04-07-2023, 06:32 PM
(04-07-2023, 12:20 PM)Mavs2021 Wrote: Before the season there was one spot you did not want to end up in, outside of the play-in and outside of the top 10 lottery odds. Turns out there is ONE spot where this outcome can become a reality and the window to land in that spot was 0.5 games, so virtually impossible to achieve, if you do not want to be in that spot, but the Mavs somehow will manage to do it.
They are not losing this game tonight, cause the Bulls ACTUALLY WANT TO LOSE. Here is the crazy part. It barely matters to the Bulls. The odds for 10th or 11th to get a top 4 are absolutely identical, so the reason the Bulls tank this game is to avoid a potential coin flip with the Thunder for 12th. So the Bulls tank this game for the following to happen:
OKC loses their last game.
Bulls tie with OKC.
Bulls toss a coin for 11th/12th odds.
Bulls lose toss.
Their top 4 chances decrease by 4%.
I´m too lazy to calculate it all, but I´d say the outcome of this game changes the overall probability of them keeping their pick by less than 1%. And they still do it. Our chances change from 76,5% keeping the pick to 10,6%.
The odds are not identical - they are only the same if two teams end up with the same record. In this case for example the 10th and 11th place odds become the same, with the odds being worse than a „normal“ 10th place and better than a „normal“ 11th place would be. The only thing that gets drawn in the tiebreaker is the ranking for the draft order, not the lottery odds. That’s risky for us because it enhances the risk of us losing our pick because we fall out of the top 10.
For the Bulls it‘s just changing the probabilities of winning a Top 4 pick, which is improbable anyways for a 10th or 11th or 12th ranked team, so we have much more to lose. In addition the Bulls are in the play-ins - if they succeed and qualify for the playoffs they lose their place in the lottery anyways, no matter their record.
You can check the probabilities here - on the bottom of the page is a second chart with the pure odds without teams with identical records:
https://www.tankathon.com/pick_odds