With each team in the NBA having no more than three games remaining and the tanking talk hotter than ever, I thought it might be valuable to lay out the potential scenarios presented to the ping-pong ball chasers. For an explanation of how the lottery works see here. As of Saturday morning, April 12th the standings look thusly:

I show the top six because after running "best" and "worst" scenarios Milwaukee always stayed in 7th (in this post best and worst use the Wolves' lottery odds as a frame of reference). So even if the Clippers win their last three (all on the road, no less) and the Bucks lose their last three, the Bucks will still be 7th in the lottery rankings.

The other "known known," as McNamara Part Deux was fond of saying, is that Miami always comes out on top. In other words, if Miami wins their last three and Seattle loses their remaining two games, Miami still has a worse record.

From the Wolves' point-of-view, then, the lottery odds will rank between 2 and 6. In terms of draft picks, it means the best we could pick is #1 and the worst we could pick is #9 (the latter occurring if three teams with better records get the #1, #2 and #3 picks; the odds of that happening are less than 0.5%).

Here are said "Best" and "Worst" case scenarios for your perusal:

As you can see, the best lottery position Minnesota can hope for is 2nd. That doesn't mean that we can't get the #1 pick, of course; just that it's impossible for us to have the best odds. What's more is that the best we can hope for is also a tie for 2nd place, wherein we would have the same odds as Seattle (again, check out the explanation for more info).

Here is what those who hope to see Mad Dog chuck threes next Wednesday are terrified of.

While I personally remain anti-tanking and hope the Wolves rattle off three in a row (especially given the momentum of tonight's road win squeaker), we'll need a bit of luck on our side no matter how well or poorly we play these last three games.