Is the NBA both a rigged league and about to have Oklahoma and Indiana play in the NBA finals?

[TorontoBarneys]

Imagine how dumb you have to be to think everything can only be in binary terms. If it's rigged, everything must be rigged. There can never be any nuance.

[RoteSchroder]

The Mavericks' odds of winning this year was 1.8%. The average odds of winning Powerball is nearly 1 in 300,000,000 or 0.0000003333% and yet seven people won the Powerball jackpot in 2024. The odds of all three of the Mavericks winning this year, the Pelicans winning in 2012 (13.7%) and the Cavaliers winning in 2003 (22.5%) combined is 0.055665% or approximately 1 in 1796, substantially greater than Powerball odds.

Sometimes, when dealing with a random process, things just happen.

That’s not how it works.

The chances of Mavs/Pelicans/Cavs winning over the course of two decades is much much much higher than 0.056%. You can’t just multiple those numbers to together.

E.g. Let’s say every year there will be a winner with 25% odds or less. No matter what the combination is, if you multiple these odds together, you’re going to get an astronomically small number after 10 years.

Same thing with the lotto numbers. That ain’t how you math. If you have 50 million different lines purchased for one draw, the odds of someone winning are much higher. In addition, you need to take into consideration that there are 156 drawings per year.

[dantas]

Before Snowden, the idea that governments were massively monitoring digital communications was often dismissed as a “conspiracy theory”.

I take the same view as Broadcaster:

I think it’s possible to have an influence without scripting everything.

The question of criticism is whether the mistrust is plausible.

We have a tendency for draft picks to go to teams that fit into certain narratives that is mathematically unlikely to occur without outside influence. So the suspicion is legitimate. Even Lebron commented:

Read on Twitter

[Iwasawitness]

Every year, conspiracy theorists decide who the NBA will give the #1 pick. When that team gets the pick, they call attention to their prediction. When it doesn't, they ignore that outcome. I mean, nobody wrote that the Pelicans would get the #1 pick when the biggest draft name of the 2010s became available.

When you pick and choose the data points, it's not evidence.

100%.


Show me a conspiracy theorist and I'll show you an attention-seeker who has reached the limits of their capacity to comprehend the world.

Nothing left to do but laugh and their stupidity and move on.

You’re quite possibly in denial that “conspiracy theorists” have also called just about every mainstream news event ahead of time going back for a while now.

There’s a lot of crazies out there, but there’s also a lot of really sane people that realize the world is run by evil.

So, while you’re pointing your finger at the stupidity of others, don’t miss the mirror at times. Keeps ya humble

[Ice Man]

Imagine how dumb you have to be to think everything can only be in binary terms. If it's rigged, everything must be rigged. There can never be any nuance.

The conspiracy mindset works like this -

1) Do the odds favor the event? If so, it wasn't rigged.
2) If the odds don't favor an event, but there's no potential narrative supporting that result, as with the Pelicans getting Zion, it wasn't rigged.
3) If the odds don't favor an event, and there is a potential narrative supporting that event, as with Dallas getting Cooper, it was rigged.

That's your "nuance."

[Dennis 37]

After the Luka and #1 draft pick situation, every other fan was saying the NBA rigs things to benefit the league. If that’s the case, you’d probably wager they’d prefer the Knicks or a team with a major superstar, rather than two small market, middle-America teams playing in their ultimate showcase.

Both can be true.

That refs are instructed to emphasize and/or de-emphasize specific fouls to benefit league revenue creating teams, doesn't mean those teams are going to win.

The Toronto Raptors play 5 vs 8 every game, yet they were able to win. I bet the advertisers took a strip off the rights holders, and the rights holders off the league, for that year.

Kawhi Leonard got his first regular season tech as a Raptor. That tells you a lot.

[Indomitable]

After the Luka and #1 draft pick situation, every other fan was saying the NBA rigs things to benefit the league. If that’s the case, you’d probably wager they’d prefer the Knicks or a team with a major superstar, rather than two small market, middle-America teams playing in their ultimate showcase.

Saying that the draft seems rigged is something that makes sense.

Players have implied. There are form 2 picks who imply it.

People who believe it. Believe it is done to artificially keep certain things in place.

Rigging the Lottery is a lot different from rigging the games.

You can only turn a blind eye much.

[ItsDanger]

Luka to Lakers. Flagg to Dallas as compensation. What better time to create a smokescreen.

[rickxdel]

They are not mutually exclusive

The NBA does rig draft orders when it wants to and they do instruct refs to call games certain ways to favor or target specific outcomes but that doesn't mean a team can't outplay that ref bias and win anyway

[Memories]

They don't want to make it look too obvious after fixing the draft lottery.

Pretty much this.

The Nets making it to the finals a couple times, Spurs - Nets and Pistons finals? They gotta throw the one once in a while.

[Charlie Sollers]

They are not mutually exclusive

The NBA does rig draft orders when it wants to and they do instruct refs to call games certain ways to favor or target specific outcomes but that doesn't mean a team can't outplay that ref bias and win anyway

Most people here called the NBA fixing the finals for OKC vs Indiana.

[Los_29]

I can’t believe there are people out there that actually think the league is rigged. It’s one of the most popular and profitable leagues in the world. They don’t need to rig it.

OKC/Pacers is a disastrous outcome for the NBA but it doesn’t matter because they are still a money making machine.

