What's new

If the NBA Draft Lottery is rigged, where will we land?

I feel like any inkling of it being rigged was proven wrong when Zion went to New Orleans instead of New York.
 
Ok my guess is the Jazz get the #3 pick. The league can still say "see you still won in the lottery."

The best thing the league can do is create competition. That is what made the NBA great in the 90s. Create rivalries everyone will want to watch.

Second the NBA needs to create a vilian. People love to root against someone.

With that said I think Flagg in Utah fits both. With Flagg the Jazz/Spurs games could get epic. Like the 90s. The only problem is those are all small market teams.

The Lakers seem to have a bright future now with Doncic. OKC should be a monster for years to come. Memphis could be the villain team (because of Ja) SA needs to get better to be put in here and I think they will. I almost forgot houston.

The East is just so weird when it comes to teams. Boston is going to be good for a little while longer but are starting to age. Cleveland looks young and hungry. NY is a mess. Detroit is an up and coming team. Orlando is just weird.

I definitely could see the NBA wanting flagg in the east. That would be a NO to Toronto.
 
Last edited:
I feel like any inkling of it being rigged was proven wrong when Zion went to New Orleans instead of New York.

The league needed that to happen to compensate NOLA for sending Anthony Davis to LA. The Lakers could send back the #4 pick (Deandre Hunter), but that's not enough.
 
How did they send him to LA? What?

Giving NOLA the #1 pick (Zion) and LA the #4 pick (Deandre Hunter) facilitated New Orleans trading Anthony Davis to the Lakers right before the draft. NOLA received Ingram, Ball, Hart and the #4 pick (which they traded to ATL) for Davis. The league rewarded NOLA with Zion to rebuild with. Note that at the time, none of Ingram, Ball or Hart had shown much potential to be All Stars or franchise-type players. Ingram was the best player coming back in the trade, a 3rd-year player who had put up 18 ppg that season. Anthony Davis was a 6x All Star in his prime and a perennial DPOY and MVP candidate. Hence, the Pels needed a guy like Zion to keep the trade from being a disaster. The league obliged. That's the conspiracy theory anyway. The mathematical probability of this happening on its own was miniscule.


View: https://x.com/wojespn/status/1140023139142971392
 
It's high time the worst team gets the #1:

2024: 10th best odds wins, #1 odds drops to 5

2023: 3rd best odds wins, #1 odds drops to 5

2022: 2nd best odds wins, #1 odds drops to 3

2021: 2nd best odds wins, #1 odds drops to 2

2020: 3rd best odds wins, #1 odds drops to 2

2019: 7th best odds wins, #1 odds drops to 3

I can live with 1 or 2.
 
The NBA has been rigged for 30+ years.
Do they rig every game? No. They don't need to.
Do they rig the lottery? Yes. However they don't always need to.
Will they need to rig this year? I don't really think so. Flagg is special, he's also a kinda normal white dude. Kinda sounds like the right fit in Utah.
 
I'm starting to wonder if there's any other scenario where conspiratorial thinking is more mainstream than when talking about the NBA draft. It's ****ing everywhere. Obnoxious.
NBA is unique compared to other sports in terms of the significance of the top pick (and on some years that extends to top 2 or even deeper). The impact of a single player (like Jokic, SGA etc) to team success is so great, that getting top talent is just essential. The importance of "that guy" causes people to get paranoid about the process.

In NFL the QB is the only position where a single player can have a similar impact to team success, but projecting quarterbacks success has historically been very hard. There are few instances that come to mind where a quarterback was so good that it actually instigated tanking.. Andrew Luck being the most obvious one. If they had lottery though, I'm sure the paranoid levels would be pretty high on years where there is a guy like Luck available.
 
Do I think the NBA lottery is rigged? No.

Do I think that the league sometimes steps in to aid distressed franchises that lost lots of fans or to get a storyline like hometown hero? Do I suspect the #1 pick overall going to specific franchises at specific times is suspect? Mos Def.

Years ago I put together some of the most suspect moments in nba draft history. It was pretty similar to this video that was the first video I have ever looked up on NBA lottery conspiracy.


View: https://youtu.be/EtKDIR8ZtNE?feature=shared


I didnt buy the Mutombo crap. But it is clear that some of the story lines are suspect especially regarding the #1 overall pick.

Most suspect moments for me:

Knicks / Ewing
Cleveland - all things Lebron
New Orleans - post Katrina events
Many top Lakers picks
Hometown heroes Lebron to Cleveland and Rose to Chicago
 
Last edited:
Lebron leaves Cleveland and the cavs get the #1 has always bothered me. New Orleans loses AD to the Lakers and gets #1 has also always bothered me.

Since history repeats itself, Luka is out in Dallas... fans watch a finals team in 2024 fail to make the playoffs in 2025... fans are pissed and up in arms. This was a nuclear fallout in the league.

Dallas getting the #1 would be very suspect. Virtually a repeat of the same story line with a disillusioned fan base that would come back quickly with a Cooper Flagg at the helm.
 
Back
Top