{"id":33882,"date":"2016-05-17T08:00:39","date_gmt":"2016-05-17T15:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/after-lots-of-losing-76ers-hope-to-win-big-in-lottery\/"},"modified":"2016-05-17T08:00:39","modified_gmt":"2016-05-17T15:00:39","slug":"after-lots-of-losing-76ers-hope-to-win-big-in-lottery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/sports\/after-lots-of-losing-76ers-hope-to-win-big-in-lottery\/","title":{"rendered":"After lots of losing, 76ers hope to win big in lottery"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK<\/strong> \u2014 The Philadelphia 76ers lost plenty the previous two seasons, though never managed to lose the most.<\/p>\n

This season, they finally fell all the way to the bottom.<\/p>\n

The potential payoff comes Tuesday, when the 76ers have the best chance to win the NBA draft lottery \u2014 and could walk away with two top-four picks if the pingpong balls bounce their way.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a big day on Tuesday,\u201d new president of basketball operations Bryan Colangelo said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to know where we are and no matter how it comes out, we\u2019re at least going to know where we stand and what we have to play with with respect to building this team.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Lakers and Celtics, the NBA\u2019s most storied franchises, have the next-best odds of getting the No. 1 pick and the chance to draft the type of player who could get them back to the lofty positions they used to occupy.<\/p>\n

But nobody is set up like the 76ers, who used to be regular winners themselves but have done nothing but lose \u2014 which seemed to be their plan \u2014 in recent years.<\/p>\n

The team with the worst record normally has a 25 percent chance of winning the lottery, but the Sixers\u2019 odds are even better. They have the right to swap picks with Sacramento from a trade involving Nik Stauskas, so adding the Kings\u2019 1.9 percent chance of moving up to No. 1, Philadelphia actually has a 26.9 percent chance.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo win it is a euphoric feeling,\u201d said Colangelo, who did just that 10 years ago with Toronto. \u201cObviously there\u2019s a lot of chance involved. We have likely more chances than anybody else, which is a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s more: If the Lakers don\u2019t remain in the top three, their selection would also go to Philadelphia, a pick the Lakers originally dealt to Phoenix for Steve Nash that the 76ers later acquired in another trade.<\/p>\n

It makes lottery night the highlight of what\u2019s been three miserable seasons for the 76ers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe actual day I\u2019ll be nauseous. But I can\u2019t wait,\u201d 76ers CEO Scott O\u2019Neil said.<\/p>\n

The 14 teams that didn\u2019t make the playoffs go to the lottery, which sets the top three picks. The remainder of the order is determined in inverse order of the teams\u2019 records.<\/p>\n

The Lakers had the No. 2 pick last year and are right back in the same spot in the lottery after going 17-65 in Kobe Bryant\u2019s final season. The Celtics were a 48-win playoff team who will take the Brooklyn Nets\u2019 spot on stage as part of the payment from the Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce trade in 2013.<\/p>\n

The lottery debuted in 1985 when the Celtics, Lakers and 76ers were in the midst of claiming nine straight NBA championships, so any of them, with good history and strong fan bases, would be a welcome landing spot for this year\u2019s top talent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose are franchises that have won many championships. Those organizations, they\u2019re big-time,\u201d said Marquette center Henry Ellenson, an expected lottery pick. \u201cAnd just playing for something like that, it would be something special.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Sixers, though, have been an embarrassment in recent years. They lost 26 straight games in 2013-14, then started 0-17 in 2014-15.<\/p>\n

But they didn\u2019t have the worst record in either season and last year that proved particularly costly, with Minnesota cashing in its 25 percent chance and getting Karl-Anthony Towns, the Rookie of the Year who appears to be a franchise player.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear yet what the Sixers have, as they ended up with the No. 3 pick both times and drafted Joel Embiid \u2014 who still hasn\u2019t played because of a foot injury \u2014 and Jahlil Okafor, who had some rocky times as a rookie.<\/p>\n

Nobody was beating Philadelphia to the bottom this season, after an 0-18 start and 28-game skid spanning the previous season sent the Sixers to a 10-72 finish that was barely better than the worst ever in an 82-game schedule.<\/p>\n

So they\u2019re in great position for a shot at LSU\u2019s Ben Simmons or Duke\u2019s Brandon Ingram \u2014 or perhaps one of them and another building block.<\/p>\n

The Sixers have been bad. Now they want to be lucky.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a long time coming,\u201d O\u2019Neil said. \u201cWe\u2019re finally going to get a chance to have some fun.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2014 The Philadelphia 76ers lost plenty the previous two seasons, though never managed to lose the most. This season, they finally fell all the way to the bottom. The potential payoff comes Tuesday, when the 76ers have the best chance to win the NBA draft lottery \u2014 and could walk away with two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-33882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33882\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33882"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=33882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}