NBA DRAFT LOTTERY GT, 12 MAY 2025, 6 PM CT, CHICAGO, ESPN

[Coldchi]

Doug - I'm on the conspiracy nut theory too. Mainly, because it is done so secretively and just using this year as an example for not only the Mavericks winning it, but the fact that the Spurs get the 2nd pick and the 76ers get the 3rd pick while the Jazz and Wizards get the 5th and 6th picks. I saw something like this was almost impossible to happen the way it did, but it did. The year the Pelicans won it, they were struggling with attendance and ran by the NBA if memory serves correctly. It could have literally been anyone but the Mavs and I think less of the conspiracy, but because of the ridiculous trade that only Nico talks literally to only the Lakers when before the gift of a pick, most teams would have offered like 4 or 5 picks in addition to an established player. Everyone was saying it was literally the worst trade in history - so is Nico one of the dumbest GM's in the history of sports (even dumber than AKME which is bad enough) or did he know? On top of this, the league has already been perceived as WWE for the last decade or 2 and this does not help.

None of the rigged theories can answer the question:

Why would you rig things to lose money?

Why the hell would the league want Wemby in San Antonio, one of the worst markets in the league? Why would they not put Flagg in Chicago instead of Dallas? Why would they want to prop up the Pelicans vs putting Zion in Chicago or New York that had way better odds?

All of the things you could do that would add billions of dollars of value to the league you're not going to do? If it was ever proven the league rigged the lottery you would lose billions of dollars of value. The league would absolutely tank. You're going to take that risk to LOSE money? It's like cheating on your taxes to pay the government 80% instead of 30%.

I know people love a conspiracy theory, but as I said the rationale is always backwards thinking not forward thinking. Like all the executives in the league got in a room and said we want to direct the NBA to get Wemby in a bottom 5 market in the league and LeBron in a bottom 10 market in the league. If you think of it from a forward perspective, like the rigging committee is sitting down and thinking how are we going to rig the lottery this year, they decide to rig it to do these nonsensical things that minimize money?

how are they losing money?
Have you heard of market saturation? Some markets which the Chicago Market and New York are so big they can't fail. The fans will not stop watching they won't stop coming to games and thus will not stop spending money no matter what the status of the Team is. Other markets like LA, Mia, Texas will absolutely stop watching absolutely stop spending money on the product. So they are appeased. The NBA being a predominantly tv sport doesn't care as much where there stars start so they often prefer they spend there rookie deals in smaller markets to help those markets stay stable. Please believe the money trail is following exactly what's happening . Btw no other league has as many smoking guns in regards to bad door deals then the nba.. ie Jordan's "retirement" Mike Bibby face fouling kobes hand. Knicks getting Patrick bulls getting derick , spurs getting Td and wemby no makeup picks for ad and cp. Now Dallas make up pick for luka. Where there's smoke ....

[CROBulls]

Arent you all glad we won something this year. A coin toss. This franchise....

Coin toss champs
Summer league champs
Pre-season champs
9th/10th seed champs
Stadium attendance champs

Errrr, don't you mean chumps?

That's only for last ones. There are no more worse fans than Bulls fans. 28 years without any success and stadium is still sell out.

[dougthonus]

how are they losing money?
Have you heard of market saturation? Some markets which the Chicago Market and New York are so big they can't fail. The fans will not stop watching they won't stop coming to games and thus will not stop spending money no matter what the status of the Team is. Other markets like LA, Mia, Texas will absolutely stop watching absolutely stop spending money on the product. So they are appeased. The NBA being a predominantly tv sport doesn't care as much where there stars start so they often prefer they spend there rookie deals in smaller markets to help those markets stay stable. Please believe the money trail is following exactly what's happening . Btw no other league has as many smoking guns in regards to bad door deals then the nba.. ie Jordan's "retirement" Mike Bibby face fouling kobes hand. Knicks getting Patrick bulls getting derick , spurs getting Td and wemby no makeup picks for ad and cp. Now Dallas make up pick for luka. Where there's smoke ....

There's always smoke if you don't have even a rudimentary understanding of the economics or risk involved and make up the smoke for nonsensical reasons that don't pass the economic sniff test.

[GoBlue72391]

i am fascinated by the idea that the nba would be competent enough to carry out decades of institutional outcome fixing in a high-profile, high-revenue industry with heavy ties to gambling + government regulation etc. & have no smoking gun ever emerge, but simultaneously bad enough at doing it that after one event every year tens of thousands of people reflexively say "oh that was obviously rigged"

This is the conundrum of most conspiracy thinking.

