<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (NetIncome @ Apr 13 2008, 12:38 PM)
<{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Well, for one, tanking games is illegal under the NBA rules.
But beyond that, it would be very difficult for the Nets to gain even the smallest advantage now in the lottery.
In the cleanest scenario, the Nets would have to lose both of their games, the Bobcats would have to win both of theirs and the Bulls would have to sweep their final three.
The Nets would have to lose to the Bobcats and Celtics to finish at 33-49.
The Bobcats would have to beat the Nets and the Sixers to finish at 33-49.
The Bulls would have to beat the Magic, the Raptors and the Bucks to finish at 34-48.
In that HIGHLY UNLIKELY scenario, the Nets and Bobcats would be tied for 8th and 9th positions in the lottery and share the number of ping pong balls allotted those positions. One team would get 23 balls, the other 22, the extra ball decided by a coin toss Thursday. That would mean one team would have a 2.3% chance, the other 2.2%, at the overall No. 1 and both roughly an 8% chance at getting one of the top three picks.
In a somewhat more likely scenario where three teams tie at 33-49--requiring the Nets go 0-2, the Bobcats 2-0 and the Bulls 2-1--then three teams would share the number of ping pong balls, with one team getting one less ball...again to be decided by a coin toss on Thursday. (Coin tosses are required in both cases because the combined number of shared ping pong balls is odd.)
That would mean two of the three would have a 1.9% chance, the other a 1.8% of getting the overall No. 1 and both roughly a 7% chance of getting one of the top three picks.
That's somewhat better than 10th, which has a 1.1% chance of getting the overall No. 1 and less than 4% of getting one of the top three. Still, we are talking about a difference of 11 ping pong balls AT BEST out of 1,000. And in every scenario, the Bobcats and Bulls would have to cooperate.
Finally NO team lower than 7th has ever won the overall No. 1. That jump of six places is also the biggest move up ever in the lottery. That record is held by the Nets, who won the lottery in 2000.</div>
God bless. This is a great post for the fans who want to know the context of winning and losing games for the rest of the year.
I'm sure the players don't care about moving up a couple of spot for a rookie next season, that sort of interest is for fans and management. To that end it was never about tanking; rather have faith that we're not good enough to win games.
