3 hours ago
(02-19-2026, 07:17 PM)F Gump Wrote: Yeah, this ^ gets overlooked a lot in the discussions. If you have a strong goal of "no less than ___", then to have a strong (although less than certain) chance to get that, you have to enter the lottery at about no worse than 2 slots better. Even that route, where you tank and "overshoot" your real target by a couple of slots, offers no guarantee.
The Mavs current lottery slot is 7. If they enter the lottery at 7, their most likely outcome is 8th (about 34%) and about 14% to land 9-11. They would have total odds of a bit better than 50-50 to land 1,2,3,4, or stay the same at 7, but also about 50-50 to get worse than 7.
If the Mavs cut-off line where they want to draft is 7, they need to be in lottery slot 5 or better. At 5, their most likely outcome is 7th (about 27%) and they have total odds of about 64% to exceed their goal and land 1-6 and about 9% to fail and land 8-9. To be GUARANTEED to get no worse than 7, they have to enter the lottery at seed 3 or better.
And if the Mavs cut-off line where they want to draft is 6, they want to be in lottery slot 4 or better. At 4, their most likely outcome is 6th (about 26%) and they have total odds of about 55% to land 1-5 and about 19% to land 7-8. To be GUARANTEED to get no worse than 6, they have to enter the lottery at seed 2 or better.
Fortunately, the Mavs know all this. UN-fortunately, so does every other team in the top 10 of the tanking race.
We obviously want to get as low as we can if no other reason to increase the odds of landing top 4, but I would say the secondary goal is top 9. Seems like there is a bit of a drop off after 9.