NBA Draft Lottery 2017: Detroit Pistons enter lottery night with 12th-best odds at top pick
After suffering from what many would describe as a downward spiral of a season, the Detroit Pistons will get the chance to start their off-season planning with tonight’s NBA Draft Lottery.
Detroit Pistons fans from across the land will be setting their sights on New York City tonight as the team hopes to have some good luck in this year’s draft lottery.
More from PistonPowered
- Which Detroit Pistons could save Team USA in the Olympics?
- Detroit Pistons could have major roster churn after 2023-24 season
- The best Detroit Pistons to wear each uniform number
- Full Detroit Pistons NBA 2K24 ratings
- Detroit Pistons: Who will sign the remaining NBA free agents?
After finishing 10th in the Eastern Conference this year, the Pistons will be selecting in the lottery for the seventh time in eight seasons.
It is an important event for teams outside the playoffs because it will decide the draft order for this coming June.
General manager Jeff Bower will represent the organization in New York, according to ESPN.
Some of those fellow teams this season include the Los Angeles Lakers, Philadelphia 76ers and the Phoenix Suns. The Boston Celtics, who will be playing in the Eastern Conference finals tomorrow against the Cleveland Cavaliers, have the best odds of getting the first overall selection thanks to a past trade with the Brooklyn Nets.
This year’s NBA Draft, led talent-wise by guards Markelle Fultz, Lonzo Ball and De’Aaron Fox, is expected to have a deeper talent pool than in recent years.
That, along with big-market teams having a chance at the top pick, has the Washington Post’s Tim Bontemps calling tonight’s lottery “the most compelling and consequential in NBA history.”
So what do you need to know entering tonight? Here is a rundown.
The full draft lottery odds
Boston (via Brooklyn) – 25 percent
Phoenix – 19.9 percent
L.A. Lakers – 15.6 percent
Philadelphia – 11.9
Orlando – 8.8
Minnesota – 5.3
New York – 5.3
Sacramento – 2.8
Dallas – 1.7
Sacramento (via New Orleans) – 1.1
Charlotte – 0.8
Detroit – 0.7
Denver – 0.6
Miami – 0.5
Detroit’s lottery odds
Detroit enters tonight with the 12th-best odds of securing the top pick at 0.7 percent. They also have 2.5 percent odds of getting into the top five.
As pointed out by Piston Powered’s Joe Imburgia, the Pistons are most likely to get the 12th overall pick.
The only time a team has not ended up with the 12th selection from that slot was in 1999, when the Seattle Supersonics dropped one spot.
This will be the team’s seventh time in eight years they will be taking part in the lottery.
Related Story: Should Pistons keep their first round pick if it holds?
Detroit’s lottery luck
The Pistons have always been unlucky in the lottery it seems.
As described by Rod Beard of the Detroit News, the franchise has picked in the lottery 10 times since its creation in 1985. Of those 10 lotteries, the Pistons have dropped back four times, stayed put five and went up the draft board once.
That one time? The 2003 draft, when they owned the rights to the Memphis Grizzlies’ pick.
The rest is locked away in a very dark and hidden place in the minds of Pistons fans, the key to it thrown away into the Detroit River long ago.
Bower told Beard he will not be bringing a lucky charm to the lottery show this evening, while head coach and team president Stan Van Gundy joked about renting Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert’s son, Nick, in hopes of getting a good pick.
Related Story: If the Detroit Pistons land the top pick, how do they build the team?
How to watch it
If you are from the United States, it is fairly simple. ESPN will once again be broadcasting the lottery show live at 8 p.m. EST tonight. Fans can also watch online at ESPN.com or on the Watch ESPN app.
For fans north of the border, it is luckily just as simple this year. Canadians can watch on TSN1, TSN3, TSN4 and TSN5 at 8:30 p.m. EST, when the lottery selections will most likely be about to get underway.
Next: Players the Detroit Pistons have met with at the combine
The first step to begin the off-season starts tonight.