I can't believe a good production team couldn't make the lotto a great TV event. In one of the (many) other threads, someone suggested a board showing which teams are still in contention as each number is drawn. And all sports broadcasts are pretty good at covering up dead time with chatter -- as they reload the machines. There are only three lotto spots. Can't be that onerous to go through retakes -- potentially exciting too -- since all teams would be back in the mix. I think it could be much more exciting than what we see now. Those who are bored by it would just not watch. True conspiracy guys could continue to do their thing. Just seems like a missed opportunity to liven up the event and add 'legitimacy," however defined. I guess they lose the countdown to #1....but still much more entertaining, I think...as 2 and 3 are pretty coveted spots too.
Do people know how the lottery works? There are no logos on the balls. It's only balls numbered 1-14. And they go into four hoppers. Everyone is assigned a combo. Why not have the lottery determine all 14 slots instead of just the top 3. Every team has a represenitive watching the process in the back. They know what's up, or they're being heavily compensated for showing up. The rockets didn't have a rep this year watching the process.
They did. It involved doing all the ping pong stuff beforehand and then unveiling the picks from last to first on TV.
Yeah, because the Rockets were sure their number would be pulled. Especially after reading a few posts saying Stern would hand the Rockets the number one pick after bending them over. If I'm an NBA owner and my rep smells something funny I would tell him not to say anything. I'd want the sale to go through so I could get my cut of Bob Benson's check.
I'm going to back to this question again, what team was supposed to lottery, if the lottery was in fact rigged?
Because 30 people in a room aren't liable to be keen enough to figure out how the machines that draw the balls are rigged. One hundred million people on the other hand...
i got this off another board from a poster talking about Donaghy and his situation coming from a lawyers point of view. I may not know a damn thing about the inner workings of the NBA, but I am a criminal defense attorney. The FBI doesn't make deals. Federal prosecutors make deals. Any time you see a guy on TV cut a deal with an FBI agent or a cop, just remember those guys have no authority to make any sort of binding agreements. "Oh yeah we'll take time off your sentence". Right. I didn't follow the Donaghy stuff much. But any deal he made would have been with federal prosecutors. If they had found substance to his accusations, they'd have charged more people. If it turns out he's a lying piece of ****, and they can't find any corroborating evidence, they don't charge more people. Which one happened again? I absolutely reject any claims of rigging the lottery. These teams are owned by different groups. You think Mark Cuban is going to sit idly by and watch as his team is directly harmed by someone rigging who gets the #1 player? You think the Sacramento or Charlotte owners would be unaware of such fixes? What if Portland had been denied Kevin Durant not because of their own bad decisions, but because Seattle got the #1 pick through a sham system? Think they might be pissed about it? Think some outgoing manager or coach or mail room boy or receptionist might just spill the beans? As a Sooner, I have had my own share of screaming at refs. I was about ready to jihad myself a plane right into Oregon's instant replay booth when we got screwed there on that onside kick call back 5 or 6 years ago. Stupid cheating refs rigging the game. But most of the time, referees simply respond to the game as it develops. Stars get the benefit of the doubt. The home team gets a little loving. When the refs see somebody flop 50 times in a row, they think he's just crying wolf and they stop giving it to him after a few games. If games get too physical they decide to call things tighter to keep it from turning into a brawl. If they've been too ticky-tack, they ease off and let the guys play. You may see bad calls in the NBA, a lot more than you see at a high school game. But that's because every game is on TV and has 50 different cameras filming it. That's not the case with East Podunk High School. The NBA has a huge amount of games and you can critique them endlessly thanks to YouTube, DVR, and ESPN 8.
