Envelope wrote:When crooked ref Tim Donaghy was busted, Stern immediately came out and declared that it was just one ref. He didn't say, "we're investigating everything", he started the investigation by declaring the case closed.
The answer to [suspect, means, motive, opportunity] for that potential Donaghy "coverup" are very different than for a lottery conspiracy. Edit: beaten to that point by truth ^
I'm not asking to be convinced that corruption doesn't exist. I'm asking to be convinced that rigging the lotto is something that could actually be pulled off, and has any reason to be.
Sorry if you already covered this, but what do you think of the original one that started it all - Ewing to the Knicks. At that time, that was a HUGE boost for the league in an obviously marquee market a time when league revenue wasn't nearly as flush as it is now. I can absolutely see motive there. I don't know if the auditing was in place then, nor do I think it actually was rigged or anything. But, I can totally see the "reason to be" piece.
SMTBSI wrote:The answer to [suspect, means, motive, opportunity] for that potential Donaghy "coverup" are very different than for a lottery conspiracy. Edit: beaten to that point by truth ^
I'm not asking to be convinced that corruption doesn't exist. I'm asking to be convinced that rigging the lotto is something that could actually be pulled off, and has any reason to be.
Sorry if you already covered this, but what do you think of the original one that started it all - Ewing to the Knicks. At that time, that was a HUGE boost for the league in an obviously marquee market a time when league revenue wasn't nearly as flush as it is now. I can absolutely see motive there.
Oh, like I said before, I would have a lot less confidence saying "the lotto has never been manipulated in its history" - I'm not arguing against corruption in general. My argument is against the idea that the lotto is rigged, currently. As in, that we have something to worry about this June.
In a different NBA economic environment, with different levels of complexity to and scrutiny over the lotto process, is it possible? Sure. I just can't see it in the current environment. Too much complexity, far too much risk, no clear motive...
Regarding the Ewing draft specifically, I'll say first of all that I haven't invested really any time into it, beyond watching the video. I'm generally skeptical of the "bent corner" theory, since it seems to me that: - I can't see any bent corners after the envelopes are tossed in, but before the drum turns (pause at 0:07 and tell me if you disagree). - The envelopes are banging all over the place as the drum turns. - I feel like I can see several bent corners after the drum stops. But, there's nothing intelligent I can say with regards to the "frozen envelope" theory etc., or really any of the behind-the-scenes players.
djFan71 wrote:I don't know if the auditing was in place then,
Didn't know the answer to that question myself. Chris Ballard at SI has it:
A white-haired man from the accounting firm of Ernst & Whinney, Jack Wagner, tossing seven envelopes into the plastic globe one at a time...
Also:
It did little to dampen the mood in the NBA office when, a day later, a New York tabloid reported a curious fact: Ernst & Whinney just happened to also be the auditing firm for Gulf & Western, which just happened to own the Knicks. Asked by McManis about the possibility of a fix, Madison Square Garden president Jack Krumpe responded, “Hey, I told them how to fix it 60 days ago. You call up Ernst & Whinney and you say, ‘If we don’t get Ewing, you’re fired.’ ”
As McManis wrote at the time, “Krumpe was joking—presumably.”
Of course, Ballard pretty aggressively assumes the conspiracy throughout that article.
SMTBSI wrote:Oh, like I said before, I would have a lot less confidence saying "the lotto has never been manipulated in its history" - I'm not arguing against corruption in general. My argument is against the idea that the lotto is rigged, currently. As in, that we have something to worry about this June.
In a different NBA economic environment, with different levels of complexity to and scrutiny over the lotto process, is it possible? Sure. I just can't see it in the current environment. Too much complexity, far too much risk, no clear motive...
OK, cool. Then I totally agree with you. Good find on the Ballard article.
SMTBSI wrote:I'm generally skeptical of the "bent corner" theory, since it seems to me that: - I can't see any bent corners after the envelopes are tossed in, but before the drum turns (pause at 0:07 and tell me if you disagree).
He definitely has more trouble getting that 4th one in. But did that cause a bent corner visible enough to see? And, really, is that your plan? I'm gonna know which one's the Knicks and knock it against the side, then you pick the one that looks bent? Seems to leave a lot to chance if you're truly trying to fix things. But, that's the beauty of it, right? You can't use that video to prove or disprove anything.
I love that Ewing has the Lottery Conspiracy, The Ewing Theory, and new to me, this disturbing picture with the President:
If the lottery is fixed, the nba owners would have to be in on it? At the very least, after 30 years, suspect something?
Not to mention, how could you keep is a secret this long, someone is bound to talk.
