VFX wrote: I wouldnt say the draft is necessarily "rigged".
HOWEVER, Dallas sits at a 1.3% chance to win the #1 pick.
After the whole Doncic debacle, and their GM choosing specifically LA as the team to send him, I would 100% believe it was rigged should they magically land Cooper Flagg.
This is similar to New Orleans trading away Anthony Davis and then them winning the Zion Williamson lottery with 6% chance.
The better question is how much happenstance has to take place for non-believers to buy into the idea that it is absolutely rigged.
40 win Bulls get home town D Rose with a 1% chance. Zion to Pels after AD to LA. Kyrie, Wiggins, Bennett 3x #1s for the Cavs after Bron leaves. Phoenix gets the #1 for Arizona alum Ayton (he's just a bust). I'm sure there are others I'm missing.
People call it mental illness, many people call it pattern recognition which is a basic human trait. Some people just think hmm, these are interesting coincidences.
Since 2009, OKC ranks 4th in RS winning % behind SA, Boston and Denver. Why would the NBA want these cities to be the most successful teams in the RS over NYC, Chicago and LA?
You are conflating the nba interfering a small portion of the time with teams succeeding or failing overall.
I dont believe anyone is saying every single decision is at the request or interference of the league.
sp6r=underrated wrote:This question is specifically for the folks who believe the Lottery is rigged.
What would the NBA have to do for you to believe the Lottery is legitimate?
I wouldnt say the draft is necessarily "rigged".
HOWEVER, Dallas sits at a 1.3% chance to win the #1 pick.
After the whole Doncic debacle, and their GM choosing specifically LA as the team to send him, I would 100% believe it was rigged should they magically land Cooper Flagg.
This is similar to New Orleans trading away Anthony Davis and then them winning the Zion Williamson lottery with 6% chance.
The better question is how much happenstance has to take place for non-believers to buy into the idea that it is absolutely rigged.
Or getting AD after getting **** in CP3 trade. Cleveland getting 2 first rounders after Lebron left. I was also saying all the time that Wemby will land with the Spurs, it just seemd like a logical thing to happen with Spurs being bad and international conection with Parker/Diaw,...
The next one will not be rigget bcs it will be too obvious, but some like the ones i mentioned or Ewing thing is just too obvious. We need a next storyline and then it will happen.
Why do the Knicks have such a low winning percentage this century and why have the gone a half century without a title if the NBA is capable of fixing things?
It obviously makes more financial sense to have a contender in NYC rather than San Antonio. Why haven't they made it so?
also, there are actual nba conspiracies we know about that have been unearthed because the nba and basketball owners are not great at keeping secrets. everyone remembers the 'sweet flip' e-mail from aubrey mcclendon to clay bennett revealed during the court proceedings involving the sonics' relocation. these guys are all mostly rich buffoons who are not KGB-level secret keepers. i think if this happened even one time in the nba's history, someone directly involved with league affairs would have long since opened the can of worms.
the strength of that evidence (that no direct leaks or knowledge of lottery conspiracies have occurred over 40 years) is far greater than all of the circumstantial stuff put together.
slick_watts wrote:also, there are actual nba conspiracies we know about that have been unearthed because the nba and basketball owners are not great at keeping secrets. everyone remembers the 'sweet flip' e-mail from aubrey mcclendon to clay bennett unearthed during the court proceedings involving the sonics' relocation. these guys are all mostly rich buffoons who are not KGB-level secret keepers.
the strength of that evidence (that no direct leaks or knowledge of lottery conspiracies have occurred over 40 years) is far greater than all of the circumstantial stuff put together.
Correct. I've mentioned this before but people would benefit from listening to some of the Watergate tapes. Watergate is an actual criminal conspiracy run by very accomplished men who all work in the same building. And they're terrible at it and quickly turn on each other. Watergate is what an actual criminal conspiracy looks like. And when you understand what actual criminal conspiracies look like the NBA conspiracy theory is basically inconceivable.
Is it really conceivable that 30 separate companies working with outside auditors could manage to manipulate outcomes for decades without any hard evidence leaking?
Consider that both Donald Sterling and Robert Sarver were NBA team owners for decades before they got unwillingly booted from ownership by the league over their conduct.
