Draft Lottery - What Will Happen in 1997

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     The 1997 NBA Draft Lottery, where ping-pong balls supplant basketballs
as the tools of determining supremacy, will be held on Sunday, May 18 at
the headquarters of NBA Entertainment in Secaucus, NJ.
     The 13th annual edition of the NBA Draft Lottery, which will determine
the order of selection for the first 13 picks of the 1997 NBA Draft, will
be broadcast live at halftime of an NBA Playoff game that begins at 3:30
p.m. ET on NBC, CTV and ESPN RADIO. The Lottery will begin at approximately
4:30 p.m. ET.
     Fourteen ping-pong balls numbered 1 through 14 will be placed in a
drum. Four balls will be drawn to the top to determine the number one pick.
The process is repeated to determine the number two and three picks.
     There are 1,001 possible combinations when four balls are drawn out of
14, without regard to their order of selection. Prior to the Lottery, 1,000
combinations will be assigned to the 13 Lottery teams. If the one
unassigned combination is drawn, the balls are drawn to the top again.
     The team which has the NBA's worst record this season will be assigned
250 combinations, the team which has the second-worst record in the league
be assigned 200 combinations and the third-worst team will have 157
chances. The best team in the lottery will have 5 chances out of 1,000.
     Per their expansion agreements, Toronto and Vancouver can not select
first in the NBA Draft until 1999. If one of those teams should qualify for
and win the 1997 NBA Draft Lottery, that team will automatically be
entitled to the second selection in the 1997 NBA Draft. The team that draws
the second selection will receive the top pick, unless that team is the
other expansion team, in which case it will pick third.
     The order of selection for the teams that do not win one of the top
three picks will be determined by inverse order of their regular season
record. Thus, the team with the worst record in the league can pick no
lower than fourth, the second-worst team no lower than fifth, etc.
     The actual Lottery procedure will take place in a separate room prior
to halftime with NBA officials and representatives of the participating
teams and the accounting firm of Ernst & Young in attendance. Following the
drawing, team logo cards will be inserted into envelopes marked 1 through
13 by an Ernst & Young representative. These envelopes then will be sealed
and brought on-stage, where the announcement of the Lottery results will be
made by NBA Deputy Commissioner Russ Granik.
     A second representative from each participating team will be seated
on-stage. Neither the Deputy Commissioner nor the team representatives will
be informed of the Lottery results prior to the opening of the envelopes.
The Deputy Commissioner will open the envelopes and reveal the cards in
inverse order from 13 to 1. The team whose logo is in the last envelope to
be opened will pick first in the 1997 NBA Draft, to be held on Wednesday,
June 25, at Charlotte Coliseum in North Carolina.
     The following are the chances out of 1000 for teams in the 1997 NBA
Draft Lottery:

               Team                                    Chances out of 1000

               Team 1                250
               Team 2                200
               Team 3                157
               Team 4                120
               Team 5                  89
               Team 6                  64
               Team 7                  44
               Team 8                  29
               Team 9                  18
               Team 10                 11
               Team 11                   7
               Team 12                   6
               Team 13                   5
               TOTAL               1000

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