OKC Thunder: Tank wars 2.0, assessing week 18
With the final month of the season underway, the OKC Thunder have 13 games remaining and only one match this weekend.
The Thunder will play their second match versus the Washington Wizards this week and enter Friday night’s match having lost 12 games in a row. While it’s never fun to watch repeatedly losing the ends will hopefully justify the means as OKC seeks to improve their draft position.
Recently, Intentions offered up the first of the tank wars overview with a look at week 17 and specifically the weekend. This weekend, we’re back to take a look at the progress of the teams invested in tanking and offer up the overview of the weekend.
OKC Thunder tank wars overview for weekend 18 of gameplay
To reiterate, the OKC Thunder gets the two most favorable picks from their own, the Heat and Rockets picks. The caveat on that equation is Houston’s pick is top-four protected and won’t be solidified until the lottery.
Entering play on Friday, April 23rd, here’s the order of the current 14 lottery teams. Each team’s odds of winning the top draft pick in the lottery is noted in brackets (0.0%) by percentage.
- Houston Rockets: (14%)
- Minnesota Timberwolves: (14%)
- Detroit Pistons (14%)
- Orlando Magic (12.5%)
- OKC Thunder (10.5%)
- Cleveland Cavaliers (9%)
- Sacramento Kings (7.5%)
- Chicago Bulls (*note re: Magic), (5.3.0%) | Toronto Raptors (5.2%)
- (^^ Bulls and Raptors essentially tied)
- Washington Wizards (3%)
- New Orleans Pelicans (2.0%)
- Indiana Pacers (1.5%)
- Golden State Warriors (1.0%)
- San Antonio Spurs (0.5%)
Notes:
- The Magic own Chicago’s pick (1-4 protections)
- The Heat shifted from 19th to 17th this week.
- In spite of a four-game win streak the Raptors dropped
Weekend tank wars:
Diving into the main tanking teams here’s how the clubs fared through week 18 and what games are on tap this weekend…