I do think they eventually released a long form video of the Wemby draft after much pressure. The way they do the lottery is so convoluted, but wouldn't make for gripping TV drama. I recall there are multiple 5 number combinations of numbers given to teams and they pull all these numbers, and then they have to reload the machine and do it again for the next numbers, but if they pull something twice they have to start over again. It's pretty weird.
You're joking, right? Conspiracy theorists would just say the live broadcast was staged, the lottery balls were tampered with, it was all done with AI, etc. There are people who are still convinced the Earth is flat despite their own independently gathered evidence suggesting otherwise. If someone doesn't want to believe they're not going to.
There is a wiki page out there that goes into more detail but the gist of it is: ...initially it was envelopes and they accused David Stern of rigging the system by putting a cold frozen envelope in the hopper that he found while digging through the pile so the Knicks could draft Patrick Ewing #1, then they went to a weighted lottery system that they continued to evolve over the years with adjusted odds per team that are being drawn from ping pong balls. The reason why they don't do it live anymore is the logistics/geekiness of it all - teams have fractional percentages of draft odds but the hopper can't have fractional bits of a ball in there so instead there are 14 numbered ping pong balls and they draw 4 balls at a time so the hopper spits out lets say 12, 4, 13, and 9 and each teams has a list of permutations of numbers so for instance if the draft were today, Utah would have 140 lotto number combinations to check. The optics of "the number one pick goes to the team that has 12,4,13,and 9 is not exactly great TV watching. ..let's say Utah does have that combination so they move to the 2nd pick and do the same exercise, remember there are still 139 permutations that Utah owns but obviously they can't have 2 picks so the hopper pulls up the numbers 14, 8, 1, 3...and the crowd waits and....it's Utah again so they have to start over and pick another number - again, this is bad TV. In theory Utah could have that same coincidence happen 138 more times in a row AND more because it's possible(although improbably) for the same combination of numbers to come up multiple times. Maybe Charlotte gets the 2nd pick with their 14% lotto chances but now we are doing the same exercise for the 3rd pick but now there are 280 permutations out there out of 1,000 combinations assigned to 14 teams that could be picked for a team who has already "won" that necessitates a redo(140 of Utah's for their 14% odds, 140 for Charlotte for their 14% odds). As you can imagine, this could take 20 minutes...or it could take 2 hours. Clearly they decided to make good TV out of it and sell some additional ad space because no one is desperate enough for Cooper Flagg to sit through hours of ping pong ball permutations to find out who got the magic 4 number combination. I'm sure there are ways to put a team's logo on a ball to make better TV but I think it would be very difficult to look at a hopper with 1000 balls in it and say confidently, "yup, I'm sure there are 140 balls with Charlotte's logo on it and 25 balls with Phoenix's logo on it - no more, no less"
Really hope Phoenix loses a few more times - our odds jump from 11.7% of a top 4 pick to 20.3% if Phoenix finishes behind Portland who they are a half game up on. Can we trade Phoenix a late 2nd for nothing in return just to get them to tank? I would love to see something crazy like that happen.
The NBA posted an exact video of the full 2023 Wemby Lottery, and also did the same in 2024. They don't put that out as an entertainment product because it's incredibly boring compared to what actually airs. It takes the suspense out of the draw by revealing the #1 pick first. The way the balls are set up, it also can repeat a team multiple times before the final order is revealed. The Wemby lottery, they had to draw seven times to get four combinations! Understand that the position you have to take to support the lottery being rigged is: that the NBA is somehow faking the production of this video every year, having Zach Lowe completely fabricate a sourced article, and are annually having EY (Ernst & Young), a big four accounting firm, commit outright fraud or at least complete lack of oversight, the same thing that took out Arthur Anderson with Enron. If that's the hill you want to die on, by all means continue.
They show the entire process right after it's done. Nobody wants to sit there watching ping pong balls be drawn (and re-drawn) for 15-20 minutes other than people that have an interest in the lottery or the teams in the lottery, so I don't know how well that would go over on tv. That, and it still wouldn't make people happy unless every combination of numbers assigned to each team was presented to the public beforehand. That being said, everybody knows it's probably rigged. *cough* Even Lebron a few days ago acted like him going to Cleveland was rigged, and Lebron is always right.
They didn't "switch" to the envelopes. They still do the pingpong balls and post videos afterwards of the drawings with the team reps present. The envelopes are just for show.
Let’s say we get lucky and end up with the first pick. You take Flagg all day but…. Who are the odd guys out?
Oh boy, I woke up checking the tankathon website and noticed Suns are tied for the 10th pick but the Blazers are just 1 game ahead of them at 9th. Blazers play Jazz, Lakers, Warriors next. Surely with how ****ing terrible the Jazz are they will win one. Suns play Warriors, Thunder, Kings and Spurs. Kings and Spurs are still playing to win so it's very possible Suns lose out. If this happens, our odds on the 10th pick which is top 4 at 11.7% and top 1 at 2.5% drastically jumps to 9th pick at 20.3% and 4.5% respectively. Suns are very likely to lose out with the injury to KD. I believe if they tie Blazers, it'll be a coin toss for the 9th. Hawks had the 10th worst record last year and they drafted #1.
Doesn't look like the Spurs are playing to win for me. But if Phoenix is mathematically eliminated by then they might shut down Booker and any vets so it'll be an even matchup.
Suns will surely beat the Spurs and maybe another team... but finishing 9th would be a dream come true. 20% odds at a top 4 is better than anyone can ask for. imagine adding any of Harper/Bailey/Jakucionis to this current team is mouth watering. And if we are drafting 9th I would definitely explore trading Cam/Reed + Future pick for the forementioned names.
All you need to know is that even Silver calls the NBA "Entertainment" and not truly a sport. They have an obligation to be as financially profitable to their investors by whatever means necessary. It's basically the WWE with a basketball. Entertainment for the masses.
when the rockets were tanking I was cursing the flat lotto odds. Now that the rockets aren’t a lotto team anymore, but still have mid-late lotto draft spots, I’m loving those flat odds.