[dougthonus]

i am fascinated by the idea that the nba would be competent enough to carry out decades of institutional outcome fixing in a high-profile, high-revenue industry with heavy ties to gambling + government regulation etc. & have no smoking gun ever emerge, but simultaneously bad enough at doing it that after one event every year tens of thousands of people reflexively say "oh that was obviously rigged"

Probably a better response than trying to teach people economics.

[Coldchi]

how are they losing money?
Have you heard of market saturation? Some markets which the Chicago Market and New York are so big they can't fail. The fans will not stop watching they won't stop coming to games and thus will not stop spending money no matter what the status of the Team is. Other markets like LA, Mia, Texas will absolutely stop watching absolutely stop spending money on the product. So they are appeased. The NBA being a predominantly tv sport doesn't care as much where there stars start so they often prefer they spend there rookie deals in smaller markets to help those markets stay stable. Please believe the money trail is following exactly what's happening . Btw no other league has as many smoking guns in regards to bad door deals then the nba.. ie Jordan's "retirement" Mike Bibby face fouling kobes hand. Knicks getting Patrick bulls getting derick , spurs getting Td and wemby no makeup picks for ad and cp. Now Dallas make up pick for luka. Where there's smoke ....

There's always smoke if you don't have even a rudimentary understanding of the economics or risk involved and make up the smoke for nonsensical reasons that don't pass the economic sniff test.

I understand economics fully, I also understand that rich men make money by any means necessary and would rather ask forgiveness then permission.. what happens if there exposed... ? They say it's our produce we run it as we see fit. Make some transparent gestures of apologizes blame it one one Rouge ref.. I mean official then sweep it under the rug.. you think congress is going to revoke there antitrust exemption for it? There are virtually 0 real world repercussions for doing what ever is best for buisness. You can't see the possibility because you don't want too.. and I'm fine with that we can just hope to make the nba great again. And agree to disagree.

[nomorezorro]

i don't think anyone is saying that rich people are above doing underhanded things to create outcomes they believe will result in increased profit, even if they would risk hurting profit if that behavior was ever exposed

but people are saying that rich people would not bother to invite the risk associated with lottery fixing just to send unproven players of unknown future value to play for teams that would actively hurt the league's earning potential if those players turned out to be stars

[sco]

how are they losing money?
Have you heard of market saturation? Some markets which the Chicago Market and New York are so big they can't fail. The fans will not stop watching they won't stop coming to games and thus will not stop spending money no matter what the status of the Team is. Other markets like LA, Mia, Texas will absolutely stop watching absolutely stop spending money on the product. So they are appeased. The NBA being a predominantly tv sport doesn't care as much where there stars start so they often prefer they spend there rookie deals in smaller markets to help those markets stay stable. Please believe the money trail is following exactly what's happening . Btw no other league has as many smoking guns in regards to bad door deals then the nba.. ie Jordan's "retirement" Mike Bibby face fouling kobes hand. Knicks getting Patrick bulls getting derick , spurs getting Td and wemby no makeup picks for ad and cp. Now Dallas make up pick for luka. Where there's smoke ....

There's always smoke if you don't have even a rudimentary understanding of the economics or risk involved and make up the smoke for nonsensical reasons that don't pass the economic sniff test.

I understand economics fully, I also understand that rich men make money by any means necessary and would rather ask forgiveness then permission.. what happens if there exposed... ? They say it's our produce we run it as we see fit. Make some transparent gestures of apologizes blame it one one Rouge ref.. I mean official then sweep it under the rug.. you think congress is going to revoke there antitrust exemption for it? There are virtually 0 real world repercussions for doing what ever is best for buisness. You can't see the possibility because you don't want too.. and I'm fine with that we can just hope to make the nba great again. And agree to disagree.

Not responding to your comments specifically, but what if the NBA just say. Hey, no lottery anymore. We'll set draft order where we think it will benefit the league the most...maybe we'll favor bad teams, maybe good ones, maybe teams who haven't had good picks on a while. It's up to us. At least it would end tanking.

