NBA Draft Lottery 2014: The Cavaliers have a slim chance of getting a top 3 pick

The NBA Draft Lottery is tonight in New York City. In past year's Fear the Sword has had somebody (me) there to cover the event, but unfortunately I'm not going this time. So I'll be sitting on my couch, watching the unnecessarily long event like the rest of you guys. Sidenote: seriously, the thing takes WAY too long. It starts at 8:00 PM and they end up revealing the top three picks at like 8:27 PM before the playoff game starts. This could all be done in 30 seconds, but hey, people watch it.

As I said, the NBA Draft Lottery is tonight and it starts at 8:00 PM Eastern on ESPN. The Cleveland Cavaliers have the 9th best chance at getting the first overall pick. That means there's only a 1.7% chance that the Cavs end up having the #1 overall pick in back to back years. The worst that the Cavs can end up picking is 12th, but that's obscenely unlikely to happen. Most likely, the Cavs will end up picking 9th in the draft and there's an 81.3% chance of that happening. There's a 12.2% chance that the Cavs end up falling back one spot, receiving the 10th overall pick.

While the Cavs only have a 1.7% chance of picking first overall, they have a 6.1% chance of selecting in the top 3. So those odds are...still pretty terrible. Of course, anything can happen. But unlike the past couple of years, the NBA Draft Lottery figures to be a pretty boring event for Cavs fans.

It's also notable that magical sorcerer and son of Cavs' owner, Nick Gilbert won't be representing the Cavs at the lottery. It will just be David Griffin. Hopefully David Griffin is a sorcerer too.

The Milwaukee Bucks are the team with the best chance at selecting first overall because they had the worst record in the NBA this year. But remember, the "best chance" is still only 25%.

SOME OTHER THINGS TO READ.

So that's your primer for the NBA Draft Lottery tonight. We'll have an open thread (remember those!?) to discuss it and react to the incredibly anticlimactic results when the Cavs end up sticking in their same #9 slot.

Assuming that the Cavs do pick 9th overall, here's some mock draftery for you to check out:

• DraftExpress.com has the Cavs selecting Jusuf Nurkic, an international center. He's a big young dude from Bosnia. I know quite little about him, but he has a cool name.
• Meanwhile, Chad Ford at ESPN.com has the Cavaliers selecting Aaron Gordon from Arizona.

And here's Dan Feldman at Pro Basketball Talk explaining to you why there's a 100% chance that the lottery is rigged this year.