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The Detroit Pistons were tied with the Houston Rockets and San Antonio Spurs for the top odds (14.0%) to win the 2023 NBA draft lottery.
However, the ping pong balls didn’t fall Detroit’s way on Tuesday night, as in a worst-case scenario, the Pistons fell to No. 5. That came as the San Antonio Spurs won the draft lottery, followed by the Charlotte Hornets at No. 2. The top 4 was rounded out by the Portland Trail Blazers and Houston Rockets.
Following the results of the draft lottery, Pistons fans took to Twitter to express their disappointment. That comes as Detroit missed out on the opportunity to draft 7' 5" French basketball phenom Victor Wembanyama, despite finishing with a league-worst 17-65 record.
“Tanked for nothing,” one fan said.
“Can't have sh*t in Detroit,” another said.
However, there were a few Pistons fans who tried to remain optimistic following the announcement of Detroit landing the fifth pick:
“Sometimes life throws curveballs like Detroit got screwed, but remember, setbacks are just setups for comebacks. Stay resilient, rise above, and rewrite your own success story!” one fan said.
“I’m glad he’s in the Western Conference if we couldn’t have him,” another said.
Here are a few more of the top fan reactions on Twitter to the Detroit Pistons falling to No. 5 in the draft lottery:
Detroit Pistons had best odds of landing No. 5 pick
Detroit Pistons fans may be extremely disappointed with their team falling to No. 5 in the 2023 NBA draft lottery. However, as many have pointed out, the Pistons actually had a higher chance of landing No. 5 (47.9%) than any other position:
“The Pistons went into the lottery with a 14 percent chance to land the No. 1 pick and 13.4, 12.7 and 12.0 percent chances of winding up with the second, third and fourth picks. Houston and San Antonio shared those odds. The Pistons, though, had a 47.9 percent chance to land on five, their only other possible outcome,” NBA.com’s Keith Langlois wrote.
The NBA decided to reduce the top lottery odds for the teams with the worst record in the league starting in 2019. The NBA did so in an effort to disincentivize tanking.
Since then, most would agree that the draft lottery has been much more unpredictable. So, it looks like some Pistons fans learned the hard way that tanking doesn’t always pay off.