[Johnny Bball]

I will watch this final in a heartbeat and far quicker than I would if it were the Lakers, GSW, Celtics, any team Lebron, Heat, or any of the same recycled old ****.

[Pachinko_]

Not that I've done any serious reasearch but this seems like the Finals with the smallest combined fanbase ever? Maybe along with MKH-PHX one. Also, San Antonio dominating for years. It's actually admirable, good on them. I never bought the NBA is rigged theory, big markets have their own way of attracting big names naturally, they don't need NBA to help them.

Phoenix is the 5th most populous city in the US so I don’t know I consider them a small market.

Sure, but that doesn't necessarily make them Suns fans...

[bkkrh]

Before Snowden, the idea that governments were massively monitoring digital communications was often dismissed as a “conspiracy theory”.

I take the same view as Broadcaster:

I think it’s possible to have an influence without scripting everything.

The question of criticism is whether the mistrust is plausible.

We have a tendency for draft picks to go to teams that fit into certain narratives that is mathematically unlikely to occur without outside influence. So the suspicion is legitimate. Even Lebron commented:

Read on Twitter

And here is the beauty of those examples, I can build similar narratives in case another team would have won the draft.

2008: Memphis gets Derrick Rose after playing College in Memphis. The Sonics get Rose in their last season before moving. The Heat get Derrick Rose the season after they traded Shaq. The Knicks get Rose to rebuild after the Marbury disaster.

2011: Not wasting my time going through the teams and just pointing out the obvious that Cleveland also had the 2nd highest chance of all teams to get the 1st pick with their own pick, which fell back to 4. So why on earth would the NBA manipulate in the form of having the 2nd pick jump 7 positions, if it would look a lot less weirder if the pick with the 2nd best chances gets picked first?

2012: Bobcats get the 1st after trading Wallace and Stephen Jackson and being the worst team in league history. Portland as a replacement for Oden and Roy.

2014: Lakers get the 1st for Kobe's return, similar to Duncan/Robinson. Also, Knicks need some help for Carmelo. Weird how none of the 2 big market teams get support when both have star players that need support.

2019: Again NY an LA. Also why doesn't Cleveland get any kind of reward this time when Lebron leaves?

And so on. Also interesting how some teams get rewarded for losing their franchise players and others don't. Why didn't Sacramento get rewarded for trading DeMarcus Cousins? Guess the NBA really hates Portland since they weren't rewarded for their injuries, Aldridge, or Lillard. And somehow especially the Lakers and Knicks never seem to have any luck, even though that should be the league's biggest interest.

[BigJimFinn]

The probability of the worst team getting the #1 pick three years in a row would be 0.27 %, or about 1 in 350.
You could call that incredibly unlikely, yet it is the most likely outcome. In a lottery, every single outcome has very low probability, but we always get a winner, and then can start inventing reasons why that unlikely thing happened, because it clearly had to be fixed by some superior power.

The human mind has fantastic capability for creating narratives to fit any random events after the fact and refusing to recognize pure luck and variance. This is how magical thinking, cults and religions have survived despite the progress of empirical science.
If you like the outcome, it was earned by your actions and belief; if you don't like it, it must have been caused by some malicious conspiracy.
At least the Doctrine of Rigged Lottery Machine is pretty harmless compared to most others.

[Dennis 37]

I can’t believe there are people out there that actually think the league is rigged. It’s one of the most popular and profitable leagues in the world. They don’t need to rig it.

OKC/Pacers is a disastrous outcome for the NBA but it doesn’t matter because they are still a money making machine.

All you have to do is watch the non calls on LeBron when he dislodges players or sets illegal screens. The free throw discrepancy for the Lakers year after year proves the league is rigged.

[Mikistan]

I can’t believe there are people out there that actually think the league is rigged. It’s one of the most popular and profitable leagues in the world. They don’t need to rig it.

OKC/Pacers is a disastrous outcome for the NBA but it doesn’t matter because they are still a money making machine.

All you have to do is watch the non calls on LeBron when he dislodges players or sets illegal screens. The free throw discrepancy for the Lakers year after year proves the league is rigged.

Not just him, his entire team gets the benefits of calls, rememeber when the cavaliers with lebron went 5 quarters of playoff ball against the raptors without committing one foul

[Los_29]

I can’t believe there are people out there that actually think the league is rigged. It’s one of the most popular and profitable leagues in the world. They don’t need to rig it.

OKC/Pacers is a disastrous outcome for the NBA but it doesn’t matter because they are still a money making machine.

All you have to do is watch the non calls on LeBron when he dislodges players or sets illegal screens. The free throw discrepancy for the Lakers year after year proves the league is rigged.

They didn’t even make the playoffs some of those years. First round exit this year.

[Michael Jackson]

Not that I've done any serious reasearch but this seems like the Finals with the smallest combined fanbase ever? Maybe along with MKH-PHX one. Also, San Antonio dominating for years. It's actually admirable, good on them. I never bought the NBA is rigged theory, big markets have their own way of attracting big names naturally, they don't need NBA to help them.

Phoenix is the 5th most populous city in the US so I don’t know I consider them a small market.

Sure, but that doesn't necessarily make them Suns fans...

True a lot of transplants there especially from the Midwest. I think though the suns have a pretty decent following.