All 14 teams who miss the playoffs are entered into the lottery in order from worst to first but the teams selected in the lottery may not move up more than four positions in the draft order. Therefore, only the teams finishing in the bottom 5 have a possibility of picking 1st overall. Also, teams can move down from their position in the order by no more than 1 spot. So, under this weighted system, the last place team will have a 25% chance of getting the first overall pick and can pick no lower than 2nd overall.
Fourteen balls, numbered one to fourteen are put into a lottery machine and four of the balls are drawn, forming a series of numbers. A probablity chart is than used that divides the possible combinations among the 14 non-play-off teams. The four numbers are compared to the probability chart to determine which team has that number combination. After the team selected moves up, the remainder of the teams are adjusted by one with teams moving up or down one slot to accommodate the winner, assuming that they were not originally in that slot.
30th……….. 25.0% (250 combinations)
29th……….. 18.8% (188 combinations)
28th……….. 14.2% (142 combinations)
27th……….. 10.7% (107 combinations)
26th………….8.1% (81 combinations)
25th………….6.2% (62 combinations)
24th………….4.7% (47 combinations)
23rd………….3.6% (36 combinations)
22nd………… 2.7% (27 combinations)
21st………….2.1% (21 combinations)
20th………….1.5% (15 combinations)
19th………….1.1% (11 combinations)
18th………….0.8% (8 combinations)
17th………….0.5% (5 combinations)
