Season ending Tankometer: Final NBA draft lottery odds - 6th pick is Celtics' most likely scenario

By dropping their final two games of the season, the Celtics managed to pull into a tie with Utah for the 4th worst record in the league at 25-57.  Unfortunately the C's lost the tie-breaking "coin flip" with the Jazz today, leaving Boston 5th in the draft order.

The lottery only actually decides the first three picks; so while Utah and the Celtics have basically the same odds of choosing in the top three, if neither moves up to one of those positions the Jazz will select ahead of Boston.

Each team in the lottery has the opportunity to get one of the first three selections, or slip as many as three spots down from their place in the standings if three teams behind them get lucky.  Because of this the Celtics can't be #4, and their absolute worst case scenario is #8.  Here's a table of the complete odds that I stole from Celtics.com:

Boston has a 10.3% chance of picking #1 overall, and 33.4% in the top three.  But the spot with the single greatest probability is #6, at 34.2%.


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