Teams play odds

NEW YORK – After the worst season in NBA history, the Charlotte Bobcats could use a player such as Anthony Davis.

Unfortunately for Michael Jordan’s team, it’s been a long time since lottery luck shined on the team needing it most.

The Bobcats hope that trend ends tonight, when they have the best odds of earning the No. 1 pick in next month’s draft.

Charlotte has a 25 percent chance of victory, the reward for its 7-59 record that was the lowest winning percentage (.106) in league history. Davis is the college player of the year after leading Kentucky to the national championship. He is considered the top prize available.

Not since 2004, when the Orlando Magic drafted Dwight Howard, has the team with the worst record won the lottery. Minnesota dropped a spot to second last year, when the Cleveland Cavaliers moved up with a pick owed to them by the Los Angeles Clippers and took Rookie of the Year Kyrie Irving.

The Bobcats, who dropped their final 23 games, appear in much more dire straits than some teams that were able to recover from their lottery letdowns.

“You could make the case that they don’t have, at any position, a top-15 player at their position. So they’re not in the top half of starters at any place on their roster, which is a tough place to be and that’s why a guy like Anthony Davis, if they do draft him, he’s going to be expected to turn it around. But there are no quick fixes,” former NBA coach and current ESPN analyst Jeff Van Gundy said Tuesday.

The lottery is back in New York for the first time since 1993, moving to the Disney/ABC Times Square Studio from Secaucus, N.J.

Maybe that’s a good omen for the Nets, who are also going from New Jersey to New York. The now Brooklyn Nets have a 7.5 percent chance of moving up from the No. 6 spot to land the top pick, and if they don’t end up in the top three their selection goes to Portland as part of this season’s Gerald Wallace trade.

The Cavaliers are hoping lightning strikes twice.

Last year, owner Dan Gilbert’s 15-year-old son, Nick, proved to be a lucky charm when he represented the team at the drawing in New Jersey. The Cavs are sending Nick again along with the same traveling party that brought the team luck a year ago.

General manager Rich Cho will be on stage for the Bobcats, whose odds are best (35.8 percent) of picking fourth. The lottery sets the top three picks, with the remainder of the 14 participants drafting in inverse order of their records.

The draft is June 28 in Newark, N.J.