Sun is Shining

The NBA Draft Lottery is still a ways away, but I started thinking of something interesting. The top pick is a matter that everyone interested in the NBA will be focused on in the coming weeks, but that's not the intriguing thing to me. I charted some possibilities for that pick using the ESPN.com Mock Lottery generator, as well as the Real GM version. The top pick was, of course, something I kept track of as I clicked refresh, but I wanted to see how likely it is that the Suns will grab the Hawks pick in the top tier of the lottery. A lot of crappy teams will be praying night and day that they fall 1 or 2 in this draft, but with a deep crop of incoming players a team like the Suns stands to really cash in. Let's look at what I found.

I clicked the ESPN and Real GM lotteries 10 times each. Of the 20 clicks, I got the following results:

The Top Pick

6/20 Seattle Supersonics
5/20 Boston Celtics
3/20 Memphis Grizzlies
3/20 Milwaukee Bucks
2/20 Atlanta Hawks
1/20 Los Angeles Clippers

The Suns

9/20 Picks 4-6
11/20 No Pick

It would seem that the Sonics and Celtics are going to be excited about either Oden or Durant come draft day, but a few sneaky surprises always make this thing interesting. The point of this was the Suns, so I find it interesting that my very small sample size has given the Phoenix boys a 45% chance of scoring a pick between 4 and 6. If I clicked a billion times, the results may vary a bit, but generally speaking you have to like their chances. ESPN gives users the benefit of a pick prediction with their lottery, while Real GM is more no frills. ESPN predicts in each of the instances where the Suns get Atlanta's pick that they will use it on Brandan Wright, freshman power forward from UNC.

Wright is a 6'10", 210 pound force that reminds many people of Chris Bosh. That hardly seems fair, does it? Phoenix adding Chris Bosh to the cast of characters they already play is potentially insane. Nash, Bell, Marion, Wright, and Stoudemire with a bench featuring Diaw and Barbosa! You know I'm going to be there cheering on the Suns on Draft Lottery day. I could care less about anything else as a Knicks fan....except maybe the Bulls pick from the Eddy Curry trade coming near the end of the dealings.