The OFFICIAL "Was the 2025 NBA draft rigged?"

[jkvonny]

Luka is an international super star and he fits in a big market like LA.

Coop comes from a small village in the deep woods in Maine. He will fit in well in a small rural market like Dallas.

Are you a non Texan or non-American?

Dallas/DFW metroplex is not a small rural market

Dallas Mavs is a big market.

It's not Amarillo or Lubbock.

Yeah, it's bizarre we're at a point where the 4th largest metro area in the US is a small market.

Right??

If anything, he belong in Salt Lake City, Utah. Smaller market, rural outside of the outskirts.
And beautiful mountains! .

[NoStatsGuy]

Still 85% dumb as hell. What a shame i expected better from this forum. The GB is actually dumber than reddit hahahah

Whatever the outcome would be in the lottery you would have called it rigged.

[MrGoat]

Can some one please explain to me how the Hawks got the number one pick last year? Was that just to throw everyone off?

Last year's draft was one of the weakest class in years.

But, I don't think it was rigged last season.

I actually agree. Last year's draft wasn't even worth the effort to rig, I think they didn't even bother with that one unless the people at Ernst & Young were just bored. It's quite possible when run legitimately that a team can move up with low odds, it would happen occasionally, the top 3 teams only have a combined 42% chance of getting the #1 pick, the other 11 have the other 58%.

But over the years there are enough eyebrow raising results that have become too hard to ignore. David Stern implemented the lottery as a way to corrupt the draft to what the league wants to happen, starting with the frozen/bent envelopes sending Patrick Ewing to the Knicks. When there is a really high profile prospect the odds of shenanigans go up massively.

I actually had a job interview with Ernst & Young years ago after passing some actuarial exams (and had I gotten that job I might have been part of this process and would not be able to talk about it because of NDAs and the threat of being Boeing'd if I violated that NDA), we even talked about the NBA lottery in the interview because I needed some things to show that I had researched the firm. Ernst & Young has a lot of actuaries, if you know what an actuary is then you'll realize that they would be absolutely perfect for rigging the lottery in the current fashion with number combinations. If I was Adam Silver Ernst & Young would be my first choice if I wanted to rig a lottery in a complicated fashion. They are known to be a highly immoral company and they have a lot of actuaries who can pull off some very high level number manipulation and do it in a complex enough fashion to seem legit to people who don't understand statistics enough to believe that highly talented statisticians can't gaslight the hell out of you with statistics if they want to.

I absolutely call BS on this lottery

[othawhitemeat]

What team winning would have made it not rigged?

This happens every year where people complain about it being rigged for X and Y reason yet could almost make the same argument for 5 others teams if they landed 1st instead.

Literally anyone else. Also, the fact that Spurs got 2nd and 76ers got 3rd while the Jazz/Wizards got 5th and 6th - absolutely ridiculous and almost impossible. Top that w Nico could have literally traded Luka for a haul like whomever will to get Giannis

[othawhitemeat]

Are you not entertained ? Even if you know NBA is scripted would you stop watching?

I dont watch very much compared to what I ised to cause of stuff like this and crappy officiating that looks rigged too

[Optms]

Still 85% dumb as hell. What a shame i expected better from this forum. The GB is actually dumber than reddit hahahah

Whatever the outcome would be in the lottery you would have called it rigged.

Guarantee you any one of Utah, Washington or Charlotte getting the first pick, no one would be calling it rigged. And you know, those teams actually had the highest odds. Not one of them ended top 3.

Some people just refuse to stop living under a rock.

[floppymoose]

You can fool 85% of the people 100% of the time. It explains a lot about the world we find ourselves in.

[Catchall]

** Dallas gets damage control for losing Luka, watching their season fall apart, and having fans chant "Fire Nico!" on national TV.
** San Antonio gets more talent to push the Wembanyama superstar narrative.
** Philadelphia keeps their lottery pick after a dreadful season, and, more importantly, OKC doesn't add more lottery talent to a low-ratings team that's already positioned to go to The Finals the next few years.
** Charlotte pick was likely random.

I'd say things worked out for the league's priorities about as well as they could. I still think Brooklyn and Chicago need marquee talent to support those markets, though Brooklyn has the assets to make a trade or two.

[Catchall]

If you were in charge of a $100Bn global sports entertainment enterprise and needed to decide how to doll out your most important and valuable assets in order to increase value for thousands of stakeholders, would you leave it all to pure chance?

You wouldn't. No business would. For the fans, it's just a game. For you, it's your livelihood.

The conspiracy is actually that certain important picks aren't rigged.

[Yoshun]

Damn, the NBA has a real problem if this isn't just a RealGM thing.

[Yoshun]

If you were in charge of a $100Bn global sports entertainment enterprise and needed to decide how to doll out your most important and valuable assets in order to increase value for thousands of stakeholders, would you leave it all to pure chance?