If the league was actually rigging things then those two would have no reason not to talk about it and reveal all the dirty secrets. These are billionaires who got forcefully and publicly kicked out of their fancy country club and no longer have any obligation to toe the company line. The fact that they never even brought it up speaks to how silly the idea of the league rigging things is
Quattro wrote:Why did the biggest market in the NBA suck for 2 decades? Can any of the conspiracy theorists answer that one?
Yup. I always have 2 questions for "NBA is rigged" crowd. 1. Why did the NBA allow NYC's team to suck for decades? 2. Why did the NBA hand 3 can't miss HOFers to the San Antonio Spurs who have 0 national profile?
1- You can do a lot of things, but you can't make the ball go in the hoop and you can't stop injuries. As we've seen, it doesn't really matter how well teams like NY and Chicago do - they can still draw better on average than other cities can even with minimum effort.
2 - Maybe that's why they did it. Nobody would care about The Spurs otherwise.
Blacksheep25 wrote:People who believe in many conspiracy theories have a mental illness. Nothing short of them picking the balls out themselves would convince them.
There's corruption, favoritism and nepotism and even the smallest levels of various institutions. The idea that larger institutions are perfectly clean when 100x the money and power is up for grabs seems unlikely.
Blacksheep25 wrote:People who believe in many conspiracy theories have a mental illness. Nothing short of them picking the balls out themselves would convince them.
People who believe billion dollar corporations, who have the ability to make more money with certain decisions, are honest/legit are adorable.
The league is driven and carried by stars and star player story lines. If you are so naieve as to think that the league wouldn't *OCCASIONALLY* say something along the lines of: "The Bulls have been irrelevant for 10 years and are the 5th biggest market.. We could just send D Rose the home town kid to Chicago on a 0.9% chance and have this franchise carry the league for 15 years like LeBron did in Cleveland...
And as the league grows and grows the billionaire owners investment valuation SKY ROCKETS. Everyone saying how could this ever happen!!!?!?!?!? Well, when the league does well so do ALL the owners. Their franchises went from 500m to 2b in 20 years.
The biggest thing that I don't get the anti conspiracy posters can hold in their head simultaneously while thinking the league is in no way rigged:
Superstar calls. They can accept that star players get rewarded with FTs when they have become a star, and that bench players or non star players dont get the calls. They never say "Why wouldn't the owners of all the teams without stars complain about this? How come they aren't mad that Mike Dunleavy Jr. isn't getting the same whistle as Harden?. And yet, we know this is the case. This happens because it's good for the league. The Pacers benefit from LBJ getting star calls. The Kings and the Bobcats also. Yet it's fact.
The entire product on court has rigging in the form of Superstar calls, and yet they don't think the league would occasionally send a ping pong ball to a big market to enrich the league.
The Servant wrote:The league is driven and carried by stars and star player story lines. If you are so naieve as to think that the league wouldn't *OCCASIONALLY* say something along the lines of: "The Bulls have been irrelevant for 10 years and are the 5th biggest market.. We could just send D Rose the home town kid to Chicago on a 0.9% chance and have this franchise carry the league for 15 years like LeBron did in Cleveland...
And as the league grows and grows the billionaire owners investment valuation SKY ROCKETS. Everyone saying how could this ever happen!!!?!?!?!? Well, when the league does well so do ALL the owners. Their franchises went from 500m to 2b in 20 years.
The biggest thing that I don't get the anti conspiracy posters can hold in their head simultaneously while thinking the league is in no way rigged:
Superstar calls. They can accept that star players get rewarded with FTs when they have become a star, and that bench players or non star players dont get the calls. They never say "Why wouldn't the owners of all the teams without stars complain about this? How come they aren't mad that Mike Dunleavy Jr. isn't getting the same whistle as Harden?. And yet, we know this is the case. This happens because it's good for the league. The Pacers benefit from LBJ getting star calls. The Kings and the Bobcats also. Yet it's fact.
Since 2009, OKC ranks 4th in RS winning % behind SA, Boston and Denver. Why would the NBA want these cities to be the most successful teams in the RS over NYC, Chicago and LA?
VFX wrote:There is too much money involved spanning multiple markets outside of directly the NBA as a product.
