What the Lottery Has Meant for the Bucks
The NBA Draft Lottery was created to dissuade tanking. Whether or not the lottery has succeeded, is up to your own judgment (Quick answer: no). Milwaukee did their best to tank their way to the top of the Greg Oden/Kevin Durant lottery, but the basketball Gods did not reward the regular efforts of Damir Markota and Jared Reiner. Milwaukee slipped right into the retreating arms of Easy Yi and the rest is history.
The Bucks made the playoffs every year for the first two incarnations of the lottery. In 1985, the order of the non-playoff teams were fully determined by the lottery and they all had an equal chance at the top pick. In 1987, they modified the lottery so only the first three picks were determined by lottery. All non-playoff teams had an equal shot at the top three picks and all other picks were determined by record. In 1990, they weighted the lottery. The worst team had 11 out of 66 chances to get the top pick; the second-worst team had 10 out of 66 chances and so on and so forth. The Bucks first foray into the lottery was in 1991. Since then the Bucks have been in the lottery more often than not and the NBA has changed the lottery system to be weighted out of 1000 combinations instead of 66.
| Year | Record | Projection | Prob at No. 1 (%) | Draft Position | Player |
| 1992 | 31-51 | 7 | 7.6 | 8 | Todd Day |
| 1993 | 28-54 | 6 | 9.1 | 8 | Vin Baker |
| 1994 | 20-62 | 4 | 16.3 | 1 | Glenn Robinson |
| 1995 | 34-48 | 9 | 1.5 | 11 | Gary Trent* |
| 1996 | 25-57 | 4 | 20.2 | 4 | Stephon Marbury** |
| 1997 | 33-49 | 10 | 1.5 | 10 | Danny Fortson*** |
| 1998 | 36-46 | 9 | 2.1 | 9 | Dirk Nowitzki**** |
| 2002 | 41-41 | 13 | 0.5 | 13 | Marcus Haislip |
| 2005 | 30-52 | 6 | 6.3 | 1 | Andrew Bogut |
| 2007 | 28-54 | 3 | 15.6 | 6 | Yi Jianlian |
| 2008 | 26-56 | 7 | 4.3 | 8 | Joe Alexander |
| 2009 | 34-48 | 10 | 1 | 10 | Brandon Jennings |
*traded to Portland along with a conditional ‘96 first-round pick for Shawn Respert
**traded to Minnesota for Ray Allen and a future first-round pick
*** traded to Denver along with Johnny Newman and Joe Wolf for Ervin Johnson
****traded to Dallas along with draft rights to Pat Garrity for Robert “Tractor” Traylor
It should also be noted that the Bucks drafted T.J. Ford in 2003 at the eighth spot. The pick came from a trade with the Atlanta Hawks that saw the Bucks trading Glenn Robinson for the lottery pick, Tony Kukoc and Leon Smith. So in all, the Bucks have had 13 lottery picks and have traded four of those picks.




