Should the draft lottery be investigated?

[RAblaze]

I've also read that they do it by computer. Do they do it with balls in a bin or a computer?
Lebron goes to his home town team.
Rose goes to his home town team.
The Celtics get Bias.
The Knicks get Ewing.
The Sonics were looking at moving and get the second pick.
The Celtics, Grizzlies, and Bucks were accused of tanking and get the worst picks possible.
One or two coincidences is understandable, but when it's six, that starts making some people think.

You can even say that the Raptors getting #1 the year of Bargnani was fixed. With Gheradini and Colangelo fresh in TO, It's pretty much "Drea's hometown" team too.

[Clangus]

I hope you realize that a representative from each team along with a media representative from each city are present during the entire draft lottery process. They are locked in a room with no cell phone access and are not allowed out until the draft lottery has been announced. They get to watch each ball get labelled, throw into the bin and they watch each selection. The NBA is a legitimate association, with multi million (and billion) dollar business men who are in charge of each franchise. You don't become a successful business man by letting things like a rigged draft lottery slip through the cracks. NBA franchise are much too professional. Too much money and fate rests on the ping pong balls and you can be assured that there is no rigging in the process. Stern may bend certain stipulations and rules but he is certainly far to smart to have something like the draft, which is so important to the league, be tampered in anyway. Something like that would completely, and utterly, ruin the entire NBA. The NBA Draft Lottery is NOT rigged.

Stop with the conspiracy theories already.

Finally some sense!

[BubbaTee]

I hope you realize that a representative from each team along with a media representative from each city are present during the entire draft lottery process. They are locked in a room with no cell phone access and are not allowed out until the draft lottery has been announced. They get to watch each ball get labelled, throw into the bin and they watch each selection. The NBA is a legitimate association, with multi million (and billion) dollar business men who are in charge of each franchise. You don't become a successful business man by letting things like a rigged draft lottery slip through the cracks. NBA franchise are much too professional. Too much money and fate rests on the ping pong balls and you can be assured that there is no rigging in the process. Stern may bend certain stipulations and rules but he is certainly far to smart to have something like the draft, which is so important to the league, be tampered in anyway. Something like that would completely, and utterly, ruin the entire NBA. The NBA Draft Lottery is NOT rigged.

Stop with the conspiracy theories already.

The National Basketball Referees Association is a legitimate organization, whose members' decisions impact and are watched by multi million (and billion) dollar businessmen. Too much money and fate rests on the calls an NBA referee makes, and you can be assured that there is absolutely nothing fishy going on with any member of the officiating community.

Oh wait...

Tim Donaghy, a former National Basketball Association referee who was investigated for his connection to a suspected gambling ring that involved wagering on league games, surrendered to federal authorities today and pleaded guilty to two felony counts related to gambling.
- NY Times, August 15, 2007

[giordunk]

I've also read that they do it by computer. Do they do it with balls in a bin or a computer?
Lebron goes to his home town team.
Rose goes to his home town team.
The Celtics get Bias.
The Knicks get Ewing.
The Sonics were looking at moving and get the second pick.
The Celtics, Grizzlies, and Bucks were accused of tanking and get the worst picks possible.
One or two coincidences is understandable, but when it's six, that starts making some people think.

Word. Also a small joke theory I have is that during George Bush's years as a president A Texas team has made the Finals 4 time. Also the Bulls pick coincides with Barack Obama (who is from Illinois). Bush/Texas things is probably bull but with Barack Obama a president that is a basketball player and plans to make a basketball court in the whitehouse is landing his hometown team the #1 pick a bit of a coincidence?

I have a feeling they won't give OKC Blake Griffin this season cause they can't do that hometown thing on back to back years.

I hope they do a live lottery. Like a serious live lottery with all the ping pong balls or whatever. Seriously from the draft lottery stuff it seems like there are more than 1000 ping pong balls in there.

[mhd]

WHy don't they telivise it? It would get HUGE ratings. There is nothing on anyways during the lottery besides the playoffs.

[Celtsfan1980]

I have a feeling they won't give OKC Blake Griffin this season cause they can't do that hometown thing on back to back years.

It would be funny if Oklahoma City got the number 1 pick and the Knicks get 2. It would look so rigged, I don't see it happening but it would be comical if it did. Even if it's authentic, it hasn't been fair to many teams. The Celtics were just terrible and the Spurs were a 50-win team suffering through injuries. Which team should Duncan have gone to? Boston needed him a lot more. I don't even feel it's fair that Len Bias should have been a Celtic. You win 67 games and the Championship then you have a dynasty-type player such as Bias. It's not fair to the rest of the league. The draft was meant originally to help the worst teams improve so that's the way it should have stayed.

[Celtsfan1980]

WHy don't they telivise it? It would get HUGE ratings. There is nothing on anyways during the lottery besides the playoffs.

That's what I've said. Do it during halftime of game 1 of the Championship. It would improve ratings as well. Put 50 balls in a tank proportionately and have one ball pulled out every 5 seconds. It gives people a reason to watch the Championship rather than the normal material shown.

