addByline("Mike Zarren", "Celtics.com", "Celtics");
Celtics fans are the best fans in the league, and they’re also some of the craziest. Even though the ping-pong drawing for the Draft Lottery is not done on TV, a number of my crazy friends have contacted me, eager to find out which ping-pong ball combinations would be assigned to the team so that fans could light a certain number of candles on May 16th, or arrange rocks in their front lawn in the shape of a particular combo, or smoke some number of Hoyo de Monterrey cigars on each of the four days before the lottery, or whatever. I’m not sure any of this is smart (I’m pretty sure smoking up to 14 cigars in a day is not) but as a lifelong Celtics season ticket holder I’m not one to stand in the way of a good sports superstition, so we asked the league and were able to obtain the tables of combos for each team.
Therefore, for the first time anywhere available to the public, and exclusively on Celtics.com, here are the ping-pong combinations that will lead to the Celtics winning a lottery pick. To read how the lottery works, click click here. Otherwise, feel free to root, pray, or hope for your favorite one of the combinations below in whatever (legal) way you think best. And be sure to root for ping-pong ball #1 – all of our combinations include it, and if it’s drawn we have an 86% chance of winning.
All 250 of the Celtics’ Draft Lottery Combinations:
(order doesn’t matter since there is only one ball for each number)
Source: NBA Draft Materials.
Michael Zarren is the Celtics’ Assistant General Manager & Team Counsel