Spurs are nearly locked into having the best odds to land the number 1 pick. So I ran 10,000 draft simulations. Here are the results

[offset formation]

Not sure if what you want to ask is exactly how you have this question worded, but except for possibly a very small number of iterations, the mean will never equal the mode (the most common result) except for those teams with very low odds of moving up (with these odds, only team 13 and 14 made their rounded mean = their mode). The mean is the Expected Position in Ariel's table, whereas the mode (over time) will be the pick in red in Ariel's table.

The mode is not tremendously valuable information, because as has been pointed out, you only get one spin. You can look at Slot 3 and say that the most common result is Pick 6 - but that should not be interpreted as it being most likely we get pick 6 since there is still a 74% chance we do NOT get pick 6. We are far more likely to not get Pick 6 that we are to get Pick 6.

Good stuff. Thanks Scott.

[offset formation]

This is a matter of semantics, but you do get precisely 14% odds, but you only get one chance, meaning the outcome is either 100% or 0%. But the probably is still precisely 14.000000000000000000000000000000%

Yes, in the draft you get this, but not in the simulated runs. I wasn't clear with what I meant. Which I suppose as someone said above underscores the meaninglessness of this entire discussion.

[MannyIsGod]

Yea, because we're unsure if it takes 10,000 or a million or whatever tries to shake out the stated probabilities at ~14% instead of 13 3% or 15.1% or whatever.

I took statistics in college and got an A but I know plenty of really smart people that struggled with this class.. The NBA draft odds are not something one understands intuitively because you don't get precisely 14% odds. It has to pare down, revert to the mean if you will, over a mul ude of runs. That's all that's being discussed here.

It doesn't matter how many runs of a function it takes to reach the mean. The probability is the probability. You DO get precisely 14% odds my dude. That is the point. You're honestly just making the case for my point perfectly. Probability is not determined by what the percentage of an event having happened after N number of tries is. Probability is the inherent chance of an event occurring. If you run a simulation that results with the Spurs getting the first pick 100 times in a row, whats their probability of that happening again on the 101st time? 14%.

EDIT: Should have read ahead, I see Scott already covered this.

[offset formation]

It doesn't matter how many runs of a function it takes to reach the mean. The probability is the probability. You DO get precisely 14% odds my dude. That is the point. You're honestly just making the case for my point perfectly. Probability is not determined by what the percentage of an event having happened after N number of tries is. Probability is the inherent chance of an event occurring. If you run a simulation that results with the Spurs getting the first pick 100 times in a row, whats their probability of that happening again on the 101st time? 14%.

EDIT: Should have read ahead, I see Scott already covered this.

This isn't correct. And not the point of Scott's post

[tonight...you]

Interesting. Finishing 3rd worst means you have only about a 40% chance of a top 3 pick.

True. Same as the 2nd worst and THE worst.

[MannyIsGod]

My dude, its absolutely correct, but if you want to believe its not and that the probability is somehow different then by all means. Only making my point about how bad people are at understanding probability for me.

[MannyIsGod]

True. Same as the 2nd worst and THE worst.

Yeah but it does mean you have a 0% probability to getting worse than the 5th pick where as the 3rd worst record has that happen about one third of the time.

[tonight...you]

Yeah but it does mean you have a 0% probability to getting worse than the 5th pick where as the 3rd worst record has that happen about one third of the time.

This is true. I was just addressing your statement straight. Not bringing in other things that you had not mentioned in said post.

[The Truth #6]

So about those Spurs…lol

[MarCowMar]

OK, to remove doubts, this simulation is a one liner on Matlab:

sum(rand(1, 1000000000) < 0.14) / 1000000000

That's one BILLION runs. Results a few seconds later:

• 0.139993920
• 0.140003561

Conclusions: 14% means 14 F'ING PERCENT!!!!

I ran the same numbers in chatgpt and got a better result...

[Ariel]

You're in Skynet's sh!tlist. Watch out.

[tonight...you]

I ran the same numbers in chatgpt and got a better result...

Lol. Love ChatGPT for coding (80% of it anyways), but it is so off on so many things.
Very cool tool though.

[Ariel]

This thread is all over the place

[scott]

This thread is a great reminder that I am a significantly nicer person than MannyIsGod

[MannyIsGod]

This thread is a great reminder that I am a significantly nicer person than MannyIsGod

What's the confidence on the significance?

[scott]

What's the confidence on the significance?

I feel like the CI of me being nicer these days is the same as the CI of you being a better poker player, but of which have increased significantly over the years. These two variables may also have an r-value of 0.9 over the years, but the causal relationship is still to be determined.

(I'm just kidding, you're still a nice guy, but I am a considerably worse poker player these days)

[Thomas82]

I ran the same numbers in chatgpt and got a better result...

Whether or not it happens like that, which I doubt, it's been 26 years since the last time the Spurs got the #1 pick. It definitely wouldn't be unfair.

[Sugus]

I ran the same numbers in chatgpt and got a better result...

It is insane that a robot wrote this. Absolutely insane. Thanks.

[Ariel]