Glossary · Trades and team buildingDraft lottery
A draft lottery is a weighted random draw that decides the top picks in a sports draft among the teams that missed the playoffs, giving the worst teams the best odds without guaranteeing them the first pick.
In HoopSim the lottery runs during the playoffs. The eight teams with the worst regular-season records are in it, ties broken at random. Three picks are drawn: #1, #2 and #3, one team at a time, and a team that wins a slot has its tickets removed. Every other team then picks in order from worst record to best, so a lottery team can fall at most three spots below where its record put it.
| Record rank | Chance at #1 |
|---|---|
| Worst | 31.5% |
| 2nd worst | 22.5% |
| 3rd worst | 16.9% |
| 4th worst | 11.2% |
| 5th worst | 7.9% |
| 6th worst | 4.5% |
| 7th worst | 3.4% |
| 8th worst | 2.2% |
Rulebook: The draft lottery. Related: tanking, draft rights.
In the rulebook: Draft scouting, the chapter this term comes from, with the exact numbers the engine uses.
Related terms
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