The Detroit Pistons were throttled last night by the Orlando Magic in a battle of the two worst teams in the NBA.
This was the Pistons’ 4th loss in a row and they are now just two games ahead of the Magic for the worst record in the NBA. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
Some fans saw this as a “can’t lose” situation, as the Pistons would either get a win or creep closer to better lottery odds.
Count me as a fan who wants to see his team win and thinks those “W’s” are more important than a slight change in lottery odds which is very unlikely to happen anyway.
The only advantage to having the worst record, as opposed to the second or third worst, is that you are guaranteed to stay in the top-5, which won’t make much difference in a draft that most agree has three players who have set themselves apart from the rest.
I don’t think there is a team in the NBA that the Pistons “should” beat, but going down by 20 in the first quarter to the Magic is just embarrassing.
I know the “this one was for the tank!” people are just looking at the bright side of a bad loss, but this defeat did not help the Pistons in any measurable way.
Pistons lottery odds aren’t likely to change much
The Pistons have the second-worst record in the NBA, two games ahead of the Magic and 2.5 behind the Rockets. They are three games behind OKC and a full six behind Sacramento, so it’s unlikely the odds are going to change much unless Detroit keeps losing or suddenly goes on an unexpected winning streak.
Here are the Pistons lottery odds for each pick:
1st- 14%
2nd- 13.4%
3rd- 12.7%
4th- 12%
5th- 27.8%
6th- 20%
The only advantage to dropping to the worst record in the league is that 20 percent for the 6th spot gets added to the 5th, and there probably isn’t a whole lot of difference between the 5th and 6th pick in this draft anyway.
After two 20-win seasons in a row, I was hoping that this season Detroit fans wouldn’t be reduced to cheering for losses, but here we are
Just know that losses aren’t going to help their case much and that their odds of a top-4 pick won’t change even if they lose all of the rest of their games.
The Pistons are in a position where losing won’t help their odds and winning probably won’t hurt them, so getting smoked by Orlando is just a bad loss that didn’t accomplish anything.