(The original text was published on November 3. The author is The contributing writer of The Ringer, Zach Kram. The content of The article does not represent The translator’s point of view.)

Introduction: Teams in reconstruction like jazz and Spurs suddenly find themselves in the forefront of the West. Will winning so many matches so early reduce the probability that they will get Victor venbanyama? To this end, we have calculated an upper limit for winning matches. As long as it is not exceeded, a team will have a small chance to win the first prize.

At the beginning of October, Wen banama’s performance in Las Vegas surprised people’s chin and brought two important results. First of all, the 7-foot-4-inch (2.24-meter) Frenchman established himself as the best rookie candidate after James. Secondly, he officially kicked off the NBA bad competition in the 2022-23 season.

“This season, those teams that are aiming to mess up have to compete well.” Our Kevin O’Connor wrote. John Athlectic of The Hollinger commented after The gambling city highlight performance in wenbanyama: “It turned out to be a cool thing.” A general manager told ESPN that the French young man would arouse “the penultimate battle we have never seen before”.

However, the unprecedented fierce competition in the imagination has not yet taken shape. Jazz ranked third in the West with a record of 6 wins and 3 losses. The record of Spurs is 5 wins and 3 losses, and the assist rate ranks first in the league. Thunder played a four-game winning streak, including defeating the Clippers (twice) and The Lone Ranger.

In fact, according to Cleaning the Glass, three of the five teams with the worst net efficiency this season-the Clippers, the basketable nets and the Lakers-could not even control their first round signing next year.

Although the above winning trend may soon disappear due to the increase in the number of samples, it at least clearly shows one point, that is, those potential bad teams have not begun to consider the draft draw. Otherwise, the Jazz had already traded all their veterans this summer, and Thunder had already diagnosed some annual mysterious injuries for Xie Yi-Kyrgyzstan-Alexander.

However, for a rotten team that really wants to get Wen Banya Ma, how many victories are there? We decided to study this problem.

It is worth mentioning that NBA made the probability of lottery draw more average in 2019. Now, the three teams with the worst record have the same probability of winning the first prize, although they are smaller than before. In general, the new probability makes the three teams with the worst record (especially the two worse ones) less likely to get the first prize, however, teams with the fourth to the thirteenth difference (especially those with the sixth to the ninth difference) are more likely to win the first prize than before.

The probability of each team winning the first prize in NBA lottery

So, how many victories can make a team take advantage of the lottery? In order to get the answer, we established a model according to the final ranking of each team in the regular season of the non-shrinking season after the 2004-05 season (the year when the league expanded to 30 teams). This model can predict the ranking of a team before Lotto draw, and then let us predict the probability of winning the first prize corresponding to the number of wins in different regular seasons.

The model shows that when the number of wins in the regular season is less than 25, there is almost no difference in the probability of a team getting the first prize in different wins:

When the number of wins is 10, the probability of a team winning the first prize is 14.0%. When the number of wins is 15, the probability is still 14.0%. When the number of wins is 20, the probability is 13.8%. When the number of wins is 25, the probability is 11.6%. When the number of wins is 30, the probability is 7.7%. When the number of wins is 35, the probability is 2.7%. When the number of wins is 40, the probability is 0.6%.

In other words, teams competing for wenbanyama should try their best to make their regular season wins no more than 25 games this season, so as not to be disappointed in the lottery.

Once the number of wins exceeds 25 or even 30, every extra win will bring a more terrible price. But until then, winning a game will not incur much punishment on the probability of drawing lots. Damn it, the team that wins ten games has the biggest 14% probability of winning the first prize in the league, and the team that wins 21 games (this is more than twice the 10 wins!) After rounding, there is a 14 percent probability of getting the first prize.

The detailed analysis above explains why those teams that are preset as the countdown of the league don’t have to be nervous about their unexpected early win-they are far from the watershed indicator of 25 wins.. It also leads to the possibility that the most amazing bad team we have seen this season may not participate in the “penultimate battle”, but will deliberately lose in March and April, I can’t get a record of about 35 wins. After all, according to estimates, from 30 wins to 35 wins, every more victory, the team will lose a full percentage point of the probability of winning the first prize.

When the league has not changed the lottery probability, each victory will do more harm to the team’s prospect of winning the first prize. For example, under the new lottery system, the probability of getting the first prize sign corresponding to 10 wins and 25 wins is only 2.4% lower. However, under the old lottery system, this difference is 13.8%– that is, six times the current one.

The following picture shows the change of the probability of obtaining the first-place sign caused by the change of the lottery rule. Look at how fast the Red Line (old probability) drops than the Blue Line (New probability); The blue line maintains stability first and then gradually decreases.

Probability variation chart of winning the Champion sign (horizontal axis-Number of wins in regular season, vertical axis-probability of winning the Champion sign; Red Line-old probability, Blue Line-New probability)

For teams that can accept both the first prize signing and the second prize signing this season, the change trend of the corresponding probability with the number of wins is the same-if they think Scott Henderson is a defender who has met for decades. (By definition, can there be several potential new stars “once in a few decades” in a draft?) From the following figure, we can see again that until about 25 wins, the New Victory will begin to significantly reduce the probability of a team winning the first prize or ranking.

Probability change chart of winning the first prize sign or ranking sign (horizontal axis-Number of wins in regular season, vertical axis-probability of winning the first prize sign or ranking sign; Red Line-old probability, Blue Line-New probability)

Of course, a team’s advantage in the draft from a worse regular season record is not just the increase in the probability of winning the first prize or ranking. The team with the last record in the league can get the worst first round signing, which is also a sign on the 5th. Moreover, crazy misplacement can also ensure a better sequence of second round signing, because the latter is not decided by lottery.

However, the main significance of misplacement still lies in the greater opportunity to get the right to choose the high rank, because the influence of those right to choose is much greater than that of the rest. But it is also important to remember this: according to the new rules, no team has a real advantage in competing for the first prize. Even those teams with the worst record are only 14 percent likely to win the following banyama unless they have several picks obtained through trading. For reference, the following are some NBA events with a probability of 14%:

Leonard threw a free throw. An offensive round ended in a mistake. Someone shot a shot with a distance of RIM 36 feet (10.97 meters).

Yes, they do happen occasionally, and even can determine the ownership of the Championship (2012-13 season finals Spurs VS HEAT 6). But this possibility is really slim. Therefore, fans of teams that have outstanding early performance-such as jazz, Spurs and Thunder-should not worry too much. Their home team will not miss the opportunity to select potential players like wambiama and then change the team’s future. Since winning more than 10 to 15 games (when the number of wins is less than 25) will not have much impact on the probability of winning the first prize of a team, let alone worry about the crazy penultimate competition.

Original: Zach Kram

Compilation: asteroid falling

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