Timberwolves win top pick in NBA draft lottery
NEW YORK – The Minnesota Timberwolves had the best odds – a 25% chance – of winning the top pick in the 2015 NBA draft lottery on Tuesday.
And the Timberwolves ended the trend of the team with worst record not getting the No. 1 pick in the draft. It's the first time since 2004 that the team with the worst record also got the No. 1 pick and just fifth time it has happened in 31 years.
"It's very exciting for me and for our fans," Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor said. "There's going to be a lot of enthusiasm – who you're going to pick and how you're going to do that. And that's a process that will start now."
Now, the Timberwolves will focus on adding an elite player to play alongside Andrew Wiggins, Ricky Rubio, Zach LaVine and Shabazz Muhammad. Now, it's Timberwolves president of basketball operations and coach Flip Saunders to make the right pick.
"Flip Saunders probably up to this moment was wishing he would get this," Taylor said. "Now that he has that, I think it is a lot of pressure with our young team. We have to find the one guy that will work in and complement the other guys.
The Los Angeles Lakers pick second, the Philadelphia 76ers third, the New York Knicks fourth and the Orlando Magic fifth.
"More excited than anything," Lakers coach and former Lakers guard Byron Scott said. "This is the first time I've done this. I was excited to do this because of our organization. You guys know how much pride I have in the organization, so this was a big deal to me. To be able to come here and secure the second pick, I guess I can go back home and say, 'I'm sorry I didn't get the first pick for you guys, but No. 2 ain't bad.' "
The Knicks, who had the second-best odds to get the top pick fell to fourth when the Lakers, who came in with the fourth-best odds, moved up. The Knicks haven't won the lottery since 1985, and there was a collective groan from the audience when the Knicks dropped in the draft.
"We feel really good about this pick," Knicks general manager Steve Mills said. "We felt that in this draft we could have gotten a good player with any pick on through five. We went into this very optimistic and we will remain that way.
"This pick is complementary to where we're going, with a guy like Carmelo (Anthony) in place, and what we plan on doing with the $28 million we have in cap space. Even if we got the first pick, I think that player would take some time to develop, so our view hasn't changed."
The top players in this year's draft , according to Paste BN Sports' mock draft: Kentucky center Karl-Anthony Towns; Duke center Jahlil Okafor; Ohio State guard D'Angelo Russell; guard Emmanuel Mudiay who bypassed college for a season in China; and Duke forward Justise Winslow.
"This is the first time in the last three years that we didn't fall backwards, and we do know that we'll get a very good player at No. 5," Magic CEO Alex Martins said.
While it's impossible to discern today if that transcendent, franchise-altering player is among the top picks, this draft class, especially in the lottery, is considered deep and talented.
Kentucky center Willie Cauley-Stein; Latvian center Kristaps Porzingis; Croatian forward Mario Hezonja; Arizona forward Stanley Johnson; Kansas guard Kelly Oubre; Wisconsin forward Frank Kaminsky; Texas center Myles Turner; Wisconsin forward Sam Dekker; Kentucky guard Devin Booker; UCLA forward Kevon Looney; Kentucky forward Trey Lyles; and Notre Dame guard Jerian Grant are also potential lottery picks.
The actual lottery process took place just before the ESPN broadcast began. The 14 team representatives, NBA officials, a ping-pong machine operator, timekeeper and reporters inside the room knew the results before they were televised. They were sequestered in the room with no communication devices.
The NBA uses a lottery-style ping-pong ball machine with 14 balls numbered 1-14, and 1,000 four-digit combinations are assigned to the 14 lottery teams, with the Timberwolves receiving 250 four-digit combinations of 1,000 total combinations, the New York Knicks 199, the Philadelphia 76ers 156, the Los Angeles Lakers 119, the Orlando Magic 88 and so on.
The Oklahoma City Thunder, the lottery team with the best record, received five four-digit combinations and had less than 1% chance of winning the No. 1 pick and less than a 2% chance of getting one of the top three picks.
There are actually 1,001 combinations and if that four-digit combo unassigned to one of the 14 teams is drawn, it is discarded and four more numbers are drawn.
The league uses a ping-pong machine designed by Smartplay International, which makes lottery equipment for clients all over the world. Smartplay weighs, measures and certifies the ping-pong balls before the drawing, according to the NBA.
The drawing works like this: The 14 balls are placed in the lottery machine and mixed for 20 seconds, then the first ball is drawn. The remaining balls are mixed for 10 more seconds and the second ball is drawn. That process is repeated until four balls are drawn and the team that has been assigned that four-digit combination is awarded the No. 1 pick.
The timekeeper monitors the length of the time the balls are mixed and while facing away from the lottery machine operator, the timekeeper signals when the next ball should be drawn.
This process is done for just the first three picks and the remaining draft order will be determined by inverse order of their regular-season record.
