OP is a casual. We’re 1.5 games back from the 3rd seed even though we’ve mostly been playing without 2 of our 3 best players for most of the year and despite the worst travel schedule in the league (in terms of travel days, away games and back to backs IIRC)

Spurs and mavs like those odds!

Inxredibly lucky indeed. Warriors had something similar and got… James Wiseman. (They still won a title, but that draft was not great.)

Yeah but Cleveland used one of those picks on Anthony Bennett which might be worse than not having the pick at all

From 5 to 4.

I’m sure some consider not being the worst team and getting the #1 pick a jump.

But still 3 straight years of picking 1,2,4 is a pretty insane run.

Especially when Wemby and Harper are both tier 1 prospects.

Easily one of the luckiest franchises I’ve seen in the past decade.

“Jump” is probably the wrong word, but the median outcome for the best odds is the 4th pick, so winning is definitely very good luck.

Duncan

What is the previous luck you mentioned?

Only 4 NBA franchises have won multiple draft lotteries without ever having the best odds – Chicago, Milwaukee, and Washington have won 2 each, while San Antonio is alone at 3. San Antonio also got easily the best player out of those nine drafts, in David Robinson.

( For the curious, the other three teams drafted: Elton Brand, Derrick Rose, Glenn Robinson, Andrew Bogut, Kwame Brown, and John Wall. )

Fella named Tim Duncan was pretty good back in the day.

Nuggets, Pacers, Thunder, Heat, Grizzlies and Jazz have never had a #1 overall pick.

While the Cavs and Wizards have had 6. The Rockets 5. Then the Magic, 76ers and Blazers 4. I particularly remember the Magic getting 2 in a row in the 90’s when they selected Shaq and then traded Webber for Penny.

A team of average 1-10 picks would 100% be better than one of average 11-60 picks.

Would it?

Oklahoma City is currently composed of draftees at: 11, 43, 2, undrafted, 12, 10, 38, 55, 49, undrafted. They seem pretty good.

Meanwhile, San Antonio has made eight lottery picks in six years, and hasn’t yet sniffed the playoffs. Orlando picked in the top 10 nine times between 2013 and 2023, and won zero playoff series over than span.

Going back a few years, for context, let’s build a team from two average top 10 picks over 5 drafts, starting in 2015 ( largely position-less, taking the two average-est players by WS from each top 10 ).

2015 -- Stanley Johnson, Frank Kaminsky
2016 -- Buddy Hield, Jakob Poeltl
2017 -- Zach Collins, Jonathan Isaac
2018 -- Jaren Jackson Jr, Wendell Carter Jr
2019 -- Coby White, Rui Hachimura

I’m not all that impressed.

Now let’s build the other team you proposed, the average-est players from picks 11-60.

2015 -- Larry Nance Jr, Cameron Payne
2016 -- Georges Niang, Malik Beasley
2017 -- Frank Jackson, Frank Mason
2018 -- Michael Porter Jr, Landry Shamet
2019 -- Terrance Mann, Nickeil Alexander-Walker

Despite this being a totally unfair setup due to the inclusion of the second round pulling one average way down, the “Top 10” team is not “100% better” than the “11-60 team”.

Joker is an all time draft steal, he almost shouldn’t count.

The Lakers drafted Elgin Baylor in the 14th round.

( Yeah, they had to draft him again two years later. )

The Lakers have drafted Hall of Fame inductees in the 14th ( 2 times ), 11th, 8th, and 3rd ( 2 times ) rounds. Defending my previous point that if one invests in their scouting department, it almost doesn’t matter where your draft picks wind up in the order.

So I think we can count Jokic here.