Aspiring pop singer gets a high draft pick.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: While the biggest takeaway most people had from this week’s NBA Draft Lottery was how on earth the Cleveland Cavaliers managed to score the #1 overall pick with just a 1.7% chance of doing so, Sacramento Kings’ owner Vivek Ranadive’s daughter also made a splash.
Anjali Ranadive, the youngest of Vivek Ranadive’s three children, represented the Kings at the NBA Draft Lottery on Tuesday night, drawing the number that ultimately gave the team the eighth overall pick in the June 26 NBA Draft. The Kings, which had an unspectacular season, were not expected to score a draft slot that high, leading several commentators on social media to dub Ranadive as the team’s good luck charm.
Unlike the NFL or most other major professional sports, which rank teams at the end of each season from worst-to-best and issue them draft slots based on that, the NBA employs a lottery. In this system, a team’s record earns them a certain number of lottery balls, which are in a machine that jumbles them all up (much like a real lottery does). The worse your team is, the higher a chance it has at getting the #1 overall pick, but it doesn’t guarantee that you will.
This year, the Milwaukee Bucks were the NBA’s worst team, with a record of just 15 wins to 67 losses. Out of 1,000 total lottery balls issued, the Bucks received 250, or 25% of them. The Philadelphia 76ers – which had an almost record-breaking 30-game losing streak during the season – was the second-worst team, and got 199 lottery balls, or about 20%.
The Kings, which were the seventh-worst team last season with a record of 28-54, got 43 lottery choices, and had only a 4.3% chance of getting the first overall pick. Their chances of getting the #8 pick were much higher, however, at just 23.2%, and Ranadive managed to get that.
Ranadive, an aspiring pop singer, has been a mainstay at Kings games since her father became a majority owner last year. The UC Berkeley graduate performed memorably at halftime during the Kings’ Bollywood Night celebration earlier this year.
The Kings, a mid-size market team that has fended off initiatives to re-locate the franchise to Seattle because of dwindling attendance numbers, is in re-building mode, as it attempts to surge back into relevance in a crowded Western Conference. While the Eastern half of the NBA remains largely uninspired, save for three or four teams, the Western Conference is packed to the brim with talented franchises, meaning the Kings need to draft wisely to have any shot at the playoffs next season.
With a strong talent pool emerging out of the NCAA for this year’s draft, the Kings stand to pick up a very promising recruit with a top 10 draft pick. If the Kings are wise, they’ll send Anjali Ranadive to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn for the NBA Draft in June, so she can bring back a winner.