2010-11 Draft position watch

F

fnordius

All-Star
#1. Sac 4-15 .211
#2. LAC 5-17 .227
#3. Minn. 5-16 .238
#4. NJ 6-15 .286
#5. Wash. 6-13 .316

The Washington game tomorrow is pivotal. Win it, and we drop into the #3 slot. Lose it, and we tie 1958 for the worst start to a season in franchise history.

Feel free to update this thread, I may not do it often.
 
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LOL. I was wondering when this thread would be created. Now we actually have something to be excited about! Sad thing is, none of it matters. If we end up with the worst record, we'll end up with the 4th pick anyway. :(
 
Kings Fan Gerard said:
wow. this early huh? This sucks.
Click to expand...

Last year the thread was started on Halloween. The year before, on 2 Dec. Last time I started one later was the year we wanted Durant, Oden or Noah, but got Hawes instead (2006-7).

I think I showed a lot of restraint this year by waiting until we had uncontested first place. :-P I had really wished that fans wouldn't need this thread to help them make it through the season, but you don't always get what you wish for.
 
Well, another top pick probably would ensure that we improve the following season. I wish this talk weren't happening, but there are a few guys who would really help this team. Both the Jones', Barnes, and my personal favourite Kyrie Irving. I know he's a PG, but he has decent size and he's a solid shooter. Also a terrific athlete with great handles and passing ability. He's definitely number one on my wishlist. Perhaps more than anything, he's a really good kid with a fantastic attitude. I think he's going to be an elite PG, right up there with Williams, Rose, Paul etc..
Another guy who could be a good fit is Brandon Knight, although the upside of a guy like Irving isn't there. Still, he's a big PG so he could alternate with Evans, and he's a very good shooter. Still prefer Irving, but Knight wouldn't be a bad consolation prize if we were to go with a PG. This post should probably be in the Prospect watch thread.
 
If we are using the OKC or Portland formula, they each needed several top 5 picks to get to where they are today.

OKC had Durant at #2, Green at #5, Westbrook at #4, and Harden at #3. Portland of course needed Roy, Aldridge, and Oden (I guess he doesn't count, but that year does), all whom were also top 5 picks.

Right now, Kings have only accumulated Evans and Cousins, so they may very well be just one top 5 pick away from finally leaving this hell hole, assuming we don't make a bust pick.
 
Depending on which bullet you were looking at, I guess we may have dodged one.

#1. LAC 5-18 .217
#2. MIN 5-17 .227
#3. Sac 5-15 .250
#4. NJN 6-16 .273
#5. WAS 6-15 .286

Tonight the Nets will lose to Dallas. Tomorrow Minnesota will probably lose to the Knicks, but the real wildcard is the Detroit-Minnesota matchup -- Detroit's #6 with a 2-11 road record.

The more extended race looks good for us. The Clippers have had one of the tougher schedules in the NBA thus far, and we've had one of the easiest. Example: of the nine teams that are really tearing it up right now (SAS: 18-3, DAL/BOS 17-4, LAL 16-6, UTA 16-7, ORL 15-6, OKC/MIA/ATL 15-8), LAC have played 8 games against those teams, three against the top-ranked Spurs alone. We've yet to catch a glimpse of the Spurs, and have only played a combined 4 games against those teams. We played more against cellar dwellers, and a disproportionate number of home games.

LAC's schedule transitions from brutal to fairly cinchy after Sunday's game versus Orlando. Their next 7 games after that are: @PHI @DET @CHI vMIN vHOU vPHO @SAC. Aside from the Chicago game, they have a good chance of winning any or all of those.

As for us, that last game was our best shot at a win for a while. We're now entering a period of medium difficulty, ending at the beginning of February, which will be fugly. March is moderately hard, then April will be very nasty again.

The T'wolves can be expected to give us a real run for our money until February, when their schedule turns easy just as ours goes rotten. After that, it should be relatively smooth sailing.

Due to our scheduling, this could still be another year where our draft position is uncertain until the last minute. We could go through the last 1/3 of the season with only a couple of wins, and end up in #1... time will tell.
 
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fnordius said:
Depending on which bullet you were looking at, I guess we may have dodged one.

