Sam Hinkie's strategy for the Sixers down to luck

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For all the reporting about advanced sports analytics and Sam Hinkie's granular measures of performance, come Tuesday the Sixers non-tanking future relies on one thing - simple, dumb luck.

The irony must be frustrating for fans, who have defended Hinkie's moves with a blind loyalty ordinarily devoted to religious icons. The idea of putting together a team designed to lose for two straight seasons was made palatable with the hope that within 3-5 years, the Sixers would once again find themselves in the elite half of the NBA.

So how quickly that hope will materialize will become a lot more clear Tuesday night, when the NBA Draft Lottery will present a dramatic fork in the road. On the one hand, the team could potentially acquire two legitimate starters to share the court with Nerlens Noel and Joel Embiid. On the other hand, the Sixers could leave New York with just the No. 6 pick.

The good news is there's a 46.9 percent chance the team will pick in the top three, including a 15.6 percent shot at landing the No. 1 pick. Here's how the probabilities break down:

No. 1 - 15.6 percent chance
No. 2 - 15.7 percent chance
No. 3 - 15.6 percent chance
No. 4 - 22.6 percent chance
No. 5 - 26.5 percent chance
No. 6 - 4.0 percent chance

To play the odds yourself, check out our NBA Draft Lottery Simulator. For the record, it took me just two spins to land the No. 2 pick.

It seems like the consensus around basketball is the ideal situation for the Sixers is to land the No. 2 or No. 3 pick and take Ohio State's D'Angelo Russell. For his part, Russell sees himself as a good fit in Philadelphia, telling Keith Pompey, "They laid out a platform of what they are building. They are building an organization, and they definitely want me to be a part of that piece. So it was a great experience."

The Sixers could end the night with the No. 1, No. 6 and No. 11 picks, but according to LotteryBucket.com, there's less than a 1 percent chance of that happening. They could also land the Lakers' top-5 protected pick (17.2 percent chance) or the Heat's top-10 protected pick (9 percent chance).

The team has a 69.5 percent shot as landing a top four pick, which is a necessity considering Jahlil Okafor, Karl-Anthony Towns, and Emmanuel Mudiay are expected to join Russell as the top players taken. But if the Sixers take either Okafor or Towns, would that mean another "asset" trade involving Noel?

So will Hinkie's tanking strategy pay off, or are Sixers fans destined for another sub-20 win season? As I've said all along, I remain skeptical while hopeful his plan succeeds, if for no other reason than a desire not to lose upbeat head coach Brett Brown.

"When you say after 2 years, 'Where are we?' there's so much going on behind our record," Brown told Bob Cooney. "I love coaching those guys, because they gave their best effort."

And don't forget Michael Sokolove's scoop about Brown's analytics-friendly, battery-powered basketball:

One day while I was in his office, he had a basketball sitting in the corner that was plugged into an outlet, charging. He explained to me that a computer chip in it could measure the arc of shots, speed of passes and even how hard a player pounds his dribble. He had used the ball with his 10-year-old son's team, which he coached whenever his schedule allowed it, and was looking forward to trying it at a Sixers practice next season.

So tune in Tuesday night to see if the Sixers will be tanking again next season. Until then, here are some more Sixers toons: