Tonight's the night we've all been impatiently waiting for -- the NBA Draft Lottery. 'Tis tonight at 8:00 PM EST on ESPN. The Pistons have a 5.3% chance of landing the No. 1 overall pick and almost an 80% chance of picking 7th or 8th overall. To help us mentally and physically prep let's take a look at some lottery links:
- As you all know, the lottery is all luck of the draw at this point, so the teams & their representatives can get pretty superstitious. Mike Prada put together a piece on SBNation.com breaking down 5 Lucky Charms that worked for teams in the lottery, and 5 that didn't go so well. If you had to pick a lucky charm for the Pistons, what would it be? Jonas Jerebko jersey? Robocop? We could probably have an entire thread on the innumerable options.
- To be exact, the Pistons have a 57.3% chance of picking 7th and a 22.6% chance of picking 8th overall. Here's a list of other 7th and 8th overall picks, including Richard Hamilton, Charlie Villanueva, and Chris Wilcox.
- Remember, the draft order will be revealed in reverse order. If the Pistons logo hasn't been pulled by the 7th pick, they will get a Top 3 pick. Worst case scenario is that the Pistons select 10th overall, but that has never happened to a team in the Pistons' position.
- The team with the best odds, of course, is the New Jersey Nets. A little fun fact I pulled from SportsCenter last night - since the lottery started in 1985, only four teams with the best odds of landing the No. 1 overall picked have actually won the lottery. The last came in 2004 when the Orlando Magic selected Dwight Howard.
- Draft lottery simulator here.
More non-draft lottery links after the jump.
- Recent firings shake up the mood at The Palace (thanks, Big Z in Orlando). Terry Foster lists Peter Karmanos and Dan Gilbert as potential buyers of the team. Gilbert won't happen unless LeBron leaves Cleveland and he sells the team, though.
- ESPN Page 2 writer, DJ Gallo is an idiot.
- The Knicks tried to offer Grant Hill 'loads of women' to try to get him to sign with them in 2000. Not a bad sales pitch, but the only problem was that he was married. The Knicks have already offered LeBron free lap dances for life.
- Lakers dominated the Suns last night behind Kobe's 40. If you're looking for clues as to how the rest of the series might play out, look no further than Phil Jackson's track record in the playoffs when winning Game 1.
We'll hopefully have a separate thread open for the Lottery tonight, but if not, this is it.