Posted by djsunyc:

you know what would be interesting to find out: how many lottery teams since 1985 have played in an nba finals.

not sure where to find that stat.

LOL I think every nba team or almost every nba team been in the lottery since 1985.

Posted by djsunyc:

you know what would be interesting to find out: how many lottery teams since 1985 have played in an nba finals.

not sure where to find that stat.

What do you mean by lottery......... Top 3?

Going off of Top 3 picks

Cleveland, San Antonio, Knicks, Seattle, Orlando, Philly, New Jersey, Detroit(Darko LOL!). A few teams of these teams multiple times

[Edited by - TrueBlue on 08-10-2007 11:21 AM]

Posted by Ira:

My problem with the idea of letting a team hit bottom so that it can have a good draft pick is that there are too many things that can go wrong.
1) You can lose the lottery as happeneded to Memphis and Boston.
2) The draft can be weak the year you hit bottom.
3) It's too easy to make a serious mistake. Red Auerbach passed on the opportunity to draft Willis Reed and took Mel Counts. They all make mistakes.

My problem with the idea of getting under the cap to sign top free agents is that often there aren't any and when there are, they may want to go somewhere else. A year ago, an aging Ben Wallace was the best free agent and he got a huge contract. This year, it was Rashard Lewis. The drop off in talent was huge after Wallace and Lewis.

The Bucks had 2 #1 over all picks and Orlando had 3 #1 over all picks in the last 20 years that Sports Illustrated pointed out. No championships to show for it.

I think the main problem with tanking is just that it's unentertaining. Any team inyentionally tanking should just be removed. It's also kind of underhanded. People watch to see athletes compete, and the draft is souppose to help the worst teams not those that pretend they're the worst. If every team that couldn't reliatically win a championship tanked for picks think of what the game would look like.

Posted by djsunyc:

Posted by TrueBlue:

Posted by djsunyc:

you know what would be interesting to find out: how many lottery teams since 1985 have played in an nba finals.

not sure where to find that stat.

What do you mean by lottery......... Top 3?

Going off of Top 3 picks

Cleveland, San Antonio, Knicks, Seattle, Orlando, Philly, New Jersey, Detroit(Darko LOL!). A few teams of these teams multiple times

not top 3...just non-playoff teams. i'm curious to see which teams played in the finals and where their picks were. that may shed some light on draft positioning.

DJ well we kind of have an answer with this post.

Clev 1
San Antonio 3
Knicks 2
Seattle 1
Philly 1
New Jersey 2
Detroit 2
Orlando 1

The total comes to 13. So out of 22yrs 13 of them consisted of Teams with their own Top 3 pick making it to the Finals. Detroit is kind of a gimmie with Darko so you could say 11. Being that Shaq was traded to the Lakers and they played in 4 Finals it could be looked at with a broader interpretation. So in essence picks 4-(12-16 6 Expansion teams came into the league since 1985 Miami, Toronto, Grizzlies, Bobcats, Wolves, Hornets) had the possibility to go to the Finals 5, 9, or 11 times since 1985 depending if you count Shaq and Darko's situation. Which we know the picks from those ranges didn't appear in the Finals all 5, 9, or 11 times.