If you thought that Utah wasn’t involved in the draft lottery until next week, you’d be wrong. Because tonight, in Seacacus, NJ, the National Hockey League held its lottery, and the Utah Hockey Club had ping pong balls in the hopper. Here are some highlights, showing the #1 pick going to the #10 New York Islanders. It’s pretty interesting to watch them pull the ping-pong balls live, and is something the NBA could learn from if they ever decide they’d like to beat the allegations of lotto-rigging.
The Islanders weren’t the only lucky team tonight, though. Going into the lottery, the Clubbers, who did not tank this season, occupied the 14th spot and had a 94.8% chance of remaining there, with a 2.5% chance of jumping as high as 4th. (Any team below #11 can only move up 10 spots)
2.5% doesn’t amount to great odds, but never tell UHC the odds. Unless it’s the odds of scoring with an empty net and an extra attacker. Not a good idea to check those odds. But, thankfully, the Club wasn’t trying to score a desperation goal tonight, and the odds were very much in their favor. They jumped ten spots, thus winning the lottery to the maximum extent possible, and took the #4 pick away from the Philadelphia Flyers.
So, how does this affect the Utah Jazz? That depends on how superstitious you are. If you’re optimistically superstitious, it means the Jazz will surely keep the Beehive State’s string of luck alive and easily keep their #1 spot in the NBA Draft Lottery. If you’re superstitious and mildly pessimistic, you probably assume the Jazz, like the Hockey Club, will pick #4, falling out of the #1 spot. If you have heavy, pessimistic superstitions, you have to think that the Clubbers have used up all the luck, the Utah Jazz will fall all the way to #5, and that they’ll draft a bust.
In reality, the Utah Hockey Club’s success or failure has no bearing on what happens to the Jazz. We all know that Adam Silver and some executives determine how to rig the draft while they smoke cigars in a backroom somewhere one event has no bearing on the other, and the Jazz put themselves in the best possible position to win this lottery by losing the most games. With UHC’s lottery night out of the way, we have less than a week to wait to find out how the Jazz fare.