Orlando Goes From 66-1 to No. 1 : NBA lottery: After getting O’Neal in ‘92, the Magic beats odds again.

The Orlando Magic defied the longest odds of any team in the draft lottery Sunday and won the right to the top pick in the NBA draft for the second consecutive year.

The Magic, which won the Shaquille O’Neal sweepstakes at last year’s lottery and then barely missed the playoffs, had only a one-in-66 chance to get the first selection this time.

The 11 team representatives at the lottery were stunned when Commissioner David Stern opened an envelope with Philadelphia as the No. 2 choice, leaving Orlando the winner.

Orlando General Manager Pat Williams opened his mouth, closed his eyes and banged his fist on the table.

“I can’t believe it,” he said. “I’m not thinking straight right now. What can I say--it’s Magic. Suddenly, we went from No. 11 to No. 1.”

In the days leading to the draft, Williams had said that if Orlando won the lottery it would be tantamount to “World War III breaking out, with Switzerland winning.”

On Sunday, Switzerland won.

It was the first time since the lottery was shifted to a weighted system in 1990 that a non-playoff team with the best record captured the right to pick first.

The 76ers will pick second and Golden State third in the draft on June 30, though Warrior Coach Don Nelson said Sunday he had a desire to trade to get to the first or second spot to draft 7-foot-6 Shawn Bradley or Michigan’s Chris Webber.

The fourth through 11th picks--determined by inverse order of the teams’ regular-season records--went to Dallas, Minnesota, Washington, Sacramento, Milwaukee, Denver, Miami and Detroit. Miami has the option of sending its pick to Detroit to complete an earlier trade.

The Magic will have the option of pairing Bradley and O’Neal. Webber, Jamal Mashburn of Kentucky and Anfernee Hardaway of Memphis State have also been mentioned, and Williams indicated, “our power forward position needs to be solidified, stablized.”

Would Orlando team a 7-foot-1 rookie of the year and a player almost a half-foot taller?

Or will the Magic they take the safe route and take Webber or Mashburn to play a position that was manned last season by Terry Catledge, Jeff Turner, Anthony Bowie and Tom Tolbert?

“Right now I really have no idea,” Williams said. “We were thinking that we’d be picking 11th, so we’re suddenly thinking about the top, the Bradleys, the Webbers, the Mashburns. It’s the best of all possible worlds.”