Tonight, the Bucks play the Pelicans in The Big Easy. As you might be aware, New Orleans has the right to swap their first-round pick in this June’s draft with Milwaukee’s, thanks to 2020’s Jrue Holiday trade. They won’t actually receive that pick because the most favorable of the Bucks’ and Pelicans’ picks will go to the Hawks, but we’re here to talk about the Bucks, so forget that for now.
The debate that’s been raging on for weeks, if not months now, since Milwaukee’s season turned south (though it’s currently trending back up) has been whether or not to purposefully lose to improve their draft odds; i.e., to tank. Since the Pelicans are much worse than the Bucks this year, the logic goes that the Bucks can keep losing and get a better pick. But because of that pick swap, it’s not so simple. Let’s dive in.
Bucks draft odds
The lottery is pretty straightforward for each individual team: if you finish in a certain place, then you get certain odds. It turns into a flaming nest of vipers when you consider two teams, though, because their odds are “non-independent”—math speak for the fact that if one team wins the lottery, the other team can’t! Unfortunately, we have to enter that nest of vipers thanks to Milwaukee’s potential pick swap with New Orleans.
To do so, we considered every possible lottery order: 14 teams could win the lottery, the remaining 13 could get second, the remaining 12 could get third, and the remaining 11 could get fourth (the rest of the lottery lands in inverse order of record after that), for a total of 14 * 13 * 12 * 11 = 24,024 possible orders. We then calculated the probability of each order. The odds of each team winning the lottery are easy enough, but then it gets complicated: for each subsequent pick, you have to readjust the odds based on the teams whose lottery balls are no longer in contention (since they can’t win multiple picks). And that’s before the swap enters the picture: if the Bucks end up with a better pick than the Pelicans, they swap picks.
Taking that all into consideration, we calculated the Bucks’ odds of receiving lottery picks 2–14 (first overall is impossible) based on them finishing sixth through 14th and the Pels finishing first through seventh (which we considered the most likely scenarios) in the lottery standings, where the worse your record is, the higher you place. Here is the Bucks’ average draft pick in the table below:
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | |
| 6 | 6.2 | 6.3 | 6.5 | 6.6 | 6.8 | n/a | 6.8 |
| 7 | 6.8 | 6.8 | 7.0 | 7.1 | 7.3 | 7.5 | n/a |
| 8 | 7.4 | 7.5 | 7.6 | 7.7 | 7.9 | 8.1 | 8.3 |
| 9 | 8.3 | 8.4 | 8.4 | 8.5 | 8.6 | 8.8 | 8.9 |
| 10 | 9.3 | 9.4 | 9.4 | 9.5 | 9.6 | 9.7 | 9.8 |
| 11 | 10.4 | 10.4 | 10.4 | 10.5 | 10.5 | 10.6 | 10.7 |
| 12 | 11.4 | 11.4 | 11.4 | 11.5 | 11.5 | 11.6 | 11.6 |
| 13 | 12.5 | 12.5 | 12.5 | 12.5 | 12.6 | 12.6 | 12.7 |
| 14 | 13.7 | 13.7 | 13.7 | 13.7 | 13.7 | 13.7 | 13.7 |
The case for tanking
Morgan: The case for tanking is pretty simple: the worse you finish, the better the draft pick, and (hopefully) the better the player. On its own, that is obvious. Indeed, in each column above, you can see the Bucks’ average draft position gets lower the closer you get to the top of the table.
Furthermore, in each row, you can see the numbers get smaller the closer you get to the left of the table. The worse that the Pelicans finish, the better it is for the Bucks, albeit more marginally. That’s because Milwaukee would net a better pick post-swap in the cases where they are picked in the lottery before New Orleans.
It becomes less clear with the swap involved, since finishing below New Orleans increases the chances that Milwaukee would have to swap back anyways. However, the numbers show that it still bears fruit. In the example above, if the Bucks are sitting in 7th and the Pelicans are sitting in 6th, passing Nola would increase the Bucks’ average draft position by 0.7 spots (from 7.5 to 6.8). That’s not nothing!