[League Circles]

how are they losing money?
Have you heard of market saturation? Some markets which the Chicago Market and New York are so big they can't fail. The fans will not stop watching they won't stop coming to games and thus will not stop spending money no matter what the status of the Team is. Other markets like LA, Mia, Texas will absolutely stop watching absolutely stop spending money on the product. So they are appeased. The NBA being a predominantly tv sport doesn't care as much where there stars start so they often prefer they spend there rookie deals in smaller markets to help those markets stay stable. Please believe the money trail is following exactly what's happening . Btw no other league has as many smoking guns in regards to bad door deals then the nba.. ie Jordan's "retirement" Mike Bibby face fouling kobes hand. Knicks getting Patrick bulls getting derick , spurs getting Td and wemby no makeup picks for ad and cp. Now Dallas make up pick for luka. Where there's smoke ....

There's always smoke if you don't have even a rudimentary understanding of the economics or risk involved and make up the smoke for nonsensical reasons that don't pass the economic sniff test.

I understand economics fully, I also understand that rich men make money by any means necessary and would rather ask forgiveness then permission.. what happens if there exposed... ? They say it's our produce we run it as we see fit. Make some transparent gestures of apologizes blame it one one Rouge ref.. I mean official then sweep it under the rug.. you think congress is going to revoke there antitrust exemption for it? There are virtually 0 real world repercussions for doing what ever is best for buisness. You can't see the possibility because you don't want too.. and I'm fine with that we can just hope to make the nba great again. And agree to disagree.

Where there's smoke........ there's someone smoking crack.

[League Circles]

Coin toss champs
Summer league champs
Pre-season champs
9th/10th seed champs
Stadium attendance champs

Errrr, don't you mean chumps?

That's only for last ones. There are no more worse fans than Bulls fans. 28 years without any success and stadium is still sell out.

"without any success"

LMFAO

[HomoSapien]

The rigged thing is always hard for me to get fully behind, because then Chicago, NY, and LA would have won so many more lotteries over the years.

[Coldchi]

The rigged thing is always hard for me to get fully behind, because then Chicago, NY, and LA would have won so many more lotteries over the years.

You would think so but Chi NY pour money into the nba no matter how good there team is... and LA is a now kinda town they don't have time to develop a star they rather take him from a smaller market and let the nba give them a first pick .

[Coldchi]

There's always smoke if you don't have even a rudimentary understanding of the economics or risk involved and make up the smoke for nonsensical reasons that don't pass the economic sniff test.

I understand economics fully, I also understand that rich men make money by any means necessary and would rather ask forgiveness then permission.. what happens if there exposed... ? They say it's our produce we run it as we see fit. Make some transparent gestures of apologizes blame it one one Rouge ref.. I mean official then sweep it under the rug.. you think congress is going to revoke there antitrust exemption for it? There are virtually 0 real world repercussions for doing what ever is best for buisness. You can't see the possibility because you don't want too.. and I'm fine with that we can just hope to make the nba great again. And agree to disagree.

Where there's smoke........ there's someone smoking crack.

What a witty reply... must be more of a method guy .

[League Circles]

I understand economics fully, I also understand that rich men make money by any means necessary and would rather ask forgiveness then permission.. what happens if there exposed... ? They say it's our produce we run it as we see fit. Make some transparent gestures of apologizes blame it one one Rouge ref.. I mean official then sweep it under the rug.. you think congress is going to revoke there antitrust exemption for it? There are virtually 0 real world repercussions for doing what ever is best for buisness. You can't see the possibility because you don't want too.. and I'm fine with that we can just hope to make the nba great again. And agree to disagree.

Where there's smoke........ there's someone smoking crack.

What a witty reply... must be more of a method guy .

Do you really need it explained that doing whatever is "best for business" (like fixing the lottery) could end up senselessly ruining their business by severely turning off fans if it were discovered?

[GoBlue72391]

There's always smoke if you don't have even a rudimentary understanding of the economics or risk involved and make up the smoke for nonsensical reasons that don't pass the economic sniff test.

I understand economics fully, I also understand that rich men make money by any means necessary and would rather ask forgiveness then permission.. what happens if there exposed... ? They say it's our produce we run it as we see fit. Make some transparent gestures of apologizes blame it one one Rouge ref.. I mean official then sweep it under the rug.. you think congress is going to revoke there antitrust exemption for it? There are virtually 0 real world repercussions for doing what ever is best for buisness. You can't see the possibility because you don't want too.. and I'm fine with that we can just hope to make the nba great again. And agree to disagree.

Not responding to your comments specifically, but what if the NBA just say. Hey, no lottery anymore. We'll set draft order where we think it will benefit the league the most...maybe we'll favor bad teams, maybe good ones, maybe teams who haven't had good picks on a while. It's up to us. At least it would end tanking.

