Monty Williams believes that the current lottery system is the best method to determine the draft order.

Williams said the Hornets have no intention of ever trying to tank their way to a high pick.

“If it was just based on the order of records, I think you’d see more of the stuff we saw down the stretch, of teams just tanking games and guys sitting out and not playing hard and things of that nature,” said Williams, who’ll be attending a lottery for the first time. “That was a bit disappointing, kind of watching that whole thing.

“The one thing people forget is that players know when you’re doing that. We weren’t going to do that. That’s the last message I wanted to send to our guys, that we were trying to tank games. I feel with doing things the right way, at least we can sleep at night. It may not always work out for you, but at least you can sleep at night.”

Williams would prefer to improve through hard work and attention to detail.

“You have to work for your breaks,” Williams said. “I certainly believe working makes your breaks. That that’s what we’ve been doing. Our young guys have been in the gym, going through a minicamp the past two weeks. That’s the strategy we’ve put in place.

“You can’t control those ping pong balls. At the end of the day we want to be able to put a good team on the floor that some day will be playing in the conference finals. And if things go well (tonight), that’s another step in the right direction.”