13 was not the Phoenix Suns’ lucky number in the lottery
By Adam Maynes
Steve Nash proudly wore #13 for the Phoenix Suns during his Hall of Fame career. But on Lottery day 2019, 13 was anything but lucky for Nash’s former franchise.
The way that the NBA Draft lottery works is both elegant and clunky.
While one might think that it would just be easier to have a minimum number of balls bouncing to be drawn from a lottery machine, each with a team’s logo on it, both streamlining and simplifying the process, the league instead has designed a complicated, yet simple-to-understand system to select the now top-four teams in their annual rookie draft in June.
Each team in the lottery is granted a certain number of combinations out of 1,001, percentage-based due to their regular season records. The teams with the worst regular season records receive a higher number of combinations while the teams with the best records have few opportunities to move up.
In this case, the Phoenix Suns, Cleveland Cavaliers, and New York Knicks each held a 14% of the numerical combinations (140), the most of any teams in the league (it should be noted that the 1,001st combination is essentially a free draw, meaning it isn’t assigned to any team. Had that combination been drawn, it would have simply caused a re-start for whichever pick they were drawing for).
Phoenix Suns
While each team’s numbers are segmented, although they are not clumped together numerically like one might think.
In other words, they are not awarded consecutively, similar to how if you buy 50/50 raffle tickets from a vendor selling physical ticket stubs (you know the ones, generally purchased at a local carnival or fair, usually reddish in color, they give you the requite number of consecutive tickets, tearing off one half of the stub while leaving you with the matching half), instead the numbers, while clumped together to a degree, are mixed up among the teams, much like the digitally assigned 50/50 numbers you might received on a printed receipt when purchased at a local sports stadium.
In the league’s system, there are 14 ping-pong balls bouncing around the machine, numbered 1 through 14, which are then pulled out one-by-one creating a four digit combination.
This occurs four times, the first combination being awarded for the number one pick, the next combination awarded for number two, and so on through four draws.
If a team repeats as a winner, their second win does not count and too acts as a free draw which immediately forces a re-set of that pick.
This actually happened to the Phoenix Suns last year when they won the first and second draws, but could only be awarded the first overall pick and none more.
It was with this first overall pick that the number 13 came up entirely unlucky for the Phoenix Suns in 2019 (maybe they should have had Nash represent the franchise in the drawing room).
On Tuesday, when NBA Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations Kiki VanDeWeghe began to call out the numbers for the first combination and thus the first overall pick, the first three numbers came up as a hit for the Phoenix Suns: 7-4-12.
Phoenix needed just one more number to come up their way and Zion Williamson was theirs.
However, one more number and Zion was a Cleveland Cavalier.
And one more number and Zion was a Chicago Bull.
Or a Washington Wizard.
Or he would be head coach Alvin Gentry’s newest starting power forward for the New Orleans Pelicans.
Herein lies the rub: in this particular four digit combination, the Phoenix Suns only held one possible opportunity to win with a combination beginning with 7-4-12:
They held the number 2.
Cleveland held 1, Chicago, 3, Washington needed 5, 6, or 8 to win, while New Orleans had a 5/14 chance with 9, 10, 11, 13, and 14.
And where did that ball land?
Unlucky (unless you are a fan of the Pelicans), 13.
For a franchise like the Phoenix Suns who have fallen in love with the number 13 because of their beloved former superstar point guard, that number ended up costing them the right to own the number one overall pick for the second consecutive season, and the chance to draft Zion Williamson, which would have made the Suns the next great, young, team in the Western Conference.
Instead, not only did a combination they owned fail to populate with the first overall pick, but neither the second, third, or fourth, and with three teams jumping ahead of them in the lottery, they slid down from their pleasant perch at 3rd overall, and will now draft at their new unlucky number, 6 (although, somewhere Ring of Honor member Walter Davis might take offense to that sentiment).
light. Must Read. Josh Jackson is another in a long line of failed first round picks
This new lottery system did not screw the Phoenix Suns any more than it helped them last season. It was merely the luck of the draw, and in this particular case 13 was not their lucky number.
The only real way for our beloved franchise to finally win is not to intentionally lose and count on the lottery to make their team viable, but rather put in the work and the effort, acquire talent via trade and free agency, draft the right players, regardless of where their picks land each year, and develop that talent.
13 might have been unlucky for them this year, although in the end, did their failure to win the lottery really have anything to do with luck?