The Los Angeles Lakers are hoping to keep their top-3 protected lottery pick for the 2016 draft but they won't lose games on purpose to do so.
If the Lakers finish with the NBA's second worst record, they would have a 55.83% chance of keeping the pick on lottery night — a 19.9% shot at the No. 1 pick, 18.81% at No. 2 and 17.12% at the third pick.
“You don’t go out there trying to lose basketball games,” he said Wednesday. “I think that’s a bad way to present that to your team, ‘We’re trying to lose so we can protect the top-three pick.’ That’s a bad omen to me.
“It sets a bad precedent to me, especially this organization and the people that’s been in this organization for a long time and understand what this organization is all about, we’ve never been like that and never will be. So I would never, even behind closed doors, tell my players, tell my coaches, tell my trainers or anybody that we were trying to lose games on purpose to protect the pick.”
Scott continued to elaborate on his thought process.
“I’m not coaching, looking at the clock, going, ‘All right, man, if we can just turn it over a few more times and miss a few more shots, this game is in the bag as far as a loss is concerned.’ That’s not me,” he said. “We’re trying to win every game and trying to build something with the young guys that we have here.”
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