#1. LAC 5-18 .217
#2. MIN 5-17 .227
#3. Sac 5-15 .250
#4. NJN 6-16 .273
#5. WAS 6-15 .286

Tonight the Nets will lose to Dallas. Tomorrow Minnesota will probably lose to the Knicks, but the real wildcard is the Detroit-Minnesota matchup -- Detroit's #6 with a 2-11 road record.

The more extended race looks good for us. The Clippers have had one of the tougher schedules in the NBA thus far, and we've had one of the easiest. Example: of the nine teams that are really tearing it up right now (SAS: 18-3, DAL/BOS 17-4, LAL 16-6, UTA 16-7, ORL 15-6, OKC/MIA/ATL 15-8), LAC have played 8 games against those teams, three against the top-ranked Spurs alone. We've yet to catch a glimpse of the Spurs, and have only played a combined 4 games against those teams. We played more against cellar dwellers, and a disproportionate number of home games.

LAC's schedule transitions from brutal to fairly cinchy after Sunday's game versus Orlando. Their next 7 games after that are: @PHI @DET @CHI vMIN vHOU vPHO @SAC. Aside from the Chicago game, they have a good chance of winning any or all of those.

As for us, that last game was our best shot at a win for a while. We're now entering a period of medium difficulty, ending at the beginning of February, which will be fugly. March is moderately hard, then April will be very nasty again.

The T'wolves can be expected to give us a real run for our money until February, when their schedule turns easy just as ours goes rotten. After that, it should be relatively smooth sailing.

Due to our scheduling, this could still be another year where our draft position is uncertain until the last minute. We could go through the last 1/3 of the season with only a couple of wins, and end up in #1... time will tell.
Click to expand...

Given the Clipps history, I'm really sticking my neck out on this one: No way do the Clipps fall into the bottom 10. They have just too much talent. Just can't happen. Can it?:D
 
1. Sac 5-22 .185
2. Min 6-24 .200
3. Was 7-20 .259
4. LAC 8-22 .267
5. Cle 8-21 .276

Contrary to one recent suggestion, I don't think that the team's better off with Tyreke injured. I don't think that any franchise is better off with any player injured, unless the FO is incompetent. I think that the Kings coaching staff don't yet know how to make Tyreke much of an asset on the court, and that's on team management. So is our 29th place assist-TO ratio, our equally hideous shooting (FG, 3s, FT all suck), and our poor defense against the 2-pointer. The team rebounds, blocks, steals, and defends against the 3. But that is all they do. They don't routinely cooperate, they don't act like they have a plan, they don't score, they don't win. Minnesota can be counted on to stink their way through the next month, but I don't see a lot of other competition at this point.

Forecast: There are a few wosable games on the short term horizon, and we may let Minnesota bump us out of first for a while. By mid-February I'm thinking we'll be resuming the lead.
 
If we stay the worst team in the league, we are screwed come lottery time since the worst team almost NEVER wins the lottery. I see why, they punish them.
 
kingsboi said:
If we stay the worst team in the league, we are screwed come lottery time since the worst team almost NEVER wins the lottery. I see why, they punish them.
Click to expand...

That's not exactly true. The team with the worst record has the best chance of any team of getting the first pick (25% to be exact) and also the best chance of getting a top 3 pick. However, they've split up the percentage pie in such a way that there's still a 75% chance that somebody else will end up with the top pick. Circumstantial evidence says the 4 or 5 spot ends up number 1 more than any other spot but there's no statistical reason to believe that pattern will continue. Actually, regression to the mean says the number one spot will eventually have to start winning it more for the odds to match the outcome.

What all that means to me though is that I think if you end up with one of the worst 5 records in the league you have a decent shot at number 1 overall. The lottery itself is something you can't control, so there's no sense worrying over it. Whatever happens happens. So all else being equal, I'd certainly prefer we win enough games to end up number 5 and win the lottery that way than suck all the way to worst in the league where the odds still favor the 4th pick more than any other pick. And with two top 5 picks on the roster and a lot of other young players, it wouldn't kill this team to win enough to end up in the late lottery. We have money to spend on free agents anyway.
 
hrdboild said:
That's not exactly true. The team with the worst record has the best chance of any team of getting the first pick (25% to be exact) and also the best chance of getting a top 3 pick. However, they've split up the percentage pie in such a way that there's still a 75% chance that somebody else will end up with the top pick. Circumstantial evidence says the 4 or 5 spot ends up number 1 more than any other spot but there's no statistical reason to believe that pattern will continue. Actually, regression to the mean says the number one spot will eventually have to start winning it more for the odds to match the outcome.