Also. Wouldn't it be in the nba best interest to have the Celtics good again? We can't be sure rowed out of our 3rd lottery and have the Celtics be willing participants in rigging. So if it is rigged, it has to be our turn, right?
SMTBSI wrote:I'm generally skeptical of the "bent corner" theory, since it seems to me that: - I can't see any bent corners after the envelopes are tossed in, but before the drum turns (pause at 0:07 and tell me if you disagree).
He definitely has more trouble getting that 4th one in. But did that cause a bent corner visible enough to see? And, really, is that your plan? I'm gonna know which one's the Knicks and knock it against the side, then you pick the one that looks bent? Seems to leave a lot to chance if you're truly trying to fix things. But, that's the beauty of it, right? You can't use that video to prove or disprove anything.
To play the devil's advocate, it's easier for me to imagine a "soft fix". I.E. "I'll try to bend it a little to give you better odds at identifying it. No guarantee it'll work perfectly, but any improvement on true randomness is good."
That being said, I agree - if that was the plan, it's an awful plan. Counting on being able to put a significant bend into it without making your throw look obviously not casual in front of all those observers... additionally assuming that you won't get much additional bending from the tumbling. I'd buy frozen-envelope or whatever else long before I'd buy bent-corner-gate.
My theory for the oddness of the way he tosses in the fourth envelope is simple, and far, far too boring for anyone to pay any attention to:
By the nature of the setup - foot-wide envelopes in a round drum - the envelopes are going to stack up pretty much right on top of each other. It seems to me that after the first couple, he has the idea to at least try to spread them around a bit, so they'll separate in the tumbling more quickly. I think that this is basically the thought process:
- Envelopes one through three: "Hum dee dum doing my job." - Envelopes four and five: "Hm, I should try to spread them out a little bit if I can." - Envelopes six and seven: "Okay, that's not working at all. I'm too old for this crap. Forget it."
All of that aside, I've now watched the first few second of that clips about a hundred times since yesterday, and I don't see any way in which his toss could have put a bend into a corner. The envelope hits the drum nearly side-on, with very little force. Pause at 0:07 once the fourth envelope settles, and it looks perfectly fine.
My own eyes tell me there's nothing to see here, and I have no evidence to doubt them at the moment.
The Corey's wrote:If the lottery is fixed, the nba owners would have to be in on it? At the very least, after 30 years, suspect something?
Not to mention, how could you keep is a secret this long, someone is bound to talk.
Also. Wouldn't it be in the nba best interest to have the Celtics good again? We can't be sure rowed out of our 3rd lottery and have the Celtics be willing participants in rigging. So if it is rigged, it has to be our turn, right?
Yeah, if the lottery was rigged, then they missed a golden opportunity to recreate Russell vs Chamberlain by not rewarding the Celtics Tim Duncan in 1997. Would have been him going against Shaq and the Lakers for a few years. Tim Duncan was tailor made for the Celtics in terms of him being a team-first, non-flashy player who only cared about winning.
Now, with that being said, I still think the NBA does have a hand in rigging games through officiating. Game 6, 2002, Lakers vs Kings is an egregious example.
SMTBSI wrote:I'm generally skeptical of the "bent corner" theory, since it seems to me that: - I can't see any bent corners after the envelopes are tossed in, but before the drum turns (pause at 0:07 and tell me if you disagree).
He definitely has more trouble getting that 4th one in. But did that cause a bent corner visible enough to see? And, really, is that your plan? I'm gonna know which one's the Knicks and knock it against the side, then you pick the one that looks bent? Seems to leave a lot to chance if you're truly trying to fix things. But, that's the beauty of it, right? You can't use that video to prove or disprove anything.
To play the devil's advocate, it's easier for me to imagine a "soft fix". I.E. "I'll try to bend it a little to give you better odds at identifying it. No guarantee it'll work perfectly, but any improvement on true randomness is good."
That being said, I agree - if that was the plan, it's an awful plan. --- My own eyes tell me there's nothing to see here, and I have no evidence to doubt them at the moment.
Yep, agreed on all fronts. Fun to chat on, but I watched that video enough last night as well (though, less than you) and think there's nothing to see here.
I think the NBA lottery has been "fixable" for the majority of the lottery. Stern's interview with Rome is very offensive on the part of Stern. I am so glad he is gone. Silver, to me, is the best commissioner in sports, and having the video posted immediately after the results are revealed make it very difficult to question the integrity of the draft over the last two seasons and going forward.
