it basically comes down to the fact that, if we don't make the playoffs, we need Dallas, Utah and the L*kers to stay ahead of us. If either of those "pass" us and have a worse record, we lose our pick unless we win the Top 3 in the lottery. If we stay where we are (behind DAL, UTH and LAL) then we're almost guaranteed 12th pick unless one of those teams wins the lotto. We have a 2.5% chance of getting a Top 3 pick, and a 4% chance of one of the teams behind us getting a Top 3 pick. So if we stay where we are, we have 0.7% chance of #1, 0.8% chance of #2, 1.0% chance of #3, 92.5% chance at #12, and 4% chance of giving our pick to CHA. If one of those teams passes us, we have a 0.6% chance at #1, 0.7% chance at #2, 0.9% chance at #3, and a 97.8% chance of giving our pick to CHA.
So yeah, we want either the playoffs or to stay behind all three of DAL, LAL and UTH. We'd have to have PHI or TOR make up 4.5 games on us in about 15 games in order to be in the running for the #11 or #10 pick.