When the Utah Jazz lost to the Sacramento Kings back in October, there wasn't much to read into at the time, but months later, losses like those loom large, especially now. The Kings won their second consecutive game last night against the New Orleans, which, combined with the Jazz's loss to the Houston Rockets, now ties them with the Kings in the tanking standings.
Why is that so important? Well, the Jazz are currently tied with the Kings as the fourth-worst team in the NBA. If it stays that way or the Kings win one game as the Jazz lose out, it would either give Utah a 100% chance of keeping their pick away from the Oklahoma City Thunder or, at minimum, give them the chance to (check Tankathon for reference). Granted, being the fifth-worst team gave them 99.4% chance of doing the same, but still.
What makes this even odder is that back in February, the Kings were the NBA's worst team, once sporting a 12-45 record, but have since strangely strung together enough wins to suddenly now be tied with the Jazz, one of the NBA's unashamed tankers.
Why did they do this? Your guess is as good as ours! But no one in Utah is complaining. The Jazz still have to lose all their games, and if the Kings do too, then this would all get decided by a coin flip. Even so, Sacramento has helped Utah potentially avoid a doomsday scenario. Whether it gets even better is anyone's guess, but even if it doesn't, the Jazz are grateful it played out this way.
In all fairness, the Kings didn't enter this season hoping to be in this position, but because of rampant injuries, they now find themselves here. Maybe that's why they've suddenly been on somewhat of a roll - to prove it wasn't supposed to be like this, no matter how little sense that makes - but whatever the motive or rationale is, it perfectly coincides with the Jazz's intentions.
To put a cherry on top, Sacramento also beat New Orleans, a team that has also played a hand in helping the Jazz avoid conveying their pick to the Thunder.
And hey! Better lottery odds!
So much fuss has been made about whether the Jazz will keep their pick that it has overshadowed the fact that the worse their record is, the better their lottery odds will be. If they get the fourth-worst record, they actually have the same odds to get a top-four pick as they would if they had the fifth-worst record.
But at least their odds would most likely give them the sixth pick at worst as opposed to the seventh, so yeah, a win is a win no matter what.
The Jazz already put in a pretty admirable effort to ensure OKC wouldn't get their hands on their pick, but making sure they avoided a disaster altogether required some outside help. For unknown reasons, the Kings were willing to oblige them there.