2016 Lottery Primer: Why not the Nuggets?

Tonight the Nuggets learn their fate in the 2016 NBA Draft Lottery, (6:00 pm MST, ESPN). Coach Michael Malone will be representing the Nuggets on the podium, team president Josh Kroenke will be present backstage in the lottery room and Denver Post beat writer Chris Dempsey will be backstage as well.

Denver’s 33-49 record leaves them with the ninth pick, pre-lottery, tied with Sacramento for a 1.90 percent chance (19 of 1,000 combinations) of landing the No. 1 overall pick. However, the Nuggets also have the right to swap picks with New York, who sits seventh with a 4.3 percent chance of jumping to No. 1. The swap with the Knicks is another bounty five years later of the 2011 trade that sent the Nuggets greatest ever Lottery pick, Carmelo Anthony, to the Knicks.

So Nuggets fans have two combinations of lottery balls to root for tonight. Twice the team with the ninth-best odds has won the lottery (most recently Cleveland in 2014) while the seventh team has been lucky just once. Of course, there is the chance they can move up to second, which is nearly as valuable as first in a draft without a clear top player.

Shouldn’t the Nugget have some karma on their side too? Let’s reward a team rebuilding and retooling the right way.

The Nuggets have a 21.8 percent chance of moving into the top-3 of the lottery.

Here’s a historical look at how teams slotted at No. 7 and 9 in the lottery have moved up and down.

The potential to move up also comes with the risk of moving down, but that is mitigated a bit by having two top-nine lottery tickets. While we’re thinking positively, the Nuggets are overdue for some lottery luck this year. Denver has never moved up from its pre-lottery position, yet have dropped back eight times. Twice the Nuggets have had the best chance at No. 1, only to drop to No. 4 in 1991 and No. 3 in 1998. Here’s hoping Denver’s 14th trip to the Lottery is a lucky one.

Last year, Denver selected Emmanuel Mudiay at No. 7 when they didn’t move up or down during the lottery, as was the case in 2014 when they stayed at No. 11 and selected Doug McDermott. The team’s longest lottery streak was eight straight years from 1996-2003.

 Denver Nuggets Lottery History

Year – Pick – Selection

1991 – 4 – Dikembe Mutombo

1992 – 5 – LaPhonso Ellis

1993 – 9 – Rodney Rogers

1996 – 10 – Erick Dampier (traded to Indiana)

1997 – 5 – Tony Battie

1998 – 3 – Raef LaFrentz

1999 – 5 – Jonathan Bender (traded to Toronto)

2000 – 10 – Keyon Dooling (traded to Orlando)

2001 – 11 – Kedrick Brown (traded to Boston)

2002 – 5 – Nikoloz Tskitishvili

2003 – 3 – Carmelo Anthony

2014 – 11 – Doug McDermott (traded to Chicago for Gary Harris and Jusuf Nurkic)

2015 – 7 – Emmanuel Mudiay