Tuesday’s lottery provided some hope for the Magic and their fans after a long season of losing, writes Khobi Price of The Orlando Sentinel. The ping pong balls bounced the right way for Orlando, giving the franchise its first number one pick since 2004. The Magic were among four teams that entered the lottery with a 14% shot at the No. 1 choice, and president of basketball operations Jeff Weltman called it a “privilege” to have the pressure of making the selection.
“These are hard seasons when you’re not winning,” Weltman said. “It takes a lot out of you and you’ve got to carry your belief in your team, players and the organization through. So when you get a break, it helps. That’s how teams are built. Tonight’s a good night for us.”
Orlando was 22-60, the second-worst record in the league, in its first full season after parting with Nikola Vucevic, Aaron Gordon and Evan Fournier at the 2021 trade deadline. First-year coach Jamahl Mosley is looking forward to a quick turnaround and admits there were some tense moments as the final envelopes were being opened.
“I wasn’t trying to go too far ahead. I was just trying to work on just breathing and staying in the moment as best as possible,” Mosley said. “I was getting excited for our fanbase, the organization and how exciting it is for this group of young men to add another young talent to this group that’s already so tied together.”
There’s more lottery-related news to pass along:
- Getting the No. 1 pick puts the Magic in a strong position heading into the draft combine, which takes place today through Friday in Chicago, Price notes in a separate story. While the top prospects usually don’t scrimmage or take part in drills, they’re all on hand to talk with team representatives and try to improve their draft status. Teams can interview up to 20 players during the combine, and each player is permitted to speak with 13 teams.
- Zach Lowe of ESPN provides an inside look at the lottery room, which was filled with assorted lucky charms and other superstitions. Joel Glass, the Magic‘s chief communications officer, brought the three ping pong balls from the other years the franchise landed the No. 1 pick and grabbed a fourth with the team’s logo on his way into the room. He left with the four balls that gave Orlando a winning combination: 14, 1, 13 and 6.
- The Pistons were among the teams in play for the top pick after the first three balls were pulled, Lowe states in the same piece. Assistant general manager George David recognized what was at stake during the 10-second interval before the final ball came up with a 6 and Detroit fell to fifth.
- Teams with better records are typically assigned higher numbers, so there was some excitement when 14 was pulled first, Lowe adds. “I allowed myself to dream for 10 seconds,” said Jon Nichols, vice president of basketball strategy and personnel for the Cavaliers, who wound up staying at No. 14.
- Lowe notes that there had been concerns throughout the league that there was too much movement on lottery night since the new system was adopted three years ago. But the biggest moves Tuesday were the Kings rising from seventh to fourth and the Pistons falling to fifth despite being tied for the best odds, so those objections are on hold for now.
So, there had been concerns “throughout the league” that tanking hasn’t been sufficiently rewarded-? The concerned parties should pray that the NBA never gets a real commissioner; because this tanking thing is gone when it does.
@Dxc
I understand why fans might be disappointed with “tanking ” but I don’t see it as a huge issue. If your a rebuilding team what’s the point of signing marginal stars that might make you a 35 win team with a #10 pick and almost no chance to sign a top free agent, especially if you’re not in a desirable market? This isn’t mlb where there’s tons of talent that’s both immediately ready and 3 to 5 years down the road to develope. Or sign international free agents Tanking is the easiest way to rebuild.
I’m not saying teams that respond to the league’s current regulatory system (draft mostly) by tanking aren’t doing what’s best for themselves. They may be; that’s a different and more nuanced discussion. Your points would certainly be valid there.
Still, the NBA (as well as the sport) is hurt by tanking, and the pathologies it’s released, and the league should put a stop to it (by not rewarding it). I believe that Silver knows all this, but is too weak minded to do anything about it. Instead, as with other things, he complains about its effects, as though they came along on their own.
I think the play-in has cleaned a lot of it up organically in all honesty
Traditionally there’s always been 3~5 terrible teams, might have even been worse in the 70’s and 80;s in all honesty
Not saying the NBA is perfect but I think the bigger problem today lies in stars only wanting to go a few places and {forcing themselves there, wheather under contract or not)
Id like to see Silver direct his attention there first rather than draft slots which will always be an imperfect science
How would you suggest they address that issue of big market cities having an inherent advantage in free agency?
@C&C –
You’ve always had terrible teams, but, in the past, it was usually due to good old fashioned FO incompetence. Today, you have FOs intentionally designing rosters to lose, for multiple years, at a level that even true incompetence can’t compete with. The rationale for using the reverse standings for the draft (help unfortunate teams without assets) falls of its own weight if teams are designing themselves to lose (help devious teams stockpiling assets, as long as they’re not winning games, yet).
I do agree, however, that the biggest issue right now is that star players are being permitted to dis-regard their contracts (and basic tenets of sportsmanship) to compel their teams to trade them to their preferred destination(s). Silver, I believe, indicated he’s only troubled when a player goes public with a trade demand (“I don’t really like seeing that”). Apparently, he does not distinguish between guys privately threatening to leave at the end of their contract, and those threatening to sit out, or slow play in, games while under contract. I think he should.
Why is having a bad record automatically tanking? A lot of it is teams with close losses, teams with bad coaching, teams with injuries, teams maybe missing 1 or 2 pieces. I cant think of teams actively tanking right now, with a lot of parity in the league. Philly tanked several years ago. There is no question about that. They literally did everything they could from keeping a productive product on the floor. If you’re talking about teams that make certain trades late in the year, I dont really get what you would want them to do, if it’s clear they wont be in contention. If you can get assets for certain pieces, why not move them at the deadline?
That’s quite a charge formerly, no tanking going on. I count 7, even though doing so has less probable benefit with the new pingpong odds. And the play-ins have helped.
Every fan is a GM though, dreaming of landing major talent.
Fortunately the lottery-type teams still seem to play hard, which is mostly what matters.
It isn’t automatically. But, when it’s multiple years of records in the bottom 5, it’s tanking on some level. Sorry, these teams are almost always designed to lose, and the GOAL is clear, it’s improving the team’s draft position. It’s a FO undertaking (nothing to do with coaches or players), and it’s almost always a multiple year one (giving up mid-way through a single season isn’t really tanking). Like I said in the post above, I’m not going to get into whether it’s a good or bad strategy for the team doing it. It’s just not good for the league or game that teams employ it. Through last season, ORL, OKC, HOU and DET were designed to be (multi-year) losing machines. No pretense, other than some nice words. Distinguish IND and POR, who capitulated during the season, which was going poorly not by design.
FWIW, I’m not looking for the league to define tanking or punish it. Just stop rewarding year over year losing, and it will stop. Very easy. It can be as simple as keeping the current draft system, with the caveat that no team can get a top 5 pick more than once every 3 years. One bad year for a team is rewarded in the draft same as now. Continue to have bottom 5 records after that, at least some of the fun is taken out of it.
What exactly is the reward if they keep losing?
A bigger pingpong ball collection.