What’s at Stake in the 2016 NBA Lottery?

Every team participating in Tuesday night’s 2015-16 NBA draft lottery is moored by random luck and a helpless combination of hope and dread.

But by a particularly wide margin, no team has more to lose than the Los Angeles Lakers.

Coming off their most pitiful season in franchise history—in which they finished with the league’s most anemic defense, per NBA.com, and the second-worst record at 17-65—there’s a 55.8 percent chance the Lakers land a top-three pick. That’s meaningful, because thanks to the Steve Nash trade all the way back in 2012, if the pick falls any lower than that, they have to send it to the Philadelphia 76ers.

The bad consequences don’t end there. If the Lakers send their first-round pick to the Sixers this year, then they also have to fork over their 2018 first-round pick (top-five protected) to the Orlando Magic. If L.A. is still really bad and keeps its 2018 pick, it becomes unprotected in 2019. But if the Lakers keep their first-rounder this year and in 2017 (also top-three protected), they only have to give the Magic their 2017 and 2018 second-round picks.

Regardless of what transpires Tuesday night, the Lakers have a ton of cap space, talented young assets and a refreshing new head coach in Luke Walton, but there’s a lot at stake.

If the pingpong balls align in Los Angeles’ favor, its rebuild will organically press on with another potentially elite prospect in the mix—another trade asset for a franchise that’s gasping for All-Star-caliber talent.

If not, the Lakers are stripped of several valuable assets, as outlined above.

A canyon separates the Lakers’ best- and worst-case scenarios, but several other teams will also spend Tuesday night with their heads between their knees. LSU’s Ben Simmons and Duke’s Brandon Ingram both appear to have franchise-sparking talent, and every team in attendance would love to add one of them.

Locking either into an affordable rookie-scale deal the same summer the salary cap jumps from $70 million to approximately $92 million, per USA Today’s Jeff Zillgitt, is highly advantageous for whichever teams land in the top two. Once those two come off the board, the impact talent nosedives off a cliff. There are solid role players in the mix, but there may not be another All-Star.

Beyond the Lakers, here’s a look at who the top two teams might be, as well as all that’s at stake for the lottery’s other participants.

 

1. Philadelphia 76ers (25.0 percent chance of landing No. 1 pick)

If all goes swimmingly for Philadelphia, brand-new president of basketball operations Bryan Colangelo can walk away with the first and fourth overall selections. The positive implications here are obvious.

First: There’s a great chance the Sixers finally land the franchise player they’ve tortured themselves for these past few years. A top pick—which Philly has a 25 percent chance of getting—guarantees either Simmons or Ingram. The fourth pick means yet another highly coveted prospect would join the Sixers organization.

Teams across the league would then inquire about Jahlil Okafor, Nerlens Noel and Joel Embiid, knowing full well the Sixers can’t afford to overlap so many building blocks in their frontcourt.

The worst-case scenario? The Lakers keep their pick, and the Sixers fall to fourth overall.

Philadelphia has a bit of bonus protection: If the Sacramento Kings wind up with a higher pick than Philly in the top 10, the Sixers have the right to swap picks with them.

 

2. Los Angeles Lakers (19.9 percent)

 

3. Boston Celtics (15.6 percent, via Brooklyn Nets)

The Celtics find themselves in an incomparably beneficial situation. They have two first-round picks outside the lottery (Nos. 16 and 23), five second-round picks and the Brooklyn Nets’ first choice (for the next three years). The Nets enter with the third-best chance to land a top-three pick (46.9 percent).

Obviously, grabbing Simmons or Ingram would be marvelous. But the Celtics are …

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