T-Wolves president insinuates draft lottery is rigged

So you've got nothing.

 

You're mixed up on the timeline. As Mizzou noted, I'm not talking about the Shaq pick. I'm talking about the Penny Hardaway draft. With the 13th pick instead of the first, the Magic do not become an elite team for the next three years. It was curious, to put it mildly.

However, in my opinion it is impossible to watch the way NBA games are officiated and draw any conclusion other than that they are rigged.

 

It doesn't matter who wins the lottery each year, who wins the championship the crackpots still think everything is fixed. Yet it would take thousand upon thousands of people to be in on this over the time Stern has been commissioner yet nobody speaks.

I can buy the knick Patrick ewing frozen envelope, maybe. I have no doubt there have been dirty officials in all sports but if every bloody thing was fixed there would have been one disgruntled employee over the years that would have leaked something.

 

Minnesota (bringing this thread around!) had one of the best shots at Shaq as I recall, but Shaq had made noise that he would never sign with the T'Wolves.

 

So, you (on some level) can believe that Stern fixed the 1985 draft and then never did it again?

 

I think the T-Wolves were the worst team that year and the Magic were the second worst. It did not seem suspicious that Shaq wound up in Orlando.

 

I tend to agree.

I'll preface the ensuing paranoid screed by noting that I'm usually fervently anti-conspiracy. I think birthers and truthers are nutbag idiots, I scoff at most conspiracy theories. BUT the 85 Draft Lottery is one where I kinda believe.

One thing I remember about the weeks preceding that lottery is how prevalent the talk was about how great it would be for the League if Ewing landed in New York. Remember, at that time, Ewing was expected to become what Jordan instead turned out to be: the League's dominant and most marketable figure over the next era. Meanwhile, the League's largest media and population market franchise was in the toilet. It was no secret that, in terms of the League's overall financial interests, New York was the best place for Ewing to land. In fact, it was common knowledge and talked about frequently. Problem is the Knicks only had a very small chance of winning the Lottery.

And then the lottery happens. Watch this video of it:

Does it not appear that only one of those envelopes is visibly distinguishable from the others when pulled out by a bent creased corner? And, whatta you know, that turns out to be the exact same envelope that Stern zeros in on with the very first drawing designated for the No. 1 overall pick. And, whatta ya know, that turns out to be the Knicks envelope? Wow, amazing how that turned out.

And you'll further notice that, unlike the other drawings, Stern absolutely DOES look down at the envelopes before the first drawing where he pulls the Knicks envelope, certainly long enough to locate which one might have a bent corner or some other very subtle distinguishable mark. But for all the drawings after that first one, he's much more conscientious about keeping his head up the whole time and not looking down.

And why the hell did they draw the No. 1 pick with the first drawing? My experience is these sort of things usually for suspense make the big winner the last one left. This time they decided to format in the opposite direction. Is it because there would be less margin for error if, instead of trying to avoid one envelope for every drawing until the end, you instead tried to zero in on it and get it out of the way immediately? The other way would require a detectable glance downward every single time, this way only once.

I'm sorry but EVERYTHING about that 85 lottery, from the surrounding circumstances, to the way it was administered, to the oh SO very convenient result, invites suspicion. And then you see some of these other suspiciously convenient lottery results over the years, like the hometown kids Lebron and Rose, and you can't help but wonder.....

There. Paranoid screed over.

 

As Mizzou said, Orlando missed out on the playoffs in '93 by a game, and I believe it went down to the last day of the regular season. That was interesting how they got the No. 1 pick again.

 

So I can keep up, teams that win the lottery with very little chance it's rigged. If the consensus no 1 pick is a local boy it's rigged, if you have the classiest guy in the league and you want to give them Duncan it's rigged, although they did finish with the worst record. Are we saying that each lottery is rigged?

 

Did I ever say it's rigged? I said there were two interesting scenarios: the year Webber was drafted by the Magic and the year Duncan went to San Antonio.

 

No. Just the ones where there's a special, special talent or a great storyline that builds up a downtrodden franchise. Think how much better the NBA is when the Bulls or Knicks are good or, in my Magic/Shaq/Penny example, when the game's biggest star is playing in the marquee event.

There would be no reason, OTOH, to bother rigging a team's chances for Andrew Bogut or Kwame Brown.

 

in hindsight, but are you absolutely sure who is a star and who isn't every year? There were people on here arguing the Bulls should take Beasley over Rose.