April 07, 2017
Seeing as how there is less than a week left in the NBA season and precious ping-pong balls at stake, I figured we would update the lottery odds and where the Sixers stand every day through the end of the season. With five straight losses and a couple of teams around them picking up some ill-advised wins, the Sixers have a pretty effective late-season tank rolling right now.
• Sixers lose to Bulls, 102-90 (good)
• Magic beat Nets, 115-107 (good)
• Wizards beat Knicks, 106-103 (bad)
• Trail Blazars beat Timberwolves, 105-98 (bad)
As we saw the other night in Philly, the Brooklyn Nets, who have absolutely nothing to tank for, are playing pretty good basketball down the stretch. That makes the Orlando Magic, who have been busy revealing their offseason plans to trade Aaron Gordon for Dario Saric, a team that Brooklyn should handle.
Which makes the Magic’s win over Brooklyn a nice surprise for the Sixers. The two teams are tied for the fourth-worst record at 28-51 and 538 is projecting them both to finish at 29-53. If that were to happen, the teams would split the ping-pong balls from the 4/5 positions evenly and a coin flip would determine the order if neither moved up. Could the Sixers fly in Howie Roseman for that one?
Here are their remaining schedules.
• Orlando: vs. Pacers, at Bulls, vs. Pistons
• Sixers: vs. Milwaukee, vs. Indiana, vs. Knicks
I would give the slight edge in these terms to Orlando, mostly because Philly’s final game at Madison Square Garden could be a tanking tour de force like we saw a few years ago with the Sixers and Heat on the final night of the season.
• Knicks at Grizzlies
• Spurs at Mavericks
• Pelicans at Nuggets
• Timberwolves at Cavs
• Thunder at Suns
• Kings at Lakers
Kings-Lakers, aka HINKIE BOWL, is a pretty massive game in terms of the Sixers’ lottery odds. Despite their very best efforts, the ragtag Lakers were able to beat the Spurs on the road the other night as Gregg Popovich did his buddy Brett Brown a major solid. Thanks to the Suns putting on one of the most impressive late-season tank jobs in modern NBA history with 13 straight losses, the Lakers are now 1.5 games “back” of Phoenix for the second-worst record.
If this order were to hold, the Sixers would have a 53.1 percent chance of landing the Lakers first-round pick headed into lottery night. For those who have said “There is no way the Lakers are losing their pick” throughout the season, the odds are the odds.
The plucky Kings have won two games in a row after being out-tanked by Dallas the other night, and they are currently tied with Minnesota for the seventh-worst record. So, this game has major implications for both of the Sixers’ picks.
4 and 5, which wouldn’t be a bad outcome at all.
Follow Rich on Twitter: @rich_hofmann
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