The Raptors have been lucky before. Will it happen again in draft lottery?

CHICAGO — For all the moves the Toronto Raptors have made, for good and less so, under Masai Ujiri’s 12-year tenure as the team’s top decision maker, he’s always allowed for the over-indexing of luck.

Trades, hires, fires, draft picks — they all get scrutinized and replayed and what-iffed to death, but almost no amount of foresight eclipses the benefits or hindrances due almost wholly to the fates.

The Raptors were lucky that the New York Knicks kiboshed a proposed Kyle Lowry trade at the 11th hour in the fall of 2013, keeping him in a Toronto uniform for the six best seasons the franchise may ever have. They were unlucky that a global pandemic interrupted what seemed like a magical title defence in 2019-20, though there were bigger issues at hand, to be fair.

As the NBA gathers in Chicago for the lottery Monday night to determine the order of selections for next month’s draft, it’s hard not to look back at how luck has shaped the franchise’s short-term and intermediate-term futures in years past.

Ujiri himself will be looking forward. It’s expected that the Raptors president and vice-chairman will represent the team at the lottery, a departure from years past. It speaks to how significant the lottery could be in the Raptors’ immediate future, and maybe — as Ujiri heads into the last year of his contract — an opportunity that won’t come his way again.

For those not familiar, the lottery is not a euphemism. In the hour before the results are televised, 14 ping pong balls numbered 1-14 will be placed in a machine like the ones used by state lotteries “throughout the United States,” according to the NBA. The math says that there are 1,001 possible combinations of four numbers when four balls are drawn at random out of 14.

The 14 teams in the lottery are assigned combinations weighted according to where they finished in the standings. The worst three finishers (Utah, Washington and Charlotte) are each assigned 140 of the possible four-digit combinations — think of them as lottery tickets. The Raptors, who finished with the seventh-worst record, will be assigned 75 combinations, reflecting their 7.5 per cent chance of cashing in a winning ticket.

The machine mixes the balls for 20 seconds and the first numbered ball is removed and then mixed for 10 seconds before the second ball is moved, and again for the third and fourth balls. Whichever team has the combination (‘ticket’) corresponding with the numbers on the four balls drawn — 2-5-7-9, for example — is awarded the first overall pick.

The process is repeated three more times to determined picks two, three and four. After that the remaining nine teams — those not picking in the top four — are assigned their pick based on the reverse order of the standings.

If it sounds a bit confusing (I recommend this video, actually), it is. But the real message is this: it really comes down to luck.

If the right combinations come up, the Raptors will be drafting Duke star Cooper Flagg, the unquestioned No. 1 pick, and a player good enough, versatile enough and seemingly mature enough that it’s easy to imagine him anchoring a championship contender for a decade-plus, Tim Duncan style.

But luck cuts many ways. In 2006 luck seemed to be in the Raptors’ favour, but was it?

Toronto was projected to pick sixth but had an 8.8 per cent chance of getting the No. 1 pick and their number came up. For a moment it seemed like the Raptors’ future was set. Under the guidance of then-general manager Bryan Colangelo, Toronto selected Andrea Bargnani, a seven-foot centre with perimeter skills who the Raptors’ brain trust was convinced was going to be a Dirk Nowitzki-Pau Gasol hybrid and carry the franchise for a decade or more.

Instead, he proved both a reluctant centre and suspect shooter and is now best known for his pasta commercials. And it’s not even like Bargnani was a horrible pick as the 2006 draft class provided more lemon than lemonade, league-wide: three of the top five picks (Adam Morrison, Tyus Thomas and Sheldon Williams) were busts of varying description. The draft’s best player, Brandon Roy, taken sixth overall, was out of league after six seasons due to pre-existing knee problems. LaMarcus Aldridge, who was taken second overall and played 16 seasons and made six all-star teams, would have been the right pick. But even in his prime, playing with Damian Lillard in Portland, he only won one playoff series. The only Hall of Famer (potentially) in the draft is Lowry, who was taken 21st by Memphis and didn’t hit his stride until he was with the Raptors seven years later.

The last time the Raptors entered the draft lottery in the seventh position was in 2021, when they jumped three spots to fourth overall and chose Scottie Barnes, the playmaking wing out of Florida State. Barnes was almost instantly tagged as the franchise’s cornerstone for the future and showed his promise with a rookie-of-the-year season and Eastern Conference all-star team selection in Year 3.

Moving up and choosing Barnes was a stroke of luck to be sure, but so far it’s No. 1 overall pick Cade Cunningham, a shoo-in for all-NBA honours this season after leading Detroit to the playoffs, and No. 3 overall pick Evan Mobley, winner of the Defensive Player of the Year honours and another likely all-NBA selection after helping Cleveland to the No. 1 seed in the East, who have been most impactful in Barnes’ draft class.

But four seasons removed from the playoffs, the Raptors could use some luck like almost never before. Drafting a ready-made star would be a cost-effective addition — quality players on rookie deals are the best value in the NBA — to a team that has a chance to be competitive in the Eastern Conference but is already having to figure out how to maneuver around a bulging payroll. There is also the chance of the Raptors using their pick to grease the wheels of off-season trades that could jumpstart a return to competitive relevance sooner than a teenager’s development curve could be expected to do.

The entire 2024-25 season was sacrificed at the altar of the upcoming draft class. Flagg is considered the only sure-fire star but some other players — including Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey out of Rutgers — have the tools for stardom if everything else comes together. There are players projected to be taken in the late lottery that the Raptors have made multiple trips to Europe to keep tabs on. These players, Noa Essenge, Nolan Traore and Joan Beringer, to name three, are lower-profile prospects who could be late movers in the draft. After all, the lottery ball can bounce the wrong way too: there is the potential for the Raptors to slide all the way back to 10th, although there is just a 1.3 per cent chance of that.

Should it happen, it would be due to plain bad luck. But that’s part of the equation at the draft lottery, too.

Basketball executives can plan all they want, but it doesn’t mean the lottery gods won’t laugh.

More from Sportsnet

The kids are alright: Impressive Raptors rookies speeding up rebuild

Masai Ujiri keeping Raptors aligned as locker room changes shape