We have to be in the bottom 12 (18th place or worse) or our pick goes away (. However, unless that pick gets ping pong balled into the top three, I would argue the Blazers are better off giving it away this year as the extra cap room might be worth more than whoever is available at pick 12.
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.
I like this draft personally. Even at 12 we can get a solid big or bench scorer. I'm all for tanking.
Never thought of that. If the Blazers don't make the playoffs (which they won't), I would still want the pick because I figure if nothing else they can use it in a trade package. Edit: I"m for Indy. Pritchard has built a nice team over there full of over achieving and good character players.
If the Blazers don't make the playoffs, then we're rooting for them to win as many games as possible regardless of draft position, especially if it means somehow knocking the L*kers and/or the Jazz out of the playoffs...
