2015 NBA Draft Lottery

Tonight is the NBA Draft Lottery. It will determine who will wind up with the number one pick in next month's draft. For those of you who are unclear, here's how the process works:

Fourteen numbered ping-pong balls are put into a hopper. There are 1,000 different four-digit combinations possible and each non-playoff team is assigned a group of numbers, with the teams with the lower record getting a greater combination of numbers. Four balls are then pulled from the hopper and the team with that number combination is given the top pick in the draft. The process is then repeated for the second and third pick, with picks 4-14 being filled in by inverse order of teams' records.

Here are the likelihoods of each team getting the number one pick:

1. Minnesota Timberwolves (25%)

2. New York Knicks (19.9%)

3. Philadelphia 76ers (15.6%)

4. Los Angeles Lakers (11.9%)

5. Orlando Magic (8.8%)

6. Sacramento Kings (6.3%)

7. Denver Nuggets (4.3%)

8. Detroit Pistons (2.8%)

9. Charlotte Hornets (1.7%)

10. Miami Heat (1.1%)

11. Indiana Pacers (0.8%)

12. Utah Jazz (0.7%)

13. Phoenix Suns (0.6%)

14. Oklahoma City Thunder (0.5%)

Despite having the second best chance to do so, if the New York Knicks were to win the lottery, there would no doubt be some eyebrows raised. In 1985, a large tumbler was used instead of the current ping-pong ball system, with the commissioner pulling envelopes out one at a time. When the envelopes were put into the tumbler, it appeared as if the envelope was slammed against the wall of the tumbler, possibly to differentiate it from the others and allow New York native David Stern to pull the Knicks envelope and give them the chance to draft Patrick Ewing. Here, take a look for yourself:

So tune in to ESPN for all the coverage, with the actual drawing to take place sometime around 5:30 pm PST.