Cleveland won the lottery with 33 wins last year.
I am well aware.. that is really hardly related to the post. I would be more curious how often there have been 5 teams that went on a combined 1-34 stretch. That is insane and warrants discussion.
Of course it is relevant. You are wondering whether the Celtics are too good a team to get low enough to get what you consider to be a good lottery pick next year. But last year the team with the 9th worse record and 33 wins(a win total the Celtics will probably not exceed) won the lottery and got the first pick. Over the last 7 years the 8th or 9th worst team has won the first pick three times. Over the last ten years teams that win the lottery average around 30 wins.
The C's had a few fortunate circumstances lead to them winning 3 of 4. So has just about every bad team in the league. Then they go back to being bad again. The C's are going to be bad this year. How bad, who knows. But you just have to look back to know that not ending up with a top 2 or 3 worst record in the league doesn't mean you can't get lucky by winning the lottery or drafting a superstar that some teams let slip to you if you do draft in the 6-10 area.
Celticsclay is right, these are absolute non sequiturs in this otherwise very interesting thread.
Q: "Have your views of our likely lottery position changed over the last two weeks?"
A: "Sometimes teams with low lottery odds win the lottery."
Er, okay.
Anyhow, yeah, count me as one of the people who was pretty sure we'd be 4th-6th a couple of weeks ago. Now, I agree, we are more likely headed for something in the 8-10 range.
Not sure how I feel about this...if we had Andrew Wiggins, I wouldn't mind so much. But I still think we are in desperate need of a top tier talent, and a top 5 draft pick would sure help our chances of getting that.