Does seem rather strange that we are slotted 2nd going into the lottery due to record yet our top two odds for landing spots are 5th followed by 6th. In fact, we have a better chance of landing 5th than we do 1st and 2nd combined. I suspect this thing will be fiddled with before too many years go by.
NBA was correct IMHO to reduce the incentive for tanking.
To say that we're slotted for the second spot is a bit confusing. I think the better way to look at it is that we're slotted for the sixth pick. We move into 1st-4th if our numbers come up in any of the four drawings. We move into fifth if we aren't drawn but the Knicks are.
On lottery night the way to follow the reveal is to list the fourteen teams in picks 5-14 (initial floor), with the last five teams all in the fourteenth pick but ordered by losses.. Then with each reveal, the following applies:
1) The team that is selected for a slot - game over, you weren't drawn into lottery, sucks for you.
2) All teams that had the current pick number as their floor reduce their floor by one.
3) If any team(s) is/are skipped, they are lottery winners and in the top four.
4) Once four teams are drawn into top four, all remaining teams with higher initial slots (if any) are stuck with their initial slot.
5) Once the fifth pick is revealed, any teams that had a higher initial position (if any) are lottery winners and in the top four.
6) As the picks are revealed, the possible teams for each slot are always 5 - # of teams already drawn into top 4.
Since so many combinations have been pushed to later slots AND there are now four lottery drawings instead of three -- expect to see more teams skipped earlier than what we've seen in past years. Chalk is HIGHLY unlikely.
Once the top four are set and they go to commercial the chance for each team of getting the #1 pick is equal to the number of combinations for a given team divided by the number of combinations for the four teams in total.