You wouldn't. No business would. For the fans, it's just a game. For you, it's your livelihood.

The conspiracy is actually that certain picks aren't rigged.

Is that why Brooklyn, who is part of the biggest market in the NBA, got the 8th pick and will probably suck another season?

[Catchall]

If you were in charge of a $100Bn global sports entertainment enterprise and needed to decide how to doll out your most important and valuable assets in order to increase value for thousands of stakeholders, would you leave it all to pure chance?

You wouldn't. No business would. For the fans, it's just a game. For you, it's your livelihood.

The conspiracy is actually that certain picks aren't rigged.

Is that why Brooklyn, who is part of the biggest market in the NBA, got the 8th pick and will probably suck another season?

Yes. Brooklyn wasn't a high enough priority to cater to via the draft. They have assets they can use to improve themselves via trades. Besides the Knicks can carry that market.

[NoStatsGuy]

Still 85% dumb as hell. What a shame i expected better from this forum. The GB is actually dumber than reddit hahahah

Whatever the outcome would be in the lottery you would have called it rigged.

Guarantee you any one of Utah, Washington or Charlotte getting the first pick, no one would be calling it rigged. And you know, those teams actually had the highest odds. Not one of them ended top 3.

Some people just refuse to stop living under a rock.

thats the only 2 teams you wouldnt be able to come up with something.

i gurantee you if utah gets it, we have people talking about white hope and how it was rigged.

same for brooklyn, philly, spurs, atlanta, chicago, houston, probably the raptors and obviously dallas. all teams we would have gotten the same idiotic statements on here.

still noone explained how they rigged the drawing, that was video taped. are you gonna tell me jason bourne in a secret mission sneaked into building during night and planted secret rfid chips (which btw doesnt even work, but i have read it on here) into the balls and then rewrote the code in the machine?

Or are you suggesting the representatives were given acting classes and everybody is involved? like all the owners, the reporters, E&Y. thats even more ridiculous than the rfid theory.

i cant with you guys... social media has ruined people's critical thinking. I need to take a break from the GB holy moly

[wadenation305]

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[Jfh20]

Still 85% dumb as hell. What a shame i expected better from this forum. The GB is actually dumber than reddit hahahah

Whatever the outcome would be in the lottery you would have called it rigged.

Silver made it way too obvious this time.. like wow is he that dumb? Lmao.. … you moved Luka to l.a to try and get LeBron his 5th and failed , all along handing the mavs the 1st round pick in return for a wink wink favor under the table type deal and showing the fans your actions and intentions.. the best thing about this whole ordeal is that the league has failed to get LeBron his 5th.. Jordan got 6x in 12 years.. LeBron got 3 in 20 yrs.. and the Mickey Mouse trophy in Orlando if u wanna count it.. he’s not on Kobe’s level , much less Jordan’s.

[NoStatsGuy]

Still 85% dumb as hell. What a shame i expected better from this forum. The GB is actually dumber than reddit hahahah

Whatever the outcome would be in the lottery you would have called it rigged.

Silver made it way too obvious this time.. like wow is he that dumb? Lmao.. … you moved Luka to l.a to try and get LeBron his 5th and failed , all along handing the mavs the 1st round pick in return for a wink wink favor under the table type deal and showing the fans your actions and intentions.. the best thing about this whole ordeal is that the league has failed to get LeBron his 5th.. Jordan got 6x in 12 years.. LeBron got 3 in 20 yrs.. and the Mickey Mouse trophy in Orlando if u wanna count it.. he’s not on Kobe’s level , much less Jordan’s.

you have any proof or any logical explanation why adam silver would do all that?

no? thats what i thought.

[hauntedcomputer]

Some nerd somewhere has probably calculated up the odds of all the individual lottery odds to see if they fall within a reasonable standard deviation. After a few decades, there should be enough data.

[akula1488]

how come Lakers never won #1 pick in the post Kobe/pre Lebron years? they have had higher chance of winning #1 than many recent teams that won #1 picks.

[dantas]

Markets that have been suffering from droughts for years, such as Charlote or Portland, should be outraged by Adam Silver's manoeuvre. Charlote only got first choice in 1991. It must hurt them.

Once the league negotiates the winners, for whatever reason, some markets with fewer contacts end up losing.

[InsideInfo]

I was looking into this a bit last night and was amazed.

Over the past 17 drafts, a team with 3% chance or LESS has won the lotto 5 times. That is 29.4% of the past 17 drafts.

08- 1.7%
11- 2.8%
14- 1.7%
24- 3%
25- 1.8%

Maybe even crazier than that.. from 99-14.. a span of 16 drafts the top 2-3 teams with ~42% chance or more of getting the #1 pick only wont the lotto 2 times (12.5%) And one of those was 03 sending Lebron to the Cavs.

I don't know how anyone looks at those numbers and thinks this thing is legit.