Williams has lottery luck

Nobody is more in demand during lottery week in the NBA than Pat Williams, the senior vice president of the Orlando Magic and embodiment of good luck.

Each team sends a representative to sit in on the lottery proceedings, which take place tonight in Secaucus, N.J. The Sixers are seeded 12th among the 14 lottery teams.

Williams has been part of four winning lotteries, one with the 76ers and three with Orlando.

As the Sixers' general manager in 1986, he represented the team when it won the lottery with a pick acquired from the then-San Diego Clippers.

The luck didn't last because the Sixers later traded it to Cleveland for Roy Hinson and cash. Hinson spent less than two seasons with the Sixers and was ineffective, while the Cavs used the top choice to select an eventual five-time all-star center in Brad Daugherty.

Williams left the Sixers the day after the 1986 draft to become general manager of the Magic. He has won three more lotteries in Orlando.

Williams spends this time of year discussing his good lottery fortune.

"It's a rite of passage because everybody has a lottery story to write and they call to Orlando and want to talk to me," Williams said last week in a telephone interview.

Williams said there was no explanation for his success other than old-fashioned good luck.

He said he had been besieged with good-luck items ranging from four-leaf clovers and rabbits' feet to Lucky Charm cereal boxes.

"I discovered that none of them work and it's not even worth trying to lug them all up to the lottery," Williams said. "The only thing that works are bad players. When you have bad players, you end up with a lot of Ping-Pong balls in the machine."

Williams, however, has won while the lottery employed different formats. With the Sixers, each of the seven playoff non-qualifiers was given one envelope and a 1-in-7 chance of receiving the top pick.

In 1992, the Magic were seeded second and received the top pick, taking Shaquille O'Neal. Orlando had 10 chances out of 66 to win the top pick.

The next year, the Magic were seeded 11th and had just one chance in 66 to receive the top pick. Voila! Williams again emerged with the No. 1 choice, taking Chris Webber.

The following year, the weighted system was modified, making it much more difficult for teams seeded in the lower portion of the lottery to move to the top.

Williams' most recent lottery win came in 2004, when Orlando used the top pick to select Dwight Howard. With the NBA's worst record, Orlando was the top seed and had a 25 percent chance of gaining the top pick.

That was also an interesting year for the 76ers, who were making their first lottery appearance since 1998.

President and general manager Billy King represented the team in Secaucus, aligned with one of the most impressive good-luck charms in lottery history. King brought a lucky horseshoe from Smarty Jones, who had won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness that year.

"He came prancing in with the Smarty Jones horseshoe, and nobody was hotter than Smarty Jones," Williams said. "It was pretty intimidating."

But it didn't work. The Sixers were seeded ninth before the lottery and stayed ninth.

Of course, there was luck involved that year. The Sixers, who had targeted Andre Iguodala, didn't think he would last until the ninth pick and were unsuccessful in attempting to trade up. Their luck improved when Toronto, picking eighth, selected immobile center Rafael Araujo from Brigham Young, allowing the Sixers to pick Iguodala.

This time, King won't be bringing any good-luck charms, according to Sixers officials. Then again, as the 12th-seeded lottery team, the Sixers have a 93.54 percent chance of remaining 12th.

There isn't much King can do to help the team's position, although with Orlando not participating, the Sixers wouldn't be faulted if they inquired about Williams' availability.

At No. 12, the 76ers have a 0.7 percent chance of getting the No.1 pick in tonight's NBA draft lottery drawing in Secaucus, N.J.

Here are the 14 teams' chances of getting the top spot, with the worst record providing the best chance.

1. Memphis     22-60 25.0

2. Boston        24-58 19.9

3. Milwaukee     28-54 15.6

4. Atlanta*        30-52 11.9

5. Seattle        31-51 8.8

6. Portland        32-50 5.3

7. Minnesota     32-50 5.3

8. Charlotte        33-49 1.9

9. New York**     33-49 1.9

10. Sacramento 33-49 1.8

11. Indiana***    35-47 1.8

12. SIXERS         35-47 0.7

13. New Orleans    39-43 0.6

14. L.A. Clippers   40-42 0.5

*Phoenix owns rights.

**Chicago owns rights.

***Atlanta owns rights.

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