This is exactly right. There's too much money involved spanning multiple markets in order for it to be rigged.
There's a 0% chance 29 owners would allow for that. And if even if they did, there's a 0% chance Ernst & Young (who is significantly bigger than the NBA) is signing off.
Blacksheep25 wrote:People who believe in many conspiracy theories have a mental illness. Nothing short of them picking the balls out themselves would convince them.
People who believe billion dollar corporations, who have the ability to make more money with certain decisions, are honest/legit are adorable.
IOW, someone who believes that corporations are capable of dishonesty, has to believe the lottery is rigged. Adorable.
Mavrelous wrote:Wherever there is secrecy where it's not needed, it's naive to assume there is no intereference, OTOH, Silver represents the owners, and hired by them, it's not like he's doing something that screws them over collectively, of anything is done, it is for what is perceived to be for the benifit of the league.
The Servant wrote:The league is driven and carried by stars and star player story lines. If you are so naieve as to think that the league wouldn't *OCCASIONALLY* say something along the lines of: "The Bulls have been irrelevant for 10 years and are the 5th biggest market.. We could just send D Rose the home town kid to Chicago on a 0.9% chance and have this franchise carry the league for 15 years like LeBron did in Cleveland...
And as the league grows and grows the billionaire owners investment valuation SKY ROCKETS. Everyone saying how could this ever happen!!!?!?!?!? Well, when the league does well so do ALL the owners. Their franchises went from 500m to 2b in 20 years.
The biggest thing that I don't get the anti conspiracy posters can hold in their head simultaneously while thinking the league is in no way rigged:
Superstar calls. They can accept that star players get rewarded with FTs when they have become a star, and that bench players or non star players dont get the calls. They never say "Why wouldn't the owners of all the teams without stars complain about this? How come they aren't mad that Mike Dunleavy Jr. isn't getting the same whistle as Harden?. And yet, we know this is the case. This happens because it's good for the league. The Pacers benefit from LBJ getting star calls. The Kings and the Bobcats also. Yet it's fact.
Since 2009, OKC ranks 4th in RS winning % behind SA, Boston and Denver. Why would the NBA want these cities to be the most successful teams in the RS over NYC, Chicago and LA?
OKC is a newer team and it's not in a traditional basketball market. Making the team be good there early in its existence would help build a larger fanbase than a crappy team would.
There's no concerns about places like NYC, Chicago and LA. Their populations are bigger and even though the Bulls and Knicks haven't been that great or a while, they still draw better than smaller market teams do.
The Servant wrote:The league is driven and carried by stars and star player story lines. If you are so naieve as to think that the league wouldn't *OCCASIONALLY* say something along the lines of: "The Bulls have been irrelevant for 10 years and are the 5th biggest market.. We could just send D Rose the home town kid to Chicago on a 0.9% chance and have this franchise carry the league for 15 years like LeBron did in Cleveland...
And as the league grows and grows the billionaire owners investment valuation SKY ROCKETS. Everyone saying how could this ever happen!!!?!?!?!? Well, when the league does well so do ALL the owners. Their franchises went from 500m to 2b in 20 years.
The biggest thing that I don't get the anti conspiracy posters can hold in their head simultaneously while thinking the league is in no way rigged:
Superstar calls. They can accept that star players get rewarded with FTs when they have become a star, and that bench players or non star players dont get the calls. They never say "Why wouldn't the owners of all the teams without stars complain about this? How come they aren't mad that Mike Dunleavy Jr. isn't getting the same whistle as Harden?. And yet, we know this is the case. This happens because it's good for the league. The Pacers benefit from LBJ getting star calls. The Kings and the Bobcats also. Yet it's fact.
Since 2009, OKC ranks 4th in RS winning % behind SA, Boston and Denver. Why would the NBA want these cities to be the most successful teams in the RS over NYC, Chicago and LA?
They flipped Derrick Rose to the Bulls who had less than a 2% chance of winning the #1. The Bulls are a dumpster fire of a team and that is that. OKC has the goated front office, and the Bulls have a pure trash office. That doesn't mean the league is above occasionally throwing an asset to a bum franchise. Knicks had Melo and Stat join as FA's but ultimately failed, did the league need to feed them a #1?