What all that means to me though is that I think if you end up with one of the worst 5 records in the league you have a decent shot at number 1 overall. The lottery itself is something you can't control, so there's no sense worrying over it. Whatever happens happens. So all else being equal, I'd certainly prefer we win enough games to end up number 5 and win the lottery that way than suck all the way to worst in the league where the odds still favor the 4th pick more than any other pick. And with two top 5 picks on the roster and a lot of other young players, it wouldn't kill this team to win enough to end up in the late lottery. We have money to spend on free agents anyway.
Click to expand...

They might have a good chance at a top 3 pick but they also have the best percentages to get either the 4th or 5th pick. We need to either get 1 or 2, we need a instant impact rookie type of player. Now, I don't know if there is one in this draft so we will have to just sit back and wait til the tourny to make further evaluation from there. But I still believe in the history, you just don't see the worst team very often get the number one pick, look at New Jersey's horrible record last year, they won 12 games and got punished with the 3rd pick. Every single time in the lottery it seems a team comes and "sneaks" in the top 3 that you wouldn't expect, possibly a team that was slotted to pick anywhere from 5-8.

So, what I'm saying in general is, I just don't like the Kings' history with the lottery and history of the lottery itself. Those two combinations are destined to give us a 3, 4 or 5 pick. What we will have to do is save this post somewhere and when the lottery comes around in May, we can revisit this and see which one of us was correct.
 
The 4th spot is a great place to be subjectively, because it's statistically quite decent, but also because it's got way less letdown factor. You know there's a good chance of dropping to 5th, but that's about as bad as it gets... and moving up is a definite possibility. When you're in first, you've got nowhere to go but down, so lottery night is usually a time to burn Stern in effigy, particularly in years when the #1 pick is completely obvious. You suffer through a horrible year drooling over someone like Blake Griffin, then watch it all go down the toilet at the last second. By any objective measure, first is unquestionably the best place to be, but fourth is a much easier place to be on lottery night.

Personally, I'm fine with anywhere in the top 4, and I don't see any reason to think we won't make it. Assuming the lottery race stay pretty much the same through the remainder of the season, a 22 or 23 win season should do the trick, while our average over the last 2.5 years is slightly below 21, and our current season's pace would earn us a 15 win record. We could start winning 50% more games beginning immediately, and still get the 3rd slot.

Here's our remaining schedule. I see us as having exactly two good shots at winning consecutive games: the next two, and the home stretch in mid-March. At the tail end of February is a big maybe, since that'd require winning on the road. Other than that, potential wosses look few and far between. We could win the game vs Charlotte in late January, and then lose the next dozen in a row after that. While I'm philosophically not at all opposed to winning 35 games this season, and ending up in the late lottery, I'm just not seeing it.

vs LAC
vs Memphis
----January----
@Denver
vs Phoenix
vs Atlanta
vs Denver
@Toronto
@Washington
@Boston
@NYK
@Detroit
@Atlanta
vs Portland
@GSW
@Portland
vs Charlotte
@LAL
vs NO
----February----
vs Boston
vs SAS
vs Utah
vs Dallas
vs OKC
@Phoenix
@OKC
@Dallas
@Miami
@Orlando
@Charlotte
@Memphis
vs LAC
----March----
vs Portland
@Utah
vs Houston
vs Orlando
@SAS
@NO
vs GSW
vs Cleveland
vs Philly
@Minnesota
@Chicago
@Milwaukee
@Indiana
@Philly
vs Phoenix
@Denver
----April----
vs Denver
vs Utah
@Houston
@SAS
@Memphis
@GSW
vs OKC
vs LAL
 
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hrdboild said:
That's not exactly true. The team with the worst record has the best chance of any team of getting the first pick (25% to be exact) and also the best chance of getting a top 3 pick. However, they've split up the percentage pie in such a way that there's still a 75% chance that somebody else will end up with the top pick. Circumstantial evidence says the 4 or 5 spot ends up number 1 more than any other spot but there's no statistical reason to believe that pattern will continue. Actually, regression to the mean says the number one spot will eventually have to start winning it more for the odds to match the outcome.
Click to expand...