The sometimes frustrating beauty of the lottery is the unpredictability, and every year teams will be disappointed. That disappointment drives the questioning behind the conspiracies. Not to get too deep, but people mostly want something to blame, and that is why religions are everywhere and so varied. As we learn more of our environment religions change, as there are not too many people who believe praying to the Sun God is a viable religion anymore because it is a huge nuclear reactor. Adding the ping pong balls and taping it live with the media and team representatives makes it hard to believe that there is a mathematician responsible for the results of the lottery. It looks very random, and the fact that the same balls are used and there are different results in sequential drawings lifts a lot of doubt for me.
Let's just hope that one of our 156 combinations comes up at least once. Preferably first, acceptably second, or "ok it isn't that bad" third.
CeltsfanSinceBirth wrote:Let's not kid ourselves folks. The Lakers are getting that 1st pick overall. Pretty sure that the sealed envelope with the Lakers logo in it is just sitting in Adam's inbox on his desk, waiting to be opened on lottery day.
The NBA draft conspiracy theory is the strangest of all conspiracy theories to me. Since the Ewing draft that spawned it, loser cities and franchises have won it almost exclusively. Cavs won the #1 pick five times, including Lebron. Orlando won 3 times, including the Webber and Shaq drafts. San Antonio lands both DRob and Duncan. New Orleans lands Anthony Davis. Towns to Minnesota. NJ, Milwaukee, Clippers all win twice.
Meanwhile, most of the high-profile teams like the Lakers, Celtics, Knicks etc always seem to slip.
Not a shred of evidence to support anything but the most bizarre of conspiracy theories, yet the myth sustains.
It's actually the loser-city luck that makes it seem like a conspiracy. Cavs lose Lebron, get Irving the next year. New Orleans has to trade Chris Paul, gets Anthony Davis. Minnesota has to trade Kevin Love, wins the lottery a year later.
There could be some inside politics where small market owners are crying bloody murder and the league says, don't worry, we'll make it up to you in the draft.
That stands in direct opposition to every Lakers/Knicks theory that is out there.
Also... why give Cleveland three #1 overalls in four years? Why send Duncan to a team that already had DRob? Or Webber to a team that already had Shaq? The lottery results are the epitome of randomness. There's no logical narrative there at all.
Captain_Caveman wrote: The NBA draft conspiracy theory is the strangest of all conspiracy theories to me. Since the Ewing draft that spawned it, loser cities and franchises have won it almost exclusively. Cavs won the #1 pick five times, including Lebron. Orlando won 3 times, including the Webber and Shaq drafts. San Antonio lands both DRob and Duncan. New Orleans lands Anthony Davis. Towns to Minnesota. NJ, Milwaukee, Clippers all win twice.
Meanwhile, most of the high-profile teams like the Lakers, Celtics, Knicks etc always seem to slip.
Not a shred of evidence to support anything but the most bizarre of conspiracy theories, yet the myth sustains.
It's actually the loser-city luck that makes it seem like a conspiracy. Cavs lose Lebron, get Irving the next year. New Orleans has to trade Chris Paul, gets Anthony Davis. Minnesota has to trade Kevin Love, wins the lottery a year later.
There could be some inside politics where small market owners are crying bloody murder and the league says, don't worry, we'll make it up to you in the draft.
That stands in direct opposition to every Lakers/Knicks theory that is out there.
Also... why give Cleveland three #1 overalls in four years? Why send Duncan to a team that already had DRob? Or Webber to a team that already had Shaq? The lottery results are the epitome of randomness. There's no logical narrative there at all.
Critical thinking will be the death of this narrative. Shame on you.
My unpopular opinion is that genocide is bad and we should speak out against it.
Andrew McCeltic wrote: It's actually the loser-city luck that makes it seem like a conspiracy. Cavs lose Lebron, get Irving the next year. New Orleans has to trade Chris Paul, gets Anthony Davis. Minnesota has to trade Kevin Love, wins the lottery a year later.
There could be some inside politics where small market owners are crying bloody murder and the league says, don't worry, we'll make it up to you in the draft.
That stands in direct opposition to every Lakers/Knicks theory that is out there.
Also... why give Cleveland three #1 overalls in four years? Why send Duncan to a team that already had DRob? Or Webber to a team that already had Shaq? The lottery results are the epitome of randomness. There's no logical narrative there at all.
Critical thinking will be the death of this narrative. Shame on you.
Because I don't think they'd rig the lotto every single year. Though if they did, it seems like they'd have an interest both in keeping small market teams afloat and in creating marquee ratings-friendly teams (Webber/Shaq).
Anyway I'm not a believer in this theory, but there's plenty of motive and uh, opportunity on the league's part. And from what I remember reading a few years ago, small-market owners were causing an internal sh*tstorm at league meetings about Dwight and Chris Paul demanding trades and Melo leaving. It's potentially a huge structural problem for the NBA to have disgruntled owners and big-city super-teams.
