YogurtProducer wrote:RoteSchroder wrote:YogurtProducer wrote:Are you suggesting there is no proof that the draft isn't rigged?
What about the fact that a representative from Ernst & Young (an audit firm) oversees the entire process. Is that not in turn some assurance that there is no rigging?
Third parties can be bought or corrupt. The FDA, for example, also got caught up in a several scandals, some known to the public, many unknown.
Ernst & Young themselves got caught in a scandal where they had to pay up $100 M for cheating on ethics exams. Double whammy considering they’re the ones who are supposed to catch cheaters and that it was an ethics exam.
When informed of potential cheating, they investigated themselves and claimed that there were no cheating issues.
So you think Ernst and Young is sacrificing their entire reputation so Wemby goes to SA instead of a massive market like Chicago?
That’s NOT to say the draft is rigged, only that there’s no 100% certainty of anything without full transparency. I would accept it with 100% certainty if they made certain tweaks to the ping pong machine process, for instance.
What a bull argument.
There is full transparency. Every GM and Owner understands the process, and it is publicly posted.
The 40th annual NBA Draft Lottery will determine the order of selection for the first 14 picks of the 2025 NBA Draft. Drawings will be conducted to determine the first four picks in the NBA Draft. The remainder of the “lottery teams” will select in positions five through 14 in inverse order of their 2024-25 regular-season records.
The actual lottery procedure will take place in a separate room just before ESPN’s national broadcast. Select media, NBA officials and representatives of the participating teams and the accounting firm Ernst & Young will be in attendance for the drawings.
Fourteen ping-pong balls numbered 1 through 14 will be placed in a lottery machine. There are 1,001 possible combinations when four balls are drawn out of 14, without regard to their order of selection. Before the lottery, 1,000 of those 1,001 combinations will be assigned to the 14 participating lottery teams. The lottery machine is manufactured by the Smart Play Company, a leading manufacturer of state lottery machines throughout the United States. Smart Play also weighs, measures and certifies the ping-pong balls before the drawing.
The drawing process occurs in the following manner: All 14 balls are placed in the lottery machine and they are mixed for 20 seconds, and then the first ball is removed. The remaining balls are mixed in the lottery machine for another 10 seconds, and then the second ball is drawn. There is a 10-second mix, and then the third ball is drawn. There is a 10-second mix, and then the fourth ball is drawn. The team that has been assigned that combination will receive the No. 1 pick. The same process is repeated with the same ping-pong balls and lottery machine for the second through fourth picks.
If the same team comes up more than once, the result is discarded and another four-ball combination is selected. Also, if the one unassigned combination is drawn, the result is discarded and the balls are drawn again. The length of time the balls are mixed is monitored by a timekeeper who faces away from the machine and signals the machine operator after the appropriate amount of time has elapsed.
A representative from Ernst & Young oversees the entire lottery process and stuffs and seals the envelopes before bringing them to the studio for the broadcast. The announcement of the lottery results will be made by NBA Deputy Commissioner and Chief Operating Officer Mark Tatum. A second representative from each participating team will be seated on stage. Neither the Deputy Commissioner nor the team representatives on stage will be informed of the lottery results before the envelopes are opened. The team whose logo is in the last envelope opened will have the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft.
Do you not understand how ridiculous it is suggest that this could be rigged? In total we have
The NBA
14 Team Reps
Ernst and Young (a reputable firm of auditors)
Smart Play Co.
17 different parties involved. And they are all conspiring? Some against their own best interests?
Do you not get how much money is on the line? E&Y generates 51B of revenue per year. That trumps the NBAs $11B. They aren't risking their entire reputation over a **** raft lottery.
Why would all 17 parties be involved, you know something I don’t or are you making assumptions?
Knowing and understanding the process, doesn’t mean they scrutinize and check on the process. Has a single one of them taken apart the platform they put the transparent ping pong container on?
Pretty sure EY already tarnished their reputation. No one cares. Michael Franzese (Mafia) admitted that they fixed games with two NBA refs on their payroll, no one cares. And the NBA is a billion dollar business.
No one cares about “tarnishing reputation”, especially of firms no one has ever heard of. Coca Cola was accused of hiring death squads to murder trade union leaders, we’re all still drinking coke aren’t we? no one cares. It’s probably harder to find a clean billion dollar business if anything.
Honestly, I don’t care much either way, but from a personal perspective, if I want to get to the truth, usually my go to method isn’t, “lol it’s a conspiracy”, it’s more so taking in all the information and all the possibilities (e.g. like conducting a literature review) and seeing if what we know holds up to scrutiny.
