Isn't it incredible that this is only the fifth lottery we'll be celebrating in the Process (and/or post-Process) era? It feels like the lottery has been our Super Bowl since at least the Iverson era, but even if you count the 2013 lottery -- which was post-Hinkie hiring but before the Jrue/Nerlens trade, and thus officially Before Process in my book -- it's only been a half-decade that a Tuesday night in April has marked the most important half-hour of the year for Sixers fans.

Might not be for much longer, either: The Sixers have about a 97% chance of retaining their lottery pick tonight (via Los Angeles), which means we'd only get one next year if the Kings' pick ended up at No. 1 (no better than a 14% chance with the newly flattened lottery odds) or if the Sixers' pick itself lands back in the lottery (nuh-uh). And after that, it could be a little while.

So let's make sure to enjoy the lottery tonight, and to pray extra hard (almost certainly in vain) to once again get to the mid-lottery commercial break without the Sixers' card getting pulled. And let's start by remembering the lotteries that have made this night such a joy that last four Aprils.

2014

Sixers Entered With: The second-worst record (19-63), and another pick via the Pelicans (tenth-worst record, top-five protected).

Fans Hoped For: A top-two pick, mostly to get one of top wing prospects Andrew Wiggins (Kansas) or Jabari Parker (Duke), and not to get screwed by the Pelicans ending up in the top three and not conveying.

What We Got: The third pick, with the Cleveland Cavaliers leapfrogging the Sixers and the even-worse Bucks to land the No. 1 pick (for the third time in four years), and the Pelicans pick at No. 10.

Saltiness Rating: 6 out of 10. The Cavs thing was painful -- and became moreso after they re-landed LeBron in the offseason -- and there was a lot of angst over likely losing out on Wiggins and Parker, the two surest-seeming bets in the draft, especially since the presumed No. 3 pick (Joel Embiid) had already suffered a stress fracture that would knock him out of most of the next season and threatened to plague his whole career. You could say that falling to No. 3 was the luckeist break of the entire Process era, but that would presume that Hinkie wasn't planning on just taking Embiid No. 1 or 2 anyway. But at least we got the Pelicans pick as expected, so the sting was manageable.

Lottery Party Memory: Mike leaping from his couch (remotely).

Did We Make It to the Commercial? Yes.

2015

Sixers Entered With: Their own pick (third-worst record, 18-64), the first year of Lakers pick eligibility (fourth-worst record and top-five protected, with a 16% chance of falling to No. 6), and the Heat pick owed from the distant Thaddeus Young trade (tenth-worst record and top-ten protected, with a 9% chance of falling to No. 11).

Fans Hoped For: The ever-elusive promise of #OneSixEleven -- which had about a .2% chance of actually happening, but still caught enough juice from Sixers Twitter to briefly be a trending topic.

What We Got: The less-catchy #Three, as the Heat pick stayed at No. 10, the Lakers moved up two instead of down two (swapping places with the Knicks), and we stayed right where our record said we should.

Saltiness Rating: 5 out of 10. Minor snark at No. 1 going to the Wolves who had just traded for the prior two No. 1 overall picks a summer earlier -- because no No. 1 picks for anyone besides Minnesota and Cleveland -- but in the moment, it was assumed Minny would go Karl-Anthony Towns, L.A. would go Jahlil Okafor, and the Sixers would end up with D'Angelo Russell, who was the player who seemed to best fit Philly anyway. Of course, L.A. ended up taking Russell, landing Okafor in Philly instead, in a still-infuriating move that screwed up both teams' timelines and karma in a way that neither squad (nor any of us) have yet to totally recover from three years later. Tonight's for you, Mitch Kupchak.

Lottery Party Memory: The random cheering of Kings president Vlade Divac, retroactively (and inexplicably) justified by the Nik Stauskas/Pickswap trade just a couple months later.

Did We Make It to the Commercial? Yes.

2016

Sixers Entered With: The worst overall record (10-72), Year Two with the Lakers pick (second-worst record, but now just top-three protected, with a 44% chance of falling to No. 4 or 5), and the rights to swap picks with the Kings (eighth-worst record).

Fans Hoped For: #OneFour sounded pretty good. That way, we could add a second potential franchise player in LSU point-forward Ben Simmons or Duke wing Brandon Ingram, and also a complementary backcourt prospect like Providence point guard Kris Dunn or Oklahoma SG Buddy Hield. (Though some Sixers fans -- Godner, at least -- hoped the Lakers pick would hold out for another year, with 2017 expected to be a stronger draft class than '16.)

What We Got: One. The Lakers held at No. 2, rolling their pick over for another year, but the Sixers also stayed firm one spot higher, landing the top overall pick for the first time since Allen Iverson 20 years earlier.

Saltiness Rating: 3 out of 10. Maybe should be even lower, really: It sucked that the Lakers got No. 2 again, but getting No. 1 overall was the ultimate validation for The Process -- even though, somewhat tragically, it came too late for Our Once and Always Dark Lord Sam Hinkie, who had been ousted from his position a month earlier. We knew he was watching anyway.

Lottery Party Memory: Gotta be the mess of ecstatic cheers, stranger hugs and spilled beer in response to the Lakers logo being revealed by Mark Tatum in the No. 2 envelope, ensuring that the worst Sixers season in 43 years would not have been suffered through in vain.