6th (34.4%)
7th (30.5%)
8th (4.0%)
9th (.1%)
Here's hoping a little luck falls on the Kings side tonight. One other thing that Kings fans can root for is this scenario. The Los Angeles Lakers must stay in the top 5 to keep their pick. Imagine 2 teams leap frog the Lakers (hopefully one of those being the Kings) and thus Los Angeles would send their pick to Philadelphia. So the Kings could go to the top 3, and the Lakers would have had their worst season in their 67 year franchise history and end up with nothing. Hey, something to root for. Good Luck KINGS.