I'm down for a little Dictator Ball if it helps us out. JK.

[dougthonus]

I understand economics fully, I also understand that rich men make money by any means necessary and would rather ask forgiveness then permission.. what happens if there exposed... ? They say it's our produce we run it as we see fit. Make some transparent gestures of apologizes blame it one one Rouge ref.. I mean official then sweep it under the rug.. you think congress is going to revoke there antitrust exemption for it? There are virtually 0 real world repercussions for doing what ever is best for buisness. You can't see the possibility because you don't want too.. and I'm fine with that we can just hope to make the nba great again. And agree to disagree.

I can see the possibility. You want to tell me Patrick Ewing to New York was rigged at a time the league was a fledgling league and would do anything to make it and we were passing out the lottery on envelopes where it could have been trivially rigged. Yeah I can see that. You want to tell me the league put a fix in during Lakers Kings when Mike Bibby got elbowed in the face by Kobe Bryant and htey called the foul on Bibby? I could see that too (in fact, I used to do consulting work for the Kings and I can tell you people who work there believe it).

You want to tell me the lottery now is rigged when the results have been disastrous for the league, and it is audited by a 3rd party and performed by a different 3rd party, and uses lotto based machines? No, that I don't believe. I'm certainly open to the idea of billionaires cheating to make money, but the results do not maximize money.

But generally speaking:
1: The franchises are independently owned. The league rigging LeBron James to Cleveland makes that franchise a billion dollars and screws over the other 29 owners in an an absolutely massive way. Same thing with rigging him anywhere else. All of these rich people you say benefit, do not benefit, exactly one benefits.

2: The way to possibly change that is to rig things in such a way to maximize the national revenue that is shared to all franchises. The facts are that this doesn't happen. In fact, the actual results have not quite been worst case scenario for the NBA, but pretty damn close to it.

3: The arguments that things are rigged has no meaningful economic benefit to anyone. They are based on non-sensical garbage. We're going to give this team a player because we think they did bad in a trade. We're going to put this player in his home town even though that's meaningless economically and has no benefit to the league. Oh San Antonio has had good centers before, let's give them a generational one. They're all flat out stupid reasons.

But sure, you can believe anything. I won't stop you.

[Dominator83]

It’s more than that. The organization needs new Ownership. They hired this FO. It’s time for people to stop paying for a bad product.

There's no moral right or wrong here. We aren't trying to solve a human rights crisis or global warming. People can pay for and enjoy whatever they want. It's certainly time for you to stop paying for it (based on your views), but the next person that enjoyed basketball as a kid and wants to take their kids to the game and have them see the United Center and enjoy Benny the Bull might have a really different motivation than you.

Every time I read one of these "everybody must boycott the Bulls" posts, my first thought is "these people must not have kids."

I don't know how people with kids can even afford games these days. Tickets, parking, concessions gonna run a family of 4 a solid $300

[jnrjr79]

The rigged thing is always hard for me to get fully behind, because then Chicago, NY, and LA would have won so many more lotteries over the years.

No, no, no. You see, when big-market teams get rewarded, it's a conspiracy to deliver them stars. And when small-market teams get rewarded, it's a conspiracy to prop up those markets. All outcomes support the conspiracy theory!

[Dan Z]

If the Bulls made an effort to maximize their pick how far up do you think they end up in the draft?

What do you mean by "made an effort to maximize their pick?"

Ask the players to slack off?

Make some specific trade that was on the table that they didn't?

Ask Billy to throw games?

They didn’t have to do any of that. The Bulls tried to win every game with a playoff like intensity. If they just did what other teams did (Rest guys, reduce minutes for their best player, ex White) and not try to beat up on teams that weren’t competing like them it would have kept them at around 8.

8th pick could mean the difference in drafting Malauch or KJ instead of CMB, Denim or Newell.

[sco]

What do you mean by "made an effort to maximize their pick?"

Ask the players to slack off?

Make some specific trade that was on the table that they didn't?

Ask Billy to throw games?

They didn’t have to do any of that. The Bulls tried to win every game with a playoff like intensity. If they just did what other teams did (Rest guys, reduce minutes for their best player, ex White) and not try to beat up on teams that weren’t competing like them it would have kept them at around 8.

8th pick could mean the difference in drafting Malauch or KJ instead of CMB, Denim or Newell.

I don't see much difference. Sadly, post combine, I could easily see both Queen and Maluach being available at 12.