They won the lottery for a guy some called the best prospect in nba history, that and Duncan win is luck most franchises will never see in their existence
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Yeah, I mean, if anything the Spurs drafts since Duncan were more āuncovering high value with lower picksā which seems like the opposite of luck
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They had the highest lottery odds when they got Wembamyana! Thatās not luck! By that rationale every team to ever pick a good player in like the top 5 is lucky! The Pistons were lucky to get Cade, the Cavs lucky to get Mobley, etc. Doing something with intentionality then getting the result you intended is the polar opposite of luck!
The Spurs getting Duncan with the lowest draft odds that year? Yes, absolutely luck.
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itās more that whoever got Wemby would have been lucky. Essentially. Like my Hawks won the lottery and we got a guy everyone admits is maybe solid but even on the high end wonāt be an all league guy
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If a team down the list is going to win, Iād like it to be Portland. Simons, Sharpe, Scoot, Flagg, Clingan, Avdija and Camara are all under 25 and have promising futures to varying degrees. They would need to make some trades along the way to fix fit, but thatās a great starting point.
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I like the Portland landing spot, yeah.
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Yes it turns out that there is higher value to steering the car into the ditch in awesome drafts than in terrible ones.
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Torn between hoping the Bulls get insanely lucky and hoping theyāll never get lucky until theyāre sold.
Winning the lottery with the best odds is lucky though, itās called a lottery for a reason.
Iām in accelerationist mode
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fine, by this logic, literally every result is lucky
Yeah maybe I donāt think Iām that torn. Iām not enough of a Bulls fan to want that for Flagg.
Yeah, 6ers had a stretch where they drafted 3, 3, 1, 1. Regardless of how bad you are, there is some luck with that in a lottery based system. Pistons had the best lottery odds in the NBA for 4 years in a row and ended up with the 5th pick in 3 out of 4 years. Even the worst team in the NBA still only has a 14% chance at the #1 pick (I think it was 25% when the 6ers won). Every #1 pick in a lottery is luck. But the greater luck is in years where the top player is a franchise changer or in the years where the #1 pick comes from one of the longest lottery odds.
The funny thing is that the famous āprocessā ended up amounting to not much for the 76ers. 3 out of the 4 top 3 picks were not good. And youāll always take Embiidās career, but even the best guy by far has had an injury plagued career.
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One of the 1s they traded for post lottery. and that was also pre lottery rule changes so not applicable to Pistons in a 1 to 1
They were probably decently but not overly lucky
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True. The Fultz - Tatum trade was a real sliding doors moment.
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Spurs or your Bulls, if Silver is tipping the scales.
Iām rooting for Portland but the Jazz seems like a Flagg fit.
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Letās speak this into existence 
I think the luck is more about winning the lottery in the right year. To have that happen twice is definitely fortunate.
Edit- Like you can purposely put yourself in a position to win the first pick in the lottery. Still some luck involved there, but you made moves to put yourself in that spot.
That luck though, combined with getting it in years of transcendent players, makes his point IMO.
Using the benefit of hindsight, both times they won did not land them a Wiggins, Ayton, Simmons or Fultz. Guys that at the time of selection were thought of as cornerstones who eventually became role players.
They didnāt even win it in a Cunningham, Towns, John Wall year. Guys who are stars but will never be best player on a champion.
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Iāve beaten this dead horse enough already but
- A lock for a top 4 seed, our best players is hurt in the 6th game of the year and doesnāt play again, our second best player misses 45 games due to injury, and we jump from third best odds to win the lottery to #1, and get to draft a top 10 all time player.
and
- We see a superstar coming in this draft, we strip car to a bare chassis and max out our odds to land him
Are not remotely analogous situations
For Duncan, they, experience really bad luck (Robinson misses the whole year, Elliott misses most of it) in a year they intended to contend and just sort of fall a$$ backwards into the best player in franchise history. THATāS nuts!
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