On the day he was fired, former Hawks general manager Pete Babcock joked that, considering the run of bad luck that expedited his exit, "the team will win the lottery" now that he's gone.

No, the bad luck continues without Babcock.

The Hawks did not win the NBA draft lottery Thursday --- that honor went to the Cleveland Cavaliers, who now can grab home-state high school phenom LeBron James. And the Hawks didn't get a lottery pick at all because of the trade Babcock made last summer to acquire Glenn Robinson.

Needing to secure a spot in the top three, the Hawks wound up at No. 8, meaning the Milwaukee Bucks get the pick as compensation for the Robinson deal.

"No such luck," Hawks director of basketball operations Billy Knight said from his hotel room in Secaucus, N.J. after NBA deputy com- missioner Russ Granik passed along the bad news. "It wasn't meant to be."

More troubling for Knight, the Hawks --- with a 3.37 percent chance --- came one ball from getting the No. 2 pick.