With their next loss, the Cleveland Cavaliers will secure one of the three-worst records for the season, which could prove pivotal for the NBA Draft Lottery.

In a season that's been full of them, the Cleveland Cavaliers' next loss will be their most important.

Sure, at the end of the year, all of the defeats in the standings count the same, but with one more loss, the Cavs will no longer have to worry about adding any more wins to the total.

Not following along? Let's try this:

With their next defeat, Cleveland will secure finishing the 2018-19 season with one of the three worst records in the NBA. Under the new NBA Draft Lottery format, the bottom three teams in the league each possess a 14 percent chance of being awarded the No. 1 overall pick and a 52.1 percent chance of landing a top-four selection -- with those odds only decreasing for the teams that finish higher in the standings.

For the Cavs, securing the best odds available in next month's draft lottery is no small deal. Opening its second post-LeBron James era with six straight losses -- and an injury to All-Star Kevin Love that cost him nearly four months of action -- Cleveland hasn't had much more to play for other than maximizing its lottery odds since the first week of the season.

And for the bulk of the year, that never seemed like an issue. In fact, it wasn't until Jan. 27 that the Cavs reached double-digit victories -- a 104-101 victory over its biggest threat of securing a bottom three record, the Chicago Bulls.

But while any hopes the Cavs had of contending were over by November, a post-All-Star break surge temporarily put their bottom-three status in question. Between the return of Love and emergences of Collin Sexton and Cedi Osman, Cleveland enjoyed a run in which it went 5-3 from Feb. 11-March 3 -- by far its best stretch of the season.

Typically, such improvement would be rendered trivial. But in a league where as many as nine teams appeared to be tanking at one point or another, those wins were adding up just a little too quickly.

Fortunately for the Cavs' lottery odds, their on-court success wouldn't last long.

After beating the Orlando Magic on March 3, Cleveland has since compiled a 3-12 record, including losses in each of its past seven games. With that, the Cavs, whose record currently sits at 19-60, need just one more win to lock in their bottom-three record and avoid a potential tiebreaker scenario -- or even being surpassed -- by the Bulls.

In all likelihood, Cleveland won't have to wait long to "suffer" its pivotal defeat.

On Friday, the Cavs will face the 2-time defending champion Golden State Warriors, who are listed as a 16-point favorite over their four-time NBA Finals foe. And if somehow, Cleveland should upset Golden State, it still has two games remaining against a pair of teams still jockeying for playoff positioning in the San Antonio Spurs and Charlotte Hornets.

Of course, securing the best draft lottery odds hardly guarantees anything for Cleveland. The Cavs can -- and likely will -- enter the draft lottery with the best chances of landing a top-four pick possible, but could still very well miss out on drafting Duke's Zion Williamson or Murray State's Ja Morant.

But for a team in desperate need of adding a new franchise player, the Cavs appear to have maximized their chances of doing just that.