I won't even get into the fact that:
"The odds of each team landing the No. 1 overall pick may be determined by regular season record, but those teams don't always see the balls bounce in their favor. In fact, since the lottery was implemented in 1985, only six teams with the highest odds of landing the top pick actually landed it."
https://www.usatoday.com/story/spor...-lottery-history-no-1-overall-pick/101752858/
"The odds of each team landing the No. 1 overall pick may be determined by regular season record, but those teams don't always see the balls bounce in their favor. In fact, since the lottery was implemented in 1985, only six teams with the highest odds of landing the top pick actually landed it."
https://www.usatoday.com/story/spor...-lottery-history-no-1-overall-pick/101752858/
First off, although the lottery was instituted in 1985, it was not until 1990 that any weighting existed. Before that, each team had the same odds of winning, so the lotteries before that don't really speak to the probability of the team with the highest odds winning.
Then between 1990-1993 (four lotteries) the odds of the worst team winning were 1 in 6. The worst team won once, so they actually did a tiny bit better than expected during that short time frame.
Then the odds of the worst team winning were raised to 25% - this percentage has been in effect for 24 drafts. In 24 drafts, you would expect the worst team to win about 6 times. And the worst team has won 4+2 times. What do I mean by that? Well, for one, in the 2003 draft two teams tied for the worst record and had the same number of combos - one of those (CLE) did win. For the other, in the 1996 draft the Grizzlies had the worst record but were not allowed (by expansion rules - they were an expansion team that season) to get the #1 pick, and Philly, who had the worst record among teams eligible for the #1 pick, did get it. So it's basically 6 out of 24 as expected.
My point is that teams win the lottery just about as often as they should be expected to, given the actual odds. That's not terribly surprising. But the bolded part of the quote above suggests that the worst teams don't win as often as they should be expected to - but in fact they do.