The Chicago Bulls surprisingly won tonight’s NBA Draft Lottery, with the Knicks landing the sixth pick and the Nets getting No. 10.
The Bulls had the ninth-best chance (1.7 percent) to win the No. 1 pick.
The complete order is:
1. Chicago
2. Miami
3. Minnesota
4. Seattle
5. Memphis
6. KNICKS
7. L.A. Clippers
8. Milwaukee
9. Charlotte
10. NETS
11. Indiana
12. Sacramento
13. Portland
14. Golden State
Like last year, two stud freshmen are the top prizes: Memphis point guard Derrick Rose and Kansas State forward Michael Beasley.
The draft is scheduled for June 26.
The Heat had the best chance to win, but only twice, in 2003 and ’04, has the team with the best odds won under the current lottery format, which began in 1994.
The Nets, back in the lottery for the first time since 2001, had team investor Shawn Carter, better known as rap mogul Jay-Z, in their seat on the stage.
“This is very exciting and I hope my nickname ‘Lucky Lefty’ holds up,” he said prior to the drawing.
The Nets had a 1 percent chance of winning the No. 1 pick.
Jay-Z was seated next to Indiana Pacers president and Hall of Famer Larry Bird. Sonics rookie Kevin Durant, last year’s No. 2 pick behind fellow freshman Greg Oden (Portland), and Miami’s Dwyane Wade were among the star players representing their fallen franchises.
The Knicks, with a lottery pick again after shipping top-10 choices to Chicago each of the last two years in the Eddy Curry trade, sent new coach Mike D’Antoni.
“I want Mike to come with me because he’s lucky they tell me,” team president Donnie Walsh said beforehand. “We need somebody with luck. I haven’t been lucky in that thing.”
The lottery determines the top three picks, with the rest of the first 14 spots made in inverse order of a team’s record. The Heat’s NBA-worst 15-67 finish gave them a 25 percent chance of choosing first, and they could do no worse than fourth.
Seattle had a 20 percent chance of getting the top pick, with Minnesota and Memphis at 14 percent.
The odds meant nothing last year, when Memphis, Boston and Milwaukee, the teams with the three worst records, all fell out of the top three spots, the first time that happened under the current format.
Portland moved up from sixth to get the No. 1 pick, which it used on Oden, and Seattle vaulted to second and settled for Durant, who won Rookie of the Year.
The favorite next season will be Beasley, a forward who averaged 26.5 points and an NCAA-best 12.5 rebounds for Kansas State, or Rose, the point guard who nearly carried Memphis to the national title.
“If it’s not No. 1 or No. 2, the balls fall as they may, the chips fall as they may,” Wade said. “We’ve just got to make the best choice that we can make. Whether it’s keeping the pick, trading the pick, whatever we’re doing, we’ve just got to make the best choice for the team that we have and the faces of the team that we have … bringing the right guy in, that’s what it’s all about.”
The Knicks had the fifth-best chance at No. 1, with the Los Angeles Clippers, Milwaukee, Charlotte, Chicago and the Nets rounding out the top 10. Indiana, Sacramento, Portland and Golden State (which missed the playoffs in the powerful Western Conference despite a 48-34 record) were the four biggest long shots.
The Knicks could do no worse than eighth, still an improvement after losing what would have been the Nos. 2 and 9 choices the past two years. That was little reassurance to Walsh, hoping to quickly jump-start the rebuilding at the Garden.
“I’m not comfortable at all. I want to win it. I really want to win it,” Walsh said. “There’s good talent, one through eight. Obviously one is going to be better than eight.”