Actually, that's a fallacy and absolutely not what regression to the mean suggests. Regression to the mean (or more precisely here, the Law of Large Numbers) simply suggests that as we test it enough times with the number one spot continuing to win the expected 25% of the time, that any initial blip in randomness will become swamped by the true distribution and become imperceptible in the overall numbers.

Look at it this way: I haven't looked at the numbers but my recollection suggests that yes, over the course of the lottery as we know it, the team with the most combinations has won quite a bit less often than expected. Let's imagine two courses of action. 1) Continue with the lottery as before retaining the past results, and 2) Rename the lottery as Lottery 2.0 without changing any of the procedures, put a star by the past results in the record books, and start over. I believe that everybody would agree that results from today forward in case 1 and case 2 should be the same - the fact that we discarded previous results should not change the outcome or probabilities of two identical lotteries. However, the bolded statement above suggests that in the future for case 1, the team with 25% of the combinations should win more often than 25% of the time in the long run. Since case 1 and case 2 are the same, in case 2 the team with 25% of the combinations wins more than 25% of the time in the long run. And that's not right, by defintion.

This is all a very long winded way of saying that in a lottery, draws are independent. Past results do not affect future results, or future probabilities.
 
Capt. Factorial said:
Actually, that's a fallacy and absolutely not what regression to the mean suggests. Regression to the mean (or more precisely here, the Law of Large Numbers) simply suggests that as we test it enough times with the number one spot continuing to win the expected 25% of the time, that any initial blip in randomness will become swamped by the true distribution and become imperceptible in the overall numbers.

Look at it this way: I haven't looked at the numbers but my recollection suggests that yes, over the course of the lottery as we know it, the team with the most combinations has won quite a bit less often than expected. Let's imagine two courses of action. 1) Continue with the lottery as before retaining the past results, and 2) Rename the lottery as Lottery 2.0 without changing any of the procedures, put a star by the past results in the record books, and start over. I believe that everybody would agree that results from today forward in case 1 and case 2 should be the same - the fact that we discarded previous results should not change the outcome or probabilities of two identical lotteries. However, the bolded statement above suggests that in the future for case 1, the team with 25% of the combinations should win more often than 25% of the time in the long run. Since case 1 and case 2 are the same, in case 2 the team with 25% of the combinations wins more than 25% of the time in the long run. And that's not right, by defintion.

This is all a very long winded way of saying that in a lottery, draws are independent. Past results do not affect future results, or future probabilities.
Click to expand...

I agree with the basic principle but I'm not sure that principle disagrees with what I said. Past outcomes cannot be used to predict future outcomes. That seems clear enough. The same 25% chance applies in every case independent of what happened before. But if the number 1 spot has a 25% chance of winning the number 1 pick and so far that spot has won it only 16% of the time, and over a large enough sample the number 1 spot will eventually win the number 1 pick approximately 25% of the time, does that not also indicate that the frequency at which the number 1 spot will win the number 1 pick will have to increase? Not to the point at which you can predict that next year or any other year for that matter that there will a better chance of it happening, you never know when it's going to happen since the probability itself never changes. But over a long enough period of time the overall percentage is likely to go up. It's not a certainty, it's just likely.

Or, to get back to the point I was making before, the true odds will ultimately win out over the current historical odds which are the result of a very small sample size.

kingsboi said:
They might have a good chance at a top 3 pick but they also have the best percentages to get either the 4th or 5th pick. We need to either get 1 or 2, we need a instant impact rookie type of player. Now, I don't know if there is one in this draft so we will have to just sit back and wait til the tourny to make further evaluation from there. But I still believe in the history, you just don't see the worst team very often get the number one pick, look at New Jersey's horrible record last year, they won 12 games and got punished with the 3rd pick. Every single time in the lottery it seems a team comes and "sneaks" in the top 3 that you wouldn't expect, possibly a team that was slotted to pick anywhere from 5-8.

So, what I'm saying in general is, I just don't like the Kings' history with the lottery and history of the lottery itself. Those two combinations are destined to give us a 3, 4 or 5 pick. What we will have to do is save this post somewhere and when the lottery comes around in May, we can revisit this and see which one of us was correct.
Click to expand...