At this point, it’s a lost season, and I would at least like to end up with something to show for it. For me, that would be a slightly better chance at a slightly better draft pick.
The case against tanking
Van: Not so fast, my friend! Entering play today, PlayoffStatus.com gives the Bucks a 40% chance of making it into the play-in field, though that’s not the playoffs. Basketball-Reference is much lower on their odds, and the chance of them making it to the first round (or further) just gets lower and lower. As are the odds of them obtaining a higher draft pick than their lottery position: currently 10th. Here is where that could place the Bucks’ draft pick, factoring in the swap with the Pelicans, and depending on how their opponent tonight finishes in the standings:
| MIL Pick | NO 1st | NO 2nd | NO 3rd | NO 4th | NO 5th | NO 6th | NO 7th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 2 | 0.9% | 0.9% | 0.9% | 0.8% | 0.7% | 0.6% | 0.5% |
| 3 | 2.0% | 2.0% | 2.0% | 1.9% | 1.7% | 1.5% | 1.2% |
| 4 | 3.3% | 3.3% | 3.3% | 3.1% | 2.8% | 2.6% | 2.3% |
| 5 | 9.6% | 4.3% | 1.6% | 0.4% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 6 | 0.0% | 5.3% | 5.4% | 3.7% | 1.4% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 7 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 2.6% | 4.8% | 5.3% | 3.2% | 0.0% |
| 8 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 1.1% | 3.5% | 5.9% | 5.4% |
| 9 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.4% | 2.1% | 5.4% |
| 10 | 60.5% | 60.5% | 60.5% | 60.5% | 60.5% | 60.7% | 61.5% |
| 11 | 21.4% | 21.4% | 21.4% | 21.4% | 21.4% | 21.4% | 21.5% |
| 12 | 1.7% | 1.7% | 1.7% | 1.7% | 1.7% | 1.7% | 1.7% |
| 13 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 14 | <0.1% | <0.1% | <0.1% | <0.1% | <0.1% | <0.1% | <0.1% |
| Average | 9.3 | 9.4 | 9.4 | 9.5 | 9.6 | 9.7 | 9.8 |
As you can see, their chance at moving up from 10th is very slim—no better than 15.9%, regardless of where New Orleans finishes. But that’s actually a better chance of them moving up than it would be without the swap, and with it, they can move up to a variety of positions 2–9. If Milwaukee finished 10th but was guaranteed to keep their own pick, they would only be able to move up to picks 1–4, and that would only happen 13.9% of the time. So as long as their record is better than the Pelicans’, they’re more likely to get a better pick than they would have otherwise; even if New Orleans is seventh, Milwaukee moves up more often.
I also want the Bucks’ pick to be as high as possible, but other teams—looking at you, Bulls—are better set up to tank, and have tanked harder or sooner than the Bucks. Let’s consider scenarios, though, where Milwaukee is able to slip lower and lower in the standings: what would happen to their chances of getting any given pick if they fell one spot to ninth?
