MAVS NEWS:

[F Gump]

Sitting at 7 sounds okay, but that gives them a 34.1% shot at falling to 8 (and only a 19.7% chance to stay put at 7).

Yeah, this ^ gets overlooked a lot in the discussions. If you have a strong goal of "no less than ___", then to have a strong (although less than certain) chance to get that, you have to enter the lottery at about no worse than 2 slots better. Even that route, where you tank and "overshoot" your real target by a couple of slots, offers no guarantee.

The Mavs current lottery slot is 7. If they enter the lottery at 7, their most likely outcome is 8th (about 34%) and about 14% to land 9-11. They would have total odds of a bit better than 50-50 to land 1,2,3,4, or stay the same at 7, but also about 50-50 to get worse than 7.

If the Mavs cut-off line where they want to draft is 7, they need to be in lottery slot 5 or better. At 5, their most likely outcome is 7th (about 27%) and they have total odds of about 64% to exceed their goal and land 1-6 and about 9% to fail and land 8-9. To be GUARANTEED to get no worse than 7, they have to enter the lottery at seed 3 or better.

And if the Mavs cut-off line where they want to draft is 6, they want to be in lottery slot 4 or better. At 4, their most likely outcome is 6th (about 26%) and they have total odds of about 55% to land 1-5 and about 19% to land 7-8.  To be GUARANTEED to get no worse than 6, they have to enter the lottery at seed 2 or better.

Fortunately, the Mavs know all this. UN-fortunately, so does every other team in the top 10 of the tanking race.