T-Wolves president insinuates draft lottery is rigged

The draft was during the summer of 1993.

Jordan retired that fall.

 

But the allegations don't have anything to do with those games, do they, Laker fan? They have to do with Game 6.

You can try to obfuscate all you want, but there's NO EXPLANATION for what happened in Game 6. Probably the most bizarrely officiated game in any pro sport I can ever remember.

 

Well, if you're going to believe conspiracy theories, you might as well go whole hog and mention Jordan's retirement wasn't really a retirement but a gambling suspension, hence Stern knew it was coming.

 

Because he was, hands down, the most dominant college player in many years. He was a lock to be a dominant professional, and back then a dominant big man was what everyone thought you needed first to build around. That's what the entire lottery was about...where was Ewing going to end up.

 

So much for that lock. And Stern supposedly is about personalities. Ewing wasn't a personality. But enough of this silliness. Of course there have been no fixes. All the star investigative reporters around, all the people surely willing to be unnamed sources, and all that's out there is unsubstantiated junk based on what people assume would be in the best interest for the NBA to want. It would have been busted open by now if it existed. I know it's fun to imagine Stern as Machiavelli; he does have that ambience about him.

 

It's easier to imagine him fixing the refs than it is the Lottery. But I don't really buy that one, either. However, it's obvious there's a star system in place. I don't think any reasonable person would disagree.

 

The gambling stuff was swirling full-force by the spring, including the six-figure checks that Jordan had been writing to pay his losses, checks the NBA very much knew about.

 

Which is, by far, the conspiracy theory with the most credence.

Jordan wants to retire to spend time with his family months after his gambling problems surface and months after his Dad is "randomly" killed by two jerkoffs. Interesting. In fact, didn't Jordan say something during his retirement presser about how he might want to come back and play someday, if Stern would let him?

 

Don't think we'll ever know the full story behind Jordan's retirement, but it's a safe bet there's quite a bit more to the story we were told.

The world's most pathologically hyper-competitive man doesn't just up and decide to forever stop competing at what he's best at when he's at his absolute peak. Just doesn't pass the smell test at all.

 

The James and Ewing drafts are the ones you have to wonder about. After all these years I'm in the camp that believes the 85 draft was absolutely rigged.

A guy was considered the next great center winds up on the team in the largest media market in the country at a time when the league desperately wanted that team to be relevant again?

From a league perspective it sure beat the hell out of Ewing winding up with Indiana or Golden State, which were the two teams that finished with a worse record than the Knicks that year.

 

Or sometime between the 1985 draft lottery and this:

Other than the 2000 Finals, I've never really paid heed to the NBA since.

 

True, but at the time he was considered the best player to come out of college since Alcindor.