ricky0034
Registered User
- Jun 8, 2010
- 15,071
- 7,305
As opposed to banking on a lottery pick that turns your franchise around? That requires a ****load of good fortune as well. You can't plan on that.
To "plan" for a lottery pick that turns your team around, not only would you have to 1) almost purposely decimate your team to finish last for the best odds, but you would also have to 2) get lucky with the way the ping pong balls bounce, but you would also 3) have to do it in the right draft year (sorry in advance if you got lucky with the #1, #2, or #3 picks in the wrong years.)
*Let's say there are 7 teams in any given year who are bad enough going into the season that they could reasonably finish in last in the NHL if things go their way: 14.28% chance of your team finishing last.
*The last place team has a 49.4% chance of drafting top 3 after the lottery balls are chosen: 49.4%
*And finally, looking through the past 10 drafts (except 2018 - too early, so 2008 - 2017), about 14 of the 30 picks did not become a star/franchise changing player (IMO, YMMV). - So that's a 53.3% chance of actually drafting the player you need even if the two above bullet points actually fall into place.
So what are the odds of all three of these things happening in any given year? 14.28% x 49.4% x 53.3% is approximately 3.76%. Are those good odds to "plan" on? No, in my opinion.
So, in conclusion, i'm certainly all for getting that #1 -#3 pick and would love to have the best odds to do it. If it happens, it happens and great! Awesome for sure. But i'm not sure it's smart franchise building to plan on that happening and always plan on building your team around that great top 3 pick that may or may not materialize. It should be looked at as kind of an added bonus if it actually does happen.
your math is pretty heavily off here
even if you just take all the numbers at face value you don't suddenly have a 0% chance of a top 3 pick if you don't finish last overall