It’s a b-e-a-uuuuutiful Tuesday, folks. For sports, at least. It’s thunderstorming here in my neck of the woods, but I won’t let that dull my shine, because…

We’ve got the 2022-23 NBA Conference Finals tipping off. We’ve got the NBA Draft lottery tonight — AKA, one of the most important draft lotteries ever, with generational prospect Victor Wembanyama on the line. The WNBA season starts this week. I’m gushing. 😃 

Let’s dive into today’s goods. ⬇️ 

• What to know about the NBA Conference Finals

• A corgi predicts the Lakers-Nuggets series 🔮 

• How the draft lottery works

Lakers vs. Nuggets series starts tonight!

How to watch Game 1: Tuesday (tonight!), 8:30 p.m. ET on ESPN and ESPN+

Who’s favored to advance to the NBA Finals? The Nuggets are slight favorites to win the Western Conference Finals at -165, where it would take a $165 bet to win $100 in profit! The Lakers are underdogs to win the series at +140, where a $100 bet would win $140 in profit.

Considering the Lakers weren’t even favored to make it out of the Play-In Tournament, consider me impressed that the odds are as close as they are!

What to know about the Nuggets: Nikola Jokic may have missed out on 22-23 NBA MVP, but he’s sure putting himself in the running to make up for it in the postseason. Fun fact: Jokic has more triple-doubles in the playoffs this season (5) than any other player in the postseason combined (Steph Curry, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bam Adebayo each had 1).

What to know about the Lakers: LeBron James. That’s it. That’s the tweet. Never, ever, ever count out LeBron James.

This really, really skilled and adorable corgi made his prediction on the series today ⬇️ 

Spoiler, in case you didn’t watch — he’s got the Nuggets winning the series 4-2 over the Lakers. You can literally bet along with this genius corgi, with odds for the Nuggets to advance to the NBA Finals in a six-game series at +550.

Heat vs. Celtics tips off tomorrow

How to watch Game 1: Wednesday (tomorrow!), 8:30 p.m. ET on TNT

Who’s favored to advance to the NBA Finals? The Celtics are heaaaavy favorites to win the East at -550, where it would take a whopping $550 bet on them in order to win $100 profit. The Heat are underdogs at +390, where a $100 bet would win $390 profit if they advance.

What to know about the Heat-Celtics series:

• It’s the second straight season these two teams have faced off in the Eastern Conference Finals!

• The Celtics won the series over the Heat (4-3) in the 2021-22 season, eventually losing to the Warriors (2-4) in the finals.

• That means both of these teams have something they’re looking to prove to close out this season. 😤 

• Jimmy Butler leads all players remaining in the playoff field with 31.1 points per game. Jayson Tatum has shined for the Celtics, posting the second-most double-doubles (9) this post-season.

🎰 NBA Draft Lottery: The Deets 🎰 

When: Tonight! Tuesday, May 16 at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN

What: This is where the order for the 2023 NBA Draft will be set. The league uses a lottery machine with ping-pong balls (yes, seriously) to decide which teams will make the first four picks in the upcoming NBA Draft.

The rest of the teams that aren’t picking in the top four will then draft in reverse order of their finish in the 2022-23 season.

Who: Each of the 14 teams that didn’t make the NBA playoffs is eligible in the NBA Draft lottery. Yes, that does mean every one of them has a shot at the No. 1 overall pick — some just have a better shot at it than others!

How the draft lottery odds work: Each of the teams that didn’t make the playoffs has a certain pre-assigned probability of receiving the No. 1 overall pick. The worse a team performed last year, the better their odds at a top pick.

This year, the Pistons, Rockets and Spurs had the three worst records in the NBA, awarding each of them a 14% chance of winning the No. 1 overall pick.

There will be 14 ping-pong balls thrown into a machine and randomly drawn one at a time until they have a sequence of four. For those wondering, that’s a whopping 1,001 possible number combinations. 1,000 of those possible number combinations were assigned to one of the 14 lottery teams before the draft. That list, assigning each of those numbers to a team, will be the deciding factor on who owns that pick.

Here’s a look at each team’s lottery odds for the No. 1 overall pick!

Why the NBA uses a lottery system: The draft lottery helps promote parity in the league and fairness in the draft process. Most importantly, perhaps, is the fact that it makes it more difficult for teams to effectively “tank” since you’re not guaranteed the No. 1 overall pick just because you finished the previous year with the worst record.

Because of that… this might be the most important NBA Draft Lottery in history. Why, you ask??? Victor Wembanyama is why — dubbed today as the “singular greatest prospect in NBA draft history” by NBA insider Woj.

Don’t forget: The 2023 WNBA season tips off this week!!

If you know Gaming Society, then you know our passion for all things women’s sports… especially the WNBA. 😍 

This year, we’re excited to present the first-ever season-long WNBA prediction game! We’ll be releasing new prediction questions covering every game all season each Monday, with the game’s top predictors bagging some swag from their favorite WNBA teams.

Plus, come back during nationally televised games, where we’ll be playing LIVE TRIVIA 🚨 along with other W fans. Chat and react with other fans in live time as the madness of the games unfolds!

Anyhoo. That’s all I got for today. Until next time, besties!

XOXO — Kate