The 77th game of New Orleans’ 82-game regular season schedule brought a playoff feel to it from the opening tip in Los Angeles, an atmosphere that traveled 1,900 miles east to multiple Friday watch parties in the Crescent City. At gatherings normally not seen until the NBA postseason, fans chanted “Beat LA!” and “Sweep LA!” – as well as perhaps a few Lakers-specific chants not suitable for a family website.
Around midnight, Pelicans fans were ecstatic to see their team ultimately pull off a dramatic, 114-111 victory over the Lakers, capping a 3-0 sweep of the season series. It was an outcome that meant several major positives for New Orleans (34-43), including 1) reducing its magic number to earn a Western Conference play-in berth to just two 2) inching closer to sealing the West’s No. 9 seed and the home game that comes with it 3) pushing the Lakers closer to the brink of elimination – a star-studded team picked by many at the start of 2021-22 to reach the NBA Finals.
For New Orleans hoops aficionados paying very close attention, Friday’s outcome also meant another potential bonus from NOLA getting out the broom head-to-head vs. the LeBron James- and Anthony Davis-led purple and gold. Based on a series of trades that date back to the 2019 blockbuster headlined by Davis and Brandon Ingram, the Pelicans will get the Lakers’ 2022 first-round pick if the selection places in the top 10 of the draft lottery. At the start of this season, any sane NBA analyst would’ve told you it was preposterous to believe Los Angeles might finish the campaign with one of the league’s 10 worst records, but through Friday’s games, only seven teams have a poorer mark than the 31-46 Lakers. So if the season ended today, Los Angeles would enter the May 17 draft lottery with a No. 8 pre-lottery slot, holding a 26.3 percent chance of winning a top-four pick (for the Pelicans) and 6.0 percent odds of bringing a No. 1 overall pick (to the Pelicans).
Of course, the season doesn’t end today. There are nine days of basketball remaining in the ’21-22 slate. For New Orleans to maintain the most optimal odds of seizing the Lakers’ draft pick (by the way, if it lands 11-30 of the first round, the pick conveys to Memphis), Los Angeles needs to remain in the No. 8 position. A pre-lottery slot of 8 would mean three teams (from pre-lotto spots 9 through 14 in the May 17 drawing) would have to leapfrog the Lakers in order to bump the pick out of the top 10. That’s highly unlikely, considering that if you add up the total odds of even one of those slots jumping into the top four at the lotto, it’s only 58 percent. If the Lakers finish with the No. 9 spot, it would then require a pair of teams to leapfrog them and prevent the Pelicans from taking the pick. It looks like a longshot at the moment, but Los Angeles could also foil the selection conveying by reaching the play-in tournament, then qualifying for the West playoffs, which would make it a non-lottery pick.
Entering Saturday’s games, here are the records of the clubs within striking distance of the Lakers, on both sides of the standings:
Pre-lottery slot No. 7 Sacramento 29-49 (could alter LAL's pre-lottery slot by going 2-2 or better in final four games)
No. 8 LA Lakers 31-46
No. 9 San Antonio 32-45 (own tiebreaker on LAL, essentially making it a two-game lead)
No. 10 New York 34-43 (can guarantee finishing with more wins than LAL by going 3-2 or better)
No. 11 Washington 34-43 (can guarantee finishing with more wins than LAL by going 3-2 or better)
In other words, over the final week of the season, New Orleans fans in scoreboard-watching mode will have several obvious rooting interests, including pulling for the Lakers to continue losing, which would guarantee a Pelicans play-in tournament trip (the Pels probably won’t need the help at this rate, but we digress). But in terms of the status of L.A.’s first-round pick conveying to New Orleans, you also can keep an eye on a few East outcomes you may not have anticipated, such as New York’s Saturday home game vs. Cleveland, or Washington’s three-game road trip to Boston, Minnesota and Atlanta. There’s certainly been plenty of good news lately for New Orleans professional basketball, but there could be more on the way during next month’s NBA draft lottery – in the form of a first-round pick no one could’ve expected when the ’21-22 season began.