| MIL Pick | NO 1st | NO 2nd | NO 3rd | NO 4th | NO 5th | NO 6th | NO 7th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 2 | 1.4% | 1.4% | 1.4% | 1.3% | 1.1% | 0.9% | 0.8% |
| 3 | 2.9% | 2.9% | 2.9% | 2.7% | 2.4% | 2.1% | 1.8% |
| 4 | 4.6% | 4.6% | 4.6% | 4.4% | 4.0% | 3.7% | 3.2% |
| 5 | 13.4% | 6.1% | 2.3% | 0.6% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 6 | 0.0% | 7.3% | 7.6% | 5.3% | 2.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 7 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 3.5% | 6.6% | 7.6% | 4.7% | 0.0% |
| 8 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 1.5% | 4.7% | 8.2% | 8.1% |
| 9 | 44.7% | 44.7% | 44.7% | 44.7% | 45.3% | 47.4% | 52.0% |
| 10 | 28.2% | 28.2% | 28.2% | 28.2% | 28.2% | 28.4% | 29.5% |
| 11 | 4.0% | 4.0% | 4.0% | 4.0% | 4.0% | 4.0% | 4.1% |
| 12 | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.1% |
| 13 | <0.1% | <0.1% | <0.1% | <0.1% | <0.1% | <0.1% | <0.1% |
| Average | 8.3 | 8.4 | 8.4 | 8.5 | 8.6 | 8.8 | 8.9 |
Sure, their average position improves since they climb up the lottery standings, as does their chance of moving up from ninth. And as long as New Orleans’ record remains bottom-five, their odds of rising above ninth are better than they would have been sans swap. But they’re still not good. What if they somehow tanked all the way down to the league’s sixth-worst record?
| MIL Pick | NO 1st | NO 2nd | NO 3rd | NO 4th | NO 5th | NO 6th | NO 7th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | n/a | 0.0% |
| 2 | 2.8% | 2.8% | 2.8% | 2.5% | 2.1% | n/a | 1.5% |
| 3 | 5.4% | 5.4% | 5.4% | 5.0% | 4.4% | n/a | 3.3% |
| 4 | 7.5% | 7.5% | 7.5% | 7.2% | 6.6% | n/a | 5.4% |
| 5 | 22.0% | 10.4% | 4.1% | 1.1% | 0.0% | n/a | 0.0% |
| 6 | 6.4% | 17.9% | 19.0% | 15.7% | 10.6% | n/a | 0.0% |
| 7 | 27.1% | 27.1% | 32.3% | 37.6% | 39.9% | n/a | 23.3% |
| 8 | 23.1% | 23.1% | 23.1% | 25.1% | 29.9% | n/a | 44.9% |
| 9 | 5.1% | 5.1% | 5.1% | 5.1% | 5.8% | n/a | 18.9% |
| 10 | 0.3% | 0.3% | 0.3% | 0.3% | 0.3% | n/a | 2.1% |
| 11 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | n/a | 0.1% |
| Average | 6.2 | 6.3 | 6.5 | 6.6 | 6.8 | n/a | 6.8 |
Herein lies the rub. They could tank and tank, improving their average pick position, but risk swapping back multiple spots. Even if the Pelicans have the league’s worst record, the odds the Bucks will be picking after sixth are 55.5%, with a 28.4% chance they fall multiple spots. And if New Orleans were to improve and finish fifth, then Milwaukee would be swapping back 75.8% of the time and dropping at least two spots in 36% of lottery outcomes. And if the Pelicans surpassed the Bucks, they lose their chance at sixth completely, and 65.9% of the time, they’d pick no better than eighth.
This goes along with what Jack was saying before the break: if the Bucks are going to tank, you have to do so relative to the Pelicans. Lose at the same rate as them, win at the same rate as them. But moreover, why go through all the trouble of tanking down to sixth when it only increases the likelihood you’ll have to move back? Yes, your pick is almost certainly better than if you hadn’t tanked, but most of the time you’ll be swapped back. That outcome gets more and more likely the closer you get to the Pelicans. And the Bucks finish seventh, they are statistically more likely to draft seventh than they would be to draft sixth if they finish sixth. So what’s the real benefit of finishing sixth when you’ll seldom receive that, let alone a more favorable pick?
Ultimately, this decision probably rests with Giannis. He won’t play tonight, but if he’s back soon, he wants to try for a postseason spot, even if it’s via the play-in. Recent comments suggest he has no interest in tanking, so the Bucks will go as Giannis goes. With an extension offer due to him in October, and persistent rumors that he could just ask for a trade before then swirling, Milwaukee should follow his preferred path if they want to keep him long-term. Unless he misses further time, in which case: roll the tanks! However, with how well the post-trade deadline Bucks have played, that might not be in the cards either.