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In the beginning, tails failed.<\/p>\n
Detroit player-coach Dave DeBusschere called \u201ctails\u201d at the very first version of the draft lottery in 1966, which was a coin flip between the Pistons and the New York Knicks \u2013 the worst teams in the Eastern and Western Divisions that season.<\/p>\n
And no, it wasn\u2019t even called the \u201cdraft lottery\u201d in those days, since it wasn\u2019t a lottery.<\/p>\n
Pistons owner Fred Zollner even provided the coin, a $20 gold piece from 1907. The value of the gold today would be about $4,200. (There was no social media then; imagine the outrage if a team arrived at the lottery now toting its own ping-pong balls.)<\/p>\n
The Knicks won that 1966 flip and chose Cazzie Russell with the No. 1 pick. The coin flip remained in place through 1984, with the two worst teams letting \u201cheads\u201d or \u201ctails\u201d decide who got the No. 1 selection.<\/p>\n
The lottery has been changed many times since that first coin flip, including Thursday with the introduction of a bigger-than-ever, 16-team lottery designed to flatten odds of winning the No. 1 pick and discourage tanking.<\/p>\n
A brief history of the versions of the lottery:<\/p>\n
1985-1989: Seven (or nine) teams, equal odds<\/p>\n
The envelope era was how the draft lottery started, with seven teams all having the same odds of having their envelope selected and winning the No. 1 pick. This grew to nine teams when Miami and Charlotte were added to the 1989 lottery.<\/p>\n
The lottery originally established picks 1 through 7 in the draft, then the rules were changed in 1986 to have the lottery determine only the order of the first three selections.<\/p>\n
1990: The weighted lottery era begins<\/p>\n
In October 1989, the Board of Governors decided to expand the lottery to 11 teams (in part because the league was expanding) and do weighted odds based on where a team finished in the standings.<\/p>\n
1994: New odds<\/p>\n
For the 1994 lottery and beyond, the team with the worst record would have a 25% chance of winning the rights to choose No. 1, up from 16.7% in the previous format.<\/p>\n
That largely remained the case through 2019, with some tweaks along the way \u2013 such as growth to a 13-team lottery after more expansion, and then a 14-team lottery in 2004 when the Charlotte Bobcats were added to the league.<\/p>\n
2019: Another odds revision<\/p>\n
In September 2017, the Board of Governors changed the odds considerably, giving the teams with the three worst records matching 14% odds of winning the No. 1 pick. The lottery drawings grew as well and began determining the order of the first four picks.<\/p>\n
2027: Expanded lottery, flattened odds<\/p>\n