yeah, lowest amount of ping pong balls = 4th, but after the lottery using those ping pong balls, in a worst case sceanrio we could fall to 7th. Basically its this:
1) coin flip with G.S. (if G.S. loses tonight) to determine who gets 3rd and who gets 4th most ping pong balls.
2) lottery is held, and the lottery is basically jsut to see who gets the 1st through 3rd picks. From the 4th pick onward its just done by record. So if WSH, GSW and the LAC get the 1st through 3rd picks, then 4th would just go to the team with the worst record remianing (NJN in this case) 5th would go to the next worst record (MIN) etc.
3) what that means for us is if a) we lose the coin flip wiht G.S., and b) we are unlucky enough to have 3 teams with better records than we have jump over us and win those 1st through 3rd picks in the lottery, we could sink as far as 7th. If the three worst teams (other than us) get the 1st through 3rd picks, then form that 4th pick onward where it becomes just about which remianing team has the worst record, well that would be us. Same as last year. But if 3 teams who were better than us leapfrog over us and get the 11st through 3rd picks, then when the 4th pick comes up and its just who is the worst remaining team, well that's not us. Its the Nets. Then the next is the Wolves. The the enxt (if we lost the coin flip) would be GSW. So in that worst case scenario we could still get screwed all the way back to 7th spot. Hihgly unlikely, but still possible.