Wolves Lottery Tidbits

The 2008 NBA Draft Lottery takes place Tuesday, May 20 at 7 p.m. Eastern in Secaucus, New Jersey, in a back conference room at NBA Studios. You can tune into ESPN to watch, and subsequently enjoy game one of the Eastern Conference Finals between Boston and Detroit. But before you do that, check out some of these Wolves draft lottery notes:

A) Minnesota has a 13.80 percent chance of landing the top pick, whom most say will be either Michael Beasley of Kansas State or Derrick Rose of Memphis.

B) After finishing the 2007-08 NBA season tied with Memphis for the league's third-worst record (22-60), the Wolves won a coin flip with the Grizzlies for the rights to the third-best odds in the lottery.

C) Thanks to that coin flip, that farthest Minnesota can possible fall in the lottery is sixth, as no team can drop more than three places.

D) Last season, Portland won a coin flip with the Wolves for the right to the sixth-most balls, and subsequently saw their number called for the No. 1 spot (Greg Oden).

E) Here are the Wolves odds of landing each of the top six picks:

- No. 1 Pick: 13.80%
- No. 2 Pick: 14.24%
- No. 3 Pick: 14.54%
- No. 4 Pick: 23.82%
- No. 5 Pick: 29.05%
- No. 6 Pick: 4.55%

F) This is the 12th time Minnesota has appeared in the Draft Lottery. In 1989, Minnesota was an expansion franchise and was awarded the 10th overall pick (Pooh Richardson), which does not count as a Lottery appearance.

G) The highest Minnesota has ever picked was third, in 1992, when David Stern called Christian Laettner's name. That year, that Wolves had the league's worst record but slipped two spots, missing out on Shaquille O'Neal and Alonzo Mourning.

H) The current Draft Lottery system, which has been in place for 14 years, the team with the best odds has won the top overall pick only two times: Cleveland in 2003 (LeBron James) and Orlando in 2004 (Dwight Howard).

I) Minnesota holds the third-best odds in this year's lottery, and the team with the third-best odds has won the lottery four times, the most of any pre-lottery position:

Odds - Times Won
7th-Best Odds - Once
6th - Twice
5th - Three times
4th - Once
3rd - Four times
2nd - Once
1st - Twice

J) Finally, here are Minnesota's All-Time Lottery picks:

2007 - Corey Brewer, 7th Pick
2006 - Brandon Roy, 6th
2005 - Rashad McCants, 14th
1999 - Wally Szczerbiak, 6th
1996 - Ray Allen, 5th
1995 - Kevin Garnett, 5th
1994 - Donyell Marshall, 4th
1993 - Isaiah Rider, 5th
1992 - Christian Laettner, 3rd
1991 - Luc Longley, 7th
1990 - Felton Spencer, 6th