^ Since we don't know which exec's Woj is referring to; we don't even know if they were in the room for the draw -- only the 14 lotto teams are in the room.
Thats really the issue...If the state lottery has a way of televising the actual drawings...why cant the NBA??? Secondly, the reason of impropiety only exist because Stern owned the Hornets and made three huge decisions this year...1. Nixing Paul the lakers, 2. Approving it to the clippers, and 3. This pick...How to obtain high value for a terrible organization...have the number one pick...Benson was just named to buy the Hornets... Secondly...this talk of rigging is not coming from just you or I...but from former NBA players...Like immediately after the ESPN commentary just summed up what the rest of the nation thought... The NBA should make it so much easier...by just coloring the ping pong balls with teh team colors...and putting the appropriate number of balls in the machine...and televise the actual drawing...that makes sense...that makes the process more transparent...
It's as easy as the state lotteries. Tell me how it is not. The only difference is there are actually three drawings, instead of just one. And the teams' "quick pik" lotto numbers must be unique, can't be own by more than one team vs state lottos. you can't put 1000 balls into a lotto machine. Why are colored balls better than numbered ball, anyhow? They probably should if it would help any. But, imo, people would still say the balls were rigged? I don't get how TV stops conspiracies.
Why stop at the draft? It's all rigged. 2012 storyline: Old Guard passes the torch to the Young Guns; Big 3 vs. Big 3; Heat adopt Spurs methodical half-court, heavy defensive style and win; or Thunder just too much for weary Celtics. 1. Spurs vs Celtics - even officiating, low volume of calls. 2. Thunder vs Heat - even officiating, low volume of calls. 3. Thunder vs Celtics - lopsided officiating, high volume of calls favoring Thunder. 4. Spurs vs Heat - lopsided officiating, high volume of calls favoring Heat. Book it.
They could make the lottery even easier by just getting rid of the damn thing and using the end of season standings to determine draft order. What's the point of having a gimmick drafting process if you keep it locked behind closed doors? To have more control over it.
The picking of the lottery balls is not shown because it would be as ponderously boring as watching a televised game of bingo.
How come all of the bad teams that no one wants to go continue to win the NBA lottery. What gain does the league get from teams, like Orlando, Toronto, New Orleans, or Charlotte winning the lottery? It's ridiculous, because almost any team could've won last night and someone would be crying conspiracy, somewhere. In a most rationalized, yet logical argument though built upon a great list of coincidence. Charlotte - Michael Jordan (Icon/Most prominent player in history) New Orleans - New owner for a team no one wanted to buy/Chris Paul trade. Washington -??? ... it's another big market. Sacramento - Team possibly being move to a new city, while the city is in works with the team to build a new stadium. Cleveland - To make up for the exodus of LeBron James. Brooklyn - New NBA city with popular owners and management. Portland - Home of Nike, popular owner, fairly big market, lost of Brandon Roy Toronto - To make up for the exodus of Chris Bosh Milwaukee - ???? Phoenix - The exodus of Amare Stoudemire, and possibly Steve Nash. Sort of a popular franchise, also a big market. Houston - Nixed trade, Loss of Yao Ming, big market Let me ask this question, who should've won the lottery in that case. Washington or Milwaukee.
To me, (if this is rigged) the pattern that follows is teams who are losing fans or about to lose alot of fans - get a booster shot in the arm. Something for them to get excited about again. Think Cavs losing Lebron, most of Cleveland was depressed, disinterested in the Cavaliers. Same goes for New Orleans. In the business sense, from the perspective of the NBA and how NBA wants to become global and a true international sport, it would be best for the NBA to maintain popularity in existing regions while continuing to grow elsewhere. So even cities like New Orleans, Cleveland, Sacramento, etc, they all matter in the bigger picture. Not saying this is what happened but the end result sure did turn out nicely for the NBA.
Washington is a very big market with basketball popularity at an all-time low. That would have been a conspiracy So unless Milwaukee managed to beat the 0.7% odds of winning the first pick, then the fix, or at least SOME fix, was in
A Milwaukee win at long odds would have proved a fix since it's the only team without a clear bias. Clearly it was chosen to show there was not a fix so they could continue their ruse.
I just visited realGM and I don't understand why people think the actual lottery would take an hour. Only the first 3 picks are decided by the lottery. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_Draft_Lottery, the maximum percentage of getting the second pick is 0.215. This means that Pr[Team A does not get the second pick | Team A has already gotten the first pick] is at least 0.785. The expected number of drawings for the second pick is less than 2. Similarly, Pr[Teams A & B do not get the third pick | Teams A & B have already gotten the first and second picks] is at least .651. Again, the expected number of drawings for the third pick is less than 2. The expected number of drawings for the first 3 picks is less than 5, and the whole process should take less than 3 minutes in my opinion. In terms of advertising revenue, I actually believe that a short live draft lottery would attract more audience.
Same with Washington and Wall. I think there should be a lock preventing teams from winning the lottery twice within like four or five years. Like, if you win the first pick- you don't get any lottery balls- you stay at your spot or move down one.
some players think it's rigged http://www.iamagm.com/news/2012/05/31/over.10.nba.players.tweeted.about.draft.lottery.conspiracy
OK, I just realize that the NBA uses combinations of numbers for the draft lottery. But still, I think they should change the method and simply associate each lottery team with a number.
agreed any winner can be made to look like a conspiracy, the fact of the matter is new orleans had a 14.8% of landing the top pick and the got it which is not so unreasonable(they had better odds than cleveland)
Except that the teams that are most likely to win the lottery are the ones that suck the most and thus are probably the ones with the most problems with their fan base.
I am sure Stern planted the concept of conspiracy in the owners' dreams so they thought it to be a good idea to rig the lottery. Seriously, it's too difficult to cover up a rigged lottery. Is there a chance that it's rigged? Of course. I'd say it's lower than the Rockets' chance of winning the 1st pick. That said, I absolutely don't understand why they don't televise the whole thing. There are only three arguments I've heard so far: 1. It's too boring for good TV. 2. It's like state lottery, and they don't televise. 3. It won't change the minds of conspiracy theorists. #1 is not a good argument. You can still make it interesting. And I think about half of this board would have watched it had it been televised live. Besides, with all the conspiracy theory abound, it's just make sense to do it. #2 is not a good argument either. First, there are televised state lotteries. Second, state lotteries are not accused of shadiness. #3 has some weight. True conspiracy theorists won't be satisfied no matter what you do. But we are not trying to satisfy those wackos. All they have to do is remove doubts on most reasonable folks. Like many posters, including Clutch, have already pointed out, the whole NBA permeates a sort of shadiness. Stern has only himself to blame if people are questioning his integrity. So don't blame the conspiracy theories. Blame the commie for making the bed.
WTF??? So we won the #1 pick two times in a row haha wow. The chances of that happening are .766% (88/1000)*(87/999)
