People need to stop with this "the lottery is fixed nonsense" because it's realllllly dumb.
Well Anthony Davis went to the Pelicans the year the NBA sold the New Orleans franchise to Tom Benson's group potentially increasing the value of the franchise by $100's of millions and Derrick Rose went to his hometown Chicago on a 1.7% chance. There was the New York Knicks fiasco in the 80's and the fact that they don't show them pulling the picks in real time.
If it's not fixed, the NBA has had a terrible run of luck from events making it look fixed.
TP for mic drop comeback
Yeah citing three events out of 32 years he really did provide irrefutable proof what is the NBA going to do? I posted this list in another thread but perhaps it is needed here as well http://basketball.realgm.com/nba/draft/lottery_winners that's all the lottery winners if you were the NBA trying to hand pick winners to provide you with the most profit I think the list would be full of bigger cities, looking back over the llast 20 years or so you see Cleveland Milwaukee Orlando Toronto Portland Washington Minnesota, last year philly a team that more obviously tanked than any team in history why would they reward them. Things missing on there would be the knicks(after 1985) the lakers, the Celtics you know like the teams that get he most attention
I get that everyone wants to think it is their team against the world but it just doesn't make sense
I'm not saying they do it every year. If there's no franchise changer on the board I bet they just let it roll. But when you've got franchise players like Irving, Wiggins, Anthony Davis, Blake Griffin, John Wall, Derrick Rose it's within the league's best interest to make sure that they end up in a market that will most benefit the league as a whole.
Like I said I found AD to be the most egregious. Certainly wasn't hard for NO to end up in the top spot but IMO no matter how many times they rolled it no other team was going to end up with Davis that year.
Also not saying that it's us against the world. I think this year the best story would be to put Markelle Fultz on the Boston Celtics, rewarding the team that said no to tanking and instead relied on clever trade work and cap management. We'll see how the "Ping pong balls" fall.
Of the examples you cited there I give you that Rose and Davis could look a little suspicious if that trend continued through the list, but I hardly think that Clevelandx2, Washington and the Clippers are where the league would necessarily want the big franchise players.
Why would the league want Irving to go to a horrible team in a small market?
The year Wiggins was drafted the celtics lakers and 76ers all had better odds than cleveland. Three bigger market teams than Cleveland.
The year Wall was drafted the Nets had the best odds and that was the year they finalized that they would be going to Brooklyn, big market good story.
The year griffin was drafted the knicks were 14th in the east, that would have been a good story but instead he goes to one of the worst run franchises in history.
And then there is this "The drawing of the ping-pong balls is conducted in private, though observed by independent auditors and representatives from each team." you would think the team representatives would make sure everything was by the book they have no reason to hope the best players go to other teams.
Topic: Sooooo the Lakers are the 2nd worst team in the league (Read 6775 times)