Tuesday May 19 2009 – 5:54am Eastern (Toronto, ON)

T-Minus 15 hours ’til the NBA Draft Lottery and the Raptors are keeping their fingers crossed that they can pull off some sort of miracle like Chicago did last year.

The Bulls finished with a 33-49 record last season – same total Toronto just put up this season – but despite a less-than-two-per-cent chance of winning the Lottery, Chi-town pulled it off.

Bryan Colangelo will be representing the Raptors in New York – on the TV set – but there’s no word yet if he’ll be carrying a lucky rabbit’s foot or anything of the sort.

Toronto’s Director of Media Relations, Jim LaBumbard, will be in the back room – as the team’s “witness” for the actual lottery itself (to verify the validity and accuracy of the selections). 

Here’s how the lottery will break down, team by team:

Odds Per 1000

1. Sacramento – 250 odds – 25.0% chance of winning the lottery
2. Washington – 178 odds – 17.80% chance of winning the lottery
3. LA Clippers – 177 odds – 17.70% chance of winning the lottery
4. Oklahoma City – 119 odds – 11.90% chance of winning the lottery
5. Minnesota – 76 odds – 7.60% chance of winning the lottery
6. Memphis – 75 odds – 7.50% chance of winning the lottery
7. Golden State – 43 odds – 4.30% chance of winning the lottery
8. New York – 28 odds – 2.80% chance of winning the lottery
9. Toronto – 17 odds – 1.70% chance of winning the lottery
10. Milwaukee – 10 odds – 1.00% chance of winning the lottery
11. New Jersey – 9 odds – 0.90% chance of winning the lottery
12. Charlotte - 7 odds – 0.70% chance of winning the lottery 
13. Indiana – 6 odds – 0.60% chance of winning the lottery
14. Phoenix – 5 odds – 0.50% chance of winning the lottery

And here’s a look at the Raptors Draft Lottery history:

1995 – 7th pick *
1996 – 2nd pick (21-61 record) **
1997 - 9th picks (30-52 record)
1998 – 4th pick (16-66 record)
1999 – 12th pick (23-27 record)
2000 – Qualified for the playoffs
2001 – Qualified for the playoffs
2002 – Qualified for the playoffs
2003 – 4th pick (24-58 record)
2004 – 8th pick (33-49 record)
2005 – 7th pick (33-49 record)
2006 – 1st pick (27-55 record)
2007 – Qualified for the playoffs
2008 – Qualified for the playoffs

* – Denotes assigned draft position based on coin toss and expansion agreement
** – Toronto actually won the lottery but could not select first due to an expansion agreement/rule with the league

Tune in around 8:00pm-8:30pm tonight (TV) to find out the results and see if the Raps got lucky or not!

E. Smith

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 19th, 2009 at 5:54 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.