As everyone reading this knows by now, the Celtics have a 38.7% shot at getting the number 1 or 2 pick tonight (and thus one of the grand prizes of this year’s draft â€" Greg Oden or Kevin Durant). At first blush, that percentage doesn’t look so great, and we are all bracing ourselves for the worst. But then we started thinking of all of the things that are worse than 38.7%:
1) 34.8% - The Celtics’ combined win-loss record over the past two years.
So the Celtics have a better chance at landing Oden or Durant than they did at winning a game the last 2 years. Feel better? No? Sorry. Let’s continue.
2) 37.1% - Telfair’s 2006-07 shooting percentage (well, shooting percentage with a basketball that is). Unfortunately, we suspect the percentage of nights Danny Ainge woke up his wife while screaming “Brandon Roy!†in his sleep is much higher.
3) 36% - The percent of Americans who can name the current President of Russia. Can you? Yeah, but the first Italian player likely to be drafted this year, that one you know. We’re kind of a disturbed lot, aren’t we?
4) 34.8% - The percentage of regular season games Raef LaFrentz has played in the last four years since being traded from Dallas.  The percentage of games anyone wanted him to play: 0.3%. There was that first one before we discovered how terrible he’d become…
5) 3.3% (estimated) - The odds that Knick fans will cheer their pick on draft night. Since Patrick Ewing in 1985, we think Maciej Lampe is the only player in the last 20 years who got a smattering of applause. How’d that one work out for them?
6) 0.00% - According to basketball-reference.com, the chance that the only former number one pick on the Celtics roster this past season, Michael Olowokandi, will make it into the Hall of Fame. We think it’s lower.
7) -100% - Doc Rivers’ chance of making it into the Hall of Fame as a coach.  Doc actually has to pay double admission to get in as a tourist, and then is only admitted if he agrees not to get within 50 feet of the Red Auerbach bust.
8) 35% - President Bush’s current approval rating.
9) 35% - And, in the spirit of bipartisanship, Congress’ current approval rating. Nice job everyone, keep up the good work.
10)Â ? - The combined current approval ratings among Celtics fans of Wyc, Danny, and Doc (we currently have skilled mathematicians working to find enough digits after the decimal point to produce an actual number).