[vincecarter4pres]

The lottery isn't done with ping pong balls any more. It's done with a computer program.
Yeah, the ratings to see that would be off da hook, yo.

[JN]

The investigation and process should be audited by someone independent. Someone who has a lot to lose if a coverup were in place, especially in these modern times. Someone who is a partner of a firm who is massively larger then the entire NBA combined, and would lose his 500K + job if a fraud were exposed.

[SkywalkerAC]

The investigation and process should be audited by someone independent. Someone who has a lot to lose if a coverup were in place, especially in these modern times. Someone who is a partner of a firm who is massively larger then the entire NBA combined, and would lose his 500K + job if a fraud were exposed.

it is audited by a major accounting firm every year i believe.

[Smills91]

If the Kings don't get the first pick, YES. If they do, then No.

[Raps in 4]

It was clearly rigged last year.

[Jimmy103]

I hope you realize that a representative from each team along with a media representative from each city are present during the entire draft lottery process. They are locked in a room with no cell phone access and are not allowed out until the draft lottery has been announced. They get to watch each ball get labelled, throw into the bin and they watch each selection. The NBA is a legitimate association, with multi million (and billion) dollar business men who are in charge of each franchise. You don't become a successful business man by letting things like a rigged draft lottery slip through the cracks. NBA franchise are much too professional. Too much money and fate rests on the ping pong balls and you can be assured that there is no rigging in the process. Stern may bend certain stipulations and rules but he is certainly far to smart to have something like the draft, which is so important to the league, be tampered in anyway. Something like that would completely, and utterly, ruin the entire NBA. The NBA Draft Lottery is NOT rigged.

Stop with the conspiracy theories already.

On one hand it's true, this is a multi-billion dollar business how couldn't this be dealt with integrity.

But on the other hand why are big professional business men letting the fates of their business be decided by a lottery. No other industry does this. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the owners got together behind closed doors and bid/negotiated for the lottery.

[BubbaTee]

Personally, I'd like to know where this idea that because someone is a rich businessman it somehow makes them immune from cheating comes from. Has no one been paying attention to anything financial for the last 10 years? Ken Lay was a rich businessman too, so was Bernie Madoff and every other Wall St bigwig now headed to prison for tax evasion or embezzlement or fraud or a host of other types of cheating.

Really, what's so hard about just making the whole process publicly transparent? The NBA shouldn't have anything to hide, and at least some people would watch it. Probably more than watch the predetermined order be revealed by opening envelopes, at least.

[HoopsGuru25]

I don't really take people seriously who think it's rigged. Just because they don't show the results live doesn't mean there aren't people there from each team to see the results(which some one has already stated). The idea that a business as successful as the NBA would risk a huge scandal so that Cleveland or Oklahoma City could get the 1st pick to draft a hometown player is hilarious.

[BubbaTee]

I don't really take people seriously who think it's rigged. Just because they don't show the results live doesn't mean there aren't people there from each team to see the results(which some one has already stated).

Personally, I don't think it's rigged either. But I don't see any downside in making the whole process transparent and proving that everything's on the up and up.

The idea that a business as successful as the NBA would risk a huge scandal so that Cleveland or Oklahoma City could get the 1st pick to draft a hometown player is hilarious.

This is exactly what I'm talking about, the idea that rich people are somehow immune because they're rich - as if being rich is some sort of integrity-assuring, corruption-defeating condition.

Enron in 2000 reported revenues of over $100 billion.
The S&L scandal of the 1980s (Keating 5) cost the US government $125 billion to fix.
Bernie Madoff perpetrated $50 billion in investor fraud.
Worldcom committed accounting fraud to falsely inflate the company's worth by $11 billion.
For comparison, in 2007-08 the NBA had total league revenues (all 30 teams combined) of $3.6 billion.

The fact is, lots of companies make enough money to buy and sell David Stern and his merry band of professional tanktop-wearers several times over. Huge sums of money hardly ensure any sort of ethical integrity.

[ss1986v2]

http://www.nba.com/features/inside_lottery_050524.html

the amount of wild speculation in this thread about the actual process of the lottery drawing is a bit staggering.

[Egg Nog]

This thread is amazing. I love all you crazy-ass people.

[HoopsGuru25]

This is exactly what I'm talking about, the idea that rich people are somehow immune because they're rich - as if being rich is some sort of integrity-assuring, corruption-defeating condition.

You missed my point. It has absolutely nothing to do with integrity. What does the league gain by corrupting the lottery process to send the most marketable prospect in the history of the draft to a market like Cleveland?

[old rem]

The Knicks don't have a pick in 2010. It goes to Utah. Also, for as bad as the Knicks have been over the years they still haven't won the lottery, yet even if the Knicks are horrible people think they should never win the lottery because it's rigged if they do.

You can't be a conspiracy theorist both ways. The Knicks have been horrible for years.

They won the Ewing lottery. All the reading I've done indicates Stern was a Knicks fan before he entered the NBA. They'd have won 2 and never having lost a lottery, so that would be much better "luck" than most other teams. I'll have to see how it goes. There's always a chance the Knicks make the playoffs and we never find out.

Not sure it was a lottery when Ewing was drafted. I think lottery began a few years later.