Elite small market franchises can exist in a league, and good markets can have bum ownership. That can exist simultaneously while the league can flip assets here or there to help floundering franchises shore up for a period of time.
I've always thought of the Knicks that their on court product is kind of irrelevant when you have 20,000 seats and 12,000,000 people, and when you have a culture that glorifies the Knicks regardless of them being trash.
Blacksheep25 wrote:People who believe in many conspiracy theories have a mental illness. Nothing short of them picking the balls out themselves would convince them.
People who believe billion dollar corporations, who have the ability to make more money with certain decisions, are honest/legit are adorable.
IOW, someone who believes that corporations are capable of dishonesty, has to believe the lottery is rigged. Adorable.
They don't have to believe anything, but saying anyone who thinks it is rigged is mentally ill is wild.
The Servant wrote:The league is driven and carried by stars and star player story lines. If you are so naieve as to think that the league wouldn't *OCCASIONALLY* say something along the lines of: "The Bulls have been irrelevant for 10 years and are the 5th biggest market.. We could just send D Rose the home town kid to Chicago on a 0.9% chance and have this franchise carry the league for 15 years like LeBron did in Cleveland...
And as the league grows and grows the billionaire owners investment valuation SKY ROCKETS. Everyone saying how could this ever happen!!!?!?!?!? Well, when the league does well so do ALL the owners. Their franchises went from 500m to 2b in 20 years.
The biggest thing that I don't get the anti conspiracy posters can hold in their head simultaneously while thinking the league is in no way rigged:
Superstar calls. They can accept that star players get rewarded with FTs when they have become a star, and that bench players or non star players dont get the calls. They never say "Why wouldn't the owners of all the teams without stars complain about this? How come they aren't mad that Mike Dunleavy Jr. isn't getting the same whistle as Harden?. And yet, we know this is the case. This happens because it's good for the league. The Pacers benefit from LBJ getting star calls. The Kings and the Bobcats also. Yet it's fact.
Since 2009, OKC ranks 4th in RS winning % behind SA, Boston and Denver. Why would the NBA want these cities to be the most successful teams in the RS over NYC, Chicago and LA?
OKC is a newer team and it's not in a traditional basketball market. Making the team be good there early in its existence would help build a larger fanbase than a crappy team would.
There's no concerns about places like NYC, Chicago and LA. Their populations are bigger and even though the Bulls and Knicks haven't been that great or a while, they still draw better than smaller market teams do.
If the above is correct, that it doesn't matter if NYC, LA or Chicago is good but it does matter if small market teams are good, then it argues the NBA would regularly fix things against the Lakers. After all it doesn't matter if they are good.
that's one of my two grievances with the conspiracy theorists: 1. No matter the outcome it can always be interpreted in favor of the conspiracy. Thus the belief is unfalsifiable. 2. There lack of explanation for why major news outlets like the New York Times, who regularly break major stories, haven't reported ever on a league wide game fixing/roster fixing conspiracy.
sp6r=underrated wrote: Yup. I always have 2 questions for "NBA is rigged" crowd. 1. Why did the NBA allow NYC's team to suck for decades? 2. Why did the NBA hand 3 can't miss HOFers to the San Antonio Spurs who have 0 national profile?
This is an absolute joke, and both are easily refutable.
1. The NBA HAS tried to make NY teams relevant, they just can't put the pieces to the puzzle together like LA BOS and MIA. Since I started watching Basketball in the early 2000's NY teams have had:
- MVP level Kidd, Top 10 player in the league, get traded to the Nets for Stephon. He was later joined by ANBA Vince Carter a few years later. NY repd the East in the finals 3 out of 5 years since MJ retired
- Melo, an MVP candidate and Top 10 player in the league, forced his way to NY a year after Amare, the best PF in the game at that point signed in NY. Injuries aside and Knicks got a Top 5 PF, C, and SF to join their team in consecutive years.
- Derron, the 2nd best PG in the game people said at the time, gets traded to Nets, shortly after Joe Johnson and KG and Pierce get traded there too.
- Kyrie signs with BRK, and KD and Harden force trades to BRK.
- Brunson signs for pennies, and they get traded Towns for pennies on the dollar.
