I have a confession to make. I suck at math. Actually, I am good at basic math (your addition, subtraction, multiplication and what have you), but once you get up to Algebra, it typically goes in one ear and out the other. I was once good at the subject, but since it has been nearly 15 years since I had to solve anything for x, let's just say I am entirely rusty.

I bring this up because with the NBA Draft Lottery taking place a week from today, plenty of people are asking questions about the likelihood of various scenarios to play out for the Hawks. We covered a lot of the territory last week, breaking down the percentages for the Hawks keeping their own pick or obtaining Indiana's.

However, there is more territory to explore. Specifically, what are the chances of each of the four scenarios happening?

To refresh those who are too lazy to click the link in the above paragraph, there are four potential outcomes for the Hawks in the Lottery:

1) Keep Hawks pick, add Indy's pick
2) Keep Hawks pick, lose Indy's pick
3) Lose Hawks pick, add Indy's pick
4) Lose Hawks pick, lose Indy's pick

Since I am bad at math (and statistics, and economics, and balancing a checkbook, etc), I farmed out the heavy lifting on this to Dr. Steve Walton, a business professor at the esteemed Goizueta Business School at Emory. Actually, he is the Interim Associate Dean and Program Director of the Full-Time MBA Programs and Assistant Professor in the Practice of Decision and Information Analysis (that is a LOT to fit on a business card). So he's got that going for him, which is nice.

Over a cup of coffee, Walton was able to produce a power point document that sums up the probabilities of each scenario for the Hawks. Definitely check out his findings, but I will summarize the necessary information I gleaned from it.

Basically, the chances of Indiana moving up to nab a top-three pick are very slim, making the odds of each outcome very similar to the lottery odds listed for each team. So, if the Hawks have a roughly 39% chance of moving into the top three, they similarly have around a 38% chance of keeping their pick and getting the Pacers'. Here is the full chart:

So, it's pretty clear. The most likely scenario is that we lose our pick to Phoenix and gain Indiana's, but there is still a pretty solid chance that we could end up with two picks in the lottery.

I don't know about you, but I cannot wait for Tuesday to get here.