We might as well pick random numbers and say I told you so when our numbers get rolled. I have no idea what pick we'll end up with, I just wanted to say that regardless of what happened last year and the year before, the best way to statistically position yourself for a number 1 or 2 pick is to have the worst record and that doesn't change year to year. If we end up with the 5th spot in the lottery we could fall as far back as the 8th pick which would be a lot more disastrous from a lottery point of view than 4th as worst-case-scenario. The caliber of talent available for the 8th pick most years is a whole step down in class. The only way to guarantee yourself a 1 or 2 pick is to acquire the neccesary trade pieces and make a trade with whoever does win those spots but that's not a certainty either because the team that wins it might be able to fill a bigger need by just making the pick themselves. I think this team right now, more than a 1 or 2 pick, needs a fresh perspective and a return to respectability. I'm fully in favor of using the lottery to do that when it gets here but in the meantime it would be foolish to spend the rest of this season expecting to get what you need out of the lottery because it rarely happens that way.
 
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hrdboild said:
I agree with the basic principle but I'm not sure that principle disagrees with what I said.
Click to expand...

Perhaps not. I think I misinterpreted your statement as: 'In (some?) future drawings, the probability that the team with the worst record will win the lottery will be somehow be greater than 25% in order that the long-term outcome become 25%" rather than: 'In future drawings, the probability that the team with the worst record will win the lottery will be exactly 25% regardless of the fact that so far chance has dictated that fewer than 25% have won.'
 
Capt. Factorial said:
Perhaps not. I think I misinterpreted your statement as: 'In (some?) future drawings, the probability that the team with the worst record will win the lottery will be somehow be greater than 25% in order that the long-term outcome become 25%" rather than: 'In future drawings, the probability that the team with the worst record will win the lottery will be exactly 25% regardless of the fact that so far chance has dictated that fewer than 25% have won.'
Click to expand...

You're right, it can be read either way. It was a silly statement to make in the first place for that reason. I should be more careful about writing ambiguous statements if I'm attempting to correct someone else. I appreciate you jumping in to further clarify the point, as usual. :)
 
Who says you can't eat your delicious cake and have it too? We got Tyreke's great buzzer beater and still keep #1.

1. Sac 6-23 .207
2. Min 8-25 .242
3. Cle 8-24 .250
4. Was 8-22 .267
5. NJN 9-23 .281

Forecast: There are 16 games in January. One of them, a home game versus Charlotte (11-19), doesn't seem like too much of a stretch. We probably also have shots at the home game versus Phoenix, and the road games against Washington and GSW. If we were to win them all, we'd still be .250 for the month, and .222 for the season. I'm thinking that our #1 is safe for the next 7-8 weeks, at minimum.
 
Update time.

Despite the Denver hiccup, things move along pretty much as expected. The Clips have left our little group as anticipated, and the Nets have taken their place, but probably only very temporarily. I'm not sure whether any other team is going to deserve admission, I may switch to a 4-team list before long.

1. CLE 8-29 .216
2. SAC 8-26 .235
3. MIN 9-29 .237
4. WAS 9-26 .257
5. NJN 10-27 .270

Forecast: Look out for the Cavs, their January schedule's about as ugly as ours.
 
fnordius said:
Update time.

Despite the Denver hiccup, things move along pretty much as expected. The Clips have left our little group as anticipated, and the Nets have taken their place, but probably only very temporarily. I'm not sure whether any other team is going to deserve admission, I may switch to a 4-team list before long.

1. CLE 8-29 .216
2. SAC 8-26 .235
3. MIN 9-29 .237
4. WAS 9-26 .257
5. NJN 10-27 .270

Forecast: Look out for the Cavs, their January schedule's about as ugly as ours.
Click to expand...

If you look at the number of away games our "competition" has played, it's not even close. They have had a far greater number of away games than the Kings.
 
Kingster said:
If you look at the number of away games our "competition" has played, it's not even close. They have had a far greater number of away games than the Kings.
Click to expand...

True, but we barely lost against Washington because, road game or not, they're still Washington. As I write this, Cleveland's at Staples, losing to the Lakers 32-82. Misunderestimate the Cavs at your peril.
 
That Cavs team shows just how great Lebron really is.

Whats your prediction on the bottem 5 teams in order guys? mine is :

1. Cavs
2. Wolves
3. Kings
4. Nets
5. Wizards
 
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