Written by Demetri Inembolidis

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The NBA lottery is a game of chance and luck.  Tact, skill and technique are not something that help a team succeed or fail in the lottery.  It is simple a matter of odds and landing the lucky numbers.

On April 27 the NBA held a coin flip to determine whether the Cavaliers or New Orleans Hornets would secure the third best odds for the first overall selection.  The outcome was temporarily favorable for Cleveland when they won the coin flip.

Unfortunately for the franchise, that coin flip cost the team the rights to the first draft choice and the rights to select Anthony Davis.

The significance of this bad sequence of events cannot be overstated.  The Charlotte Hornets had an all-time worst 10.6% win percentage in the past season.  This clearly would not be the case had they not missed out on Derrick Rose by one win.  

A lot can change between now and the NBA draft on June 28, but it appears as if the first three players selected will be Anthony Davis and (in no particular order) Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Bradley Beal.  Considering that Davis is the obvious first pick and that the Charlotte Bobcats and Washington Wizards could use wing help.  Using this logic, it appears as if the Cavs are going to have to choose between Andre Drummond, Thomas Robinson and Harrison Barnes with the fourth pick.

The difference between the top three players in the draft and the players available with the fourth pick and onward is probably a large one.  The Cavs appear to have the fourth pick in a three player draft.  

It is easy to play the “what if?” game, but it doesn’t always work out.  Had the Cavs lost the coin flip, they would be the first team to pick first in two straight drafts since the Orlando Magic did so in 1992 and 1993.  Perhaps the people who push the anti-tank narrative would become more vocal and the league would fold to the pressure to make the incentive to lose games less drastic.  A “Butterfly Effect” can be discussed for days and all of the possible outcomes would not be discussed.  

What we do know is that the Cavs literally missed out on Anthony Davis and the best young one-two punch in the league over a flip of a coin.  Instead, they have to try and figure out a way to build a roster with a young core of Kyrie Irving, Tristan Thompson and a player whose impact is less drastic than Anthony Davis.

The Cavs front office will spin the situation into being a positive one.  Some fans will as well.  Considering that the team was teetering with the 8th playoff spot for much of the season, having a high lottery pick is not the worst thing in the world.  But the team was so close.  They were right there.  It came down to the most simple tie-breaker in the world.

A coin flip is something customarily used to determine which friend gets to sit in the front seat and who is stuck in the back seat on a long road trip.  Coin flips should be used to determine who is stuck picking up the tab for a lunch that will be long-forgotten by the end of the day.  A coin flip is almost always used to break a tie in the most trivial of situations.  For the Cavs, a coin flip was used to change the fortunes of a multi-million dollar franchise and it will ultimately result in making it more difficult for Chris Grant to make the roster a desirable one for Kyrie Irving to spend his prime in.  

The coin flip may have screwed the Cavs and this is going to be a very difficult outcome for the team to overcome.  We will never know how things may have transpired had the Cavs lost the coin flip or the Bobcats won another game.  The lottery and futures of many franchises is affected by the smallest of circumstances.  It is madenning to think that the future could have changed had one little thing gone differently.