There are a number of keystone dates in the course of the NBA calendar. Some of those involve games; Opening Night, Christmas Day and Martin Luther King Jr. Day are all important conglomerations of NBA action. Yet the most interest is drummed up from the non-game dates: the trade deadline, the NBA Draft, the start of free agency, and the NBA Draft Lottery.
The Draft Lottery has been of key interest to the Cavs and their fans for a number of years. After multiple trips to the NBA Finals buoyed by a number of win-now trades the Cleveland Cavaliers have spent the last few seasons deep in the draft lottery, putting extra importance on the bouncing of ping pong balls to determine, in large part, the fate of the franchise.
The 2022 NBA Draft Lottery is Tuesday night. What is the draft lottery, how do you watch it and what matters for the Cavs heading into the big event?
How a team performs scouting players, balancing its salary sheet and developing talent all play a major part in its growth from rebuilding team to contender, and the Cavs have worked hard to reach their place on the staircase from the former to the latter. That being said, each team is either buoyed by or hampered by their luck in the draft lottery.
The 2022 NBA Draft Lottery is tonight: Tuesday, May 17th. What exactly is the Draft Lottery, how can you watch it, and what’s at stake for the Cavs? Once we unpack that let’s highlight the three burning questions for the Cavs heading into tonight. Here is your official 2022 NBA Draft Lottery Preview!
What is the NBA Draft Lottery?
The NBA Draft Lottery is an invention of the league to (1) decrease tanking and (2) increase fan interest. Because the NBA is a league where a single star player can have an enormous impact on a team’s success, the rights to the very top picks are more valuable than most other leagues. To help keep teams from just flat-out losing every single game to chase a top player, the draft lottery adds some randomness. The very worst teams have the best odds to get a top pick, but a team with a better record could “jump” them in the draft order if their combination is chosen in the lottery.
The other goal is to drum up fan interest, and that has absolutely come to pass. Gone are the days of secret drawings announced in newspapers the next day; the Draft Lottery is a televised event that is followed closely by the entire league, with prominent basketball media members live-tweeting the event and recording their podcasts soon after.
How and when to watch?
If you want to join the excitement and watch the event, how can you do so? The 2022 NBA Draft Lottery will take place in Chicago, Illinois tonight, Tuesday, May 17th at 8:00pm ET. ESPN will air the event, which is occurring just prior to the start of the Eastern Conference Finals between the Miami Heat and Boston Celtics.
The drawing of the ping pong balls that determines each team’s order will happen prior to the event, and the order will be announced live at 8:00pm. Generally, it is the NBA’s Deputy Commissioner, Mark Tatum, announcing the order. Each team gets to send an on-stage representative to the event, and the Cavs have sent beloved former big man Anderson Varajao to bring them good luck.
NBA Draft Lottery: What are the odds for the Cavs?
The odds for each team in the lottery are broken into two groups: their odds to land in the Top 4, and their odds to win the No. 1 overall pick. Those odds are flat for the three teams with the worst records in the league; therefore the Houston Rockets, Orlando Magic and Detroit Pistons all have a 52.1 percent chance to land in the Top 4, and a 14 percent chance to win the top overall pick.
The odds trickle down from there, with each team having a slightly worse chance to leap up than the team above them. Those odds eventually land at the Cavaliers, whose 44-38 record see them with the 14-best odds to jump up in the standings.
There is a 2.4 percent chance the league will draw a Cleveland Cavaliers ping-pong ball and the team will leap into the Top-4; that’s about a 1-in-41 chance. That may seem like a longshot, and it is, but it also means once every 41 lotteries a team should make that jump. It’s not impossible.
Much less likely, a 1-in-200 chance, is that the Cavs win the No. 1 overall pick. The Cavs once made an unlikely leap up to the first pick in 2011, when they took Kyrie Irving, but even then their odds were many times higher than the 0.5 percent they have now.
To flip things around, the Cavs have a 97.6 percent chance of picking 14th. No other option is available; either they leap up into the Top 4, or they finish 14th. More than likely the Cavs will continue evaluating late-lottery prospects this time tomorrow. But there is absolutely a chance for something more.
NBA Draft Lottery Burning Question #1: Who do the Cavs take at No. 1?
Sitting at 14th in the NBA Draft Lottery means the Cavs will almost certainly end up with the 14th pick, but there is that sliver of possibility they make a leap into the Top 4. If they were to win the lottery, who should they take at No. 1?
We dug into that possibility earlier today; the final answer was Auburn forward Jabari Smith Jr., a 6’10 two-way force with the shot to survive as a jumbo-3 alongside Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen. Taking Smith would also mean the Cavs’ fourth top-10 pick from an SEC school in five seasons, joining Collin Sexton (Alabama), Isaac Okoro (Auburn) and Darius Garland (Vanderbilt); how’s that for some trivia?
NBA Draft Lottery Burning Question #2: Should the Cavs trade the pick?
The Cavs made a win-now move at the NBA Trade Deadline this past February, sending a premium 2nd-round pick and a lottery-protected first to the Indiana Pacers for Caris LeVert. After a rocky start for LeVert, the Cavs missed out on the playoffs and kept that pick, deferring their obligation to next season.
Could the Cavs go back to that well and trade this pick again? The Stepien Rule would prevent them from trading the pick prior to the draft (you can’t trade first-round future picks in consecutive drafts) but they could work out a draft-night deal to flip the pick (likely 14th) for a veteran player. With the Cavs looking to make the playoffs next year, would that be the way to go?
NBA Draft Lottery Burning Question #3: Who makes up the core?
Darius Garland, Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen make for an indisputable and hyper-talented young core, one that should serve as the foundation for a perennial playoff contender. The question is whether the Cavs’ front office sees any other players as part of that core. If Sexton or LeVert is considered part of that core, the team may not look to add help at the 2; similarly, if Lauri Markkanen is viewed as a locked-in starter, the team may lean towards 2/3s and not pure small forwards.
The NBA Draft Lottery is a tense and exciting affair, and in recent years plenty of unlikely outcomes have kept the unlikely in play and sown hope across all 14 teams. Will the Cavs strike gold? Or will one of their Eastern Conference rivals land the premium pick needed to build their own elite young core? Tune in tonight at 8:00pm to find out!