The NBA has clearly, 100% tried to make the NY teams viable. Injuries and other circumstances have just clearly taken control of the narrative. Deron and Amare breaking down ruined that era. The pandemic ruined the Nets. Kidd made it to 2 finals...You are clearly off in that assessment.
2. Because sometimes players can be so good that they buck the trend, and it creates new markets and new history. Robinson and Duncan were the perfect rivals to the powerhouses of the West. TD was just so good that he created a stable organization, and was able to win rings and create another small market team narrative worth pushing. Can't have every title going to LA/BOS/MIA. GS and Steph are another example of this, where a player and team are so good that they buck the trend, and create a story that the NBA is glad to have going. Jokic had his shot at this but injuries have stolen that from us. These teams/players create natural storylines that are easier to maintain by the league. They are the feel good stories if you will. We root for these teams because they are the underdogs typically, and the rivals of their big market rivals. ORL and CLE seem to be the East version of these teams, but outside of LBJ, they haven't been able to create that winning culture for more than a few years with the guys they've had.
Rest assured though, if the Shaq/Kobe thing wasn't happening, and the superteam era wasn't a thing, neither Steph or Duncan would have remained in those spots past their 2th birthdays
sp6r=underrated wrote:What would it take for you to believe that the NBA isn't fixed?
It will never happen, but I think all teams should be owned like the Greenbay Packers where the teams are publicly owned, but not traded on the open market. This would hold executives more accountable, as the community realistically would have a say in who is making the big decisions by electing the board of governors. Nico would never be able to make the Luka trade in this scenario, everyone involved would know they would get voted out in the summer for backstabing the community.
Likewise, it would theoretically take the single interests of the billionaire elite out of the equation, who's goals and interests don't always aline with the community. There will be no Benson screwing over Seattle, there would be no Ishbia and Vivek making every call for the team, there would be no theories of the Adelsons blowing up the team as a way to strongarm the community into passing certain legislation.
Right now players are only allowed to own 1% of a company that owns an NBA team, but I think working that into it as well would go a long way in clearing things up. If the fans and the players, retired and current, have a stake in the business, it would be much harder to influence games, outcomes, and drafts. I'm not smart enough to create that blueprint, but making so the communities and people playing have more of a say instead of venture capitalists and globalists would go a long way in fixing the issue.
As long as the teams are owned by billionaires whos main priority isn't basketball or growing the sport, I won't trust the league isn't rigged.
I've also been a strong advocate of bringing back compensatory picks for players traded as well as players who leave in FA. One of the biggest ways the NBA is able to keep the charade going is through the illusion of resources. We heard for years about those LA picks, why isn't LA trading those picks, what are they doing? Well, now we know why, that's how far back that trade was in the works, if not for Luka than someone else. Giving teams who have their best players walk or force their way out more capital would do away with these lopsided one way street trades. I would personally tie this to salaries and awards. LBJ is going to walk to LA as an NBA1st teamer, than their FRP and SRP go to CLE. There is no way La should have been able to move up in the lottery multiple times, sign the #1 player in the league, trade for another top 5 player and then turn the scraps of that team into another Top 5 player AND STILL have resources to improve their team significantly. Same with Boston to show some fairness, Jazz lost Hayward the year he made the AS team and got nothing in return, and Boston was able to plan around it for years. It didn't work, and BOS was still able to make moves to be title contenders. There are only a handful of AS, ANBA, MVP, and DPOYs. There are only so many Max contract players. If they descide to leave their teams, that team should be given a resource to help replace them at the least.
As long as teams lose players for nothing, and we continue to have these lopsided trades that clearly only favor big market teams, I will believe the NBA is rigged.
Get out of bed with the gambling companies. Again, we are introducing a multi trillion dollar business into the NBA, one that is a sin and decays society, and you expect me to believe it has no impact on the sport? Pandoras box has been opened, we know it has an impact, dating all the way back to the mob days with Shoeless Joe Jackson, the Donaghy ref scandal, and we are seeing it with more and more players of a higher profile. If someone like Terry Rozier are getting pinched, it's time to realize we have a major problem. It used to be the quite thing noone talked about, but now it's getting loud and obnoxious.
As long as the NBA is partnered with and promoting gambling, I refuse to believe games/outcomes aren't being rigged