Captain_Caveman wrote:That stands in direct opposition to every Lakers/Knicks theory that is out there.
Also... why give Cleveland three #1 overalls in four years? Why send Duncan to a team that already had DRob? Or Webber to a team that already had Shaq? The lottery results are the epitome of randomness. There's no logical narrative there at all.
Critical thinking will be the death of this narrative. Shame on you.
Unfortunately, it probably won't.
I've seen nothing in my lifetime so far to convince me that critical thinking will become widely implemented by the species any time soon.
Captain_Caveman wrote: The NBA draft conspiracy theory is the strangest of all conspiracy theories to me. Since the Ewing draft that spawned it, loser cities and franchises have won it almost exclusively. Cavs won the #1 pick five times, including Lebron. Orlando won 3 times, including the Webber and Shaq drafts. San Antonio lands both DRob and Duncan. New Orleans lands Anthony Davis. Towns to Minnesota. NJ, Milwaukee, Clippers all win twice.
Meanwhile, most of the high-profile teams like the Lakers, Celtics, Knicks etc always seem to slip.
Not a shred of evidence to support anything but the most bizarre of conspiracy theories, yet the myth sustains.
It's actually the loser-city luck that makes it seem like a conspiracy. Cavs lose Lebron, get Irving the next year. New Orleans has to trade Chris Paul, gets Anthony Davis. Minnesota has to trade Kevin Love, wins the lottery a year later.
There could be some inside politics where small market owners are crying bloody murder and the league says, don't worry, we'll make it up to you in the draft.
That stands in direct opposition to every Lakers/Knicks theory that is out there.
Also... why give Cleveland three #1 overalls in four years? Why send Duncan to a team that already had DRob? Or Webber to a team that already had Shaq? The lottery results are the epitome of randomness. There's no logical narrative there at all.
That's what I've been telling people on here who are so, pinned down on the draft position. Math absolutely has an effect on the outcome, but i've seen enough drafts where a team whose not even in the pre-draft discussion for the #1 pick all of a sudden gets their card pulled out from the envelope at a super high draft slot. all it takes is for a #8 odds team to vault up to a #3 and it effects the entire draft and that teams good fortunes. It will happen again and again in future drafts. You have to factor in randomness into the draft cause it has repeated historically precedent. In summary, the draft is a controlled crapshoot.
No reason for Silver or Stern before him to risk rigging the lottery nowadays. I can see the temptation in the Ewing days but I don't think Stern would have risked it. Folks can make up narratives, why certain players end up anywhere. One could say Duncan ended up in SAS since the league felt sorry for David Robinson, a great ambassador to the game. Robinson played the prime of his career with pretty mediocre/overrated talent compared to Jordan and even Magic/Bird. Jordan misses a season, his team wins 55 games. D Robinson misses a season, his team is brutally bad.
But I do think the NBA under Stern at least knowingly may have had an environment that encouraged refs to give calls to teams like the Lakers. This does not have to be explicit and I do not think it was since Stern would be risking his job if he made it explicit. The refs can get the hint that Lakers in the post season or going further in the post season drives revenues for the league and increased revenues for the league helps out the refs as well.
Stern once did admit that it was great for the league for the Lakers to be doing extremely well. Enough refs hear this and some of them can say its okay to favor them. I
I am not a lottery is fixed believer in the least bit. I always think it's a bit crazy overall, but I do think it is pretty interesting how coincidental some of the results have been over the last 10-15 years.
Chicago got their hometown kid. Cleveland got their hometown kid. NO, Cleveland, and Minny all got the 1st pick after trading off/losing their superstars (obviously that occurs because the teams become THAT bad, but the coincidence is funny considering how many teams have sat in the lottery and never jumped into the top 2).
Again, I've never thought the lottery was fixed in the least bit, but that is an interesting sequence of events. You can find a story for pretty much any team that receives the top pick, but the above stories have a bit of a pattern. Wonder what would have happened if the Celtics were in the lottery during Noel's draft.
Andrew McCeltic wrote:Anyway I'm not a believer in this theory, but there's plenty of motive and uh, opportunity on the league's part.
The reason I question motive is two fold.
For one, risk/reward is part of motive. On a naive level, I have plenty of motive to rob a bank, the motive being being set up for life. That's a far cry from reason to suspect me the next time a bank gets robbed in my country. To actually be motivated to do it, I have to be able to tolerate the risk: to think there's some chance I'll actually be able to pull it off without going away for a long time or getting gunned down; and to be impressed by the reward: is a loved one dying of some curable disease or fixable organ failure, which we just can't afford to treat, or am I sitting on my couch in my apartment with a well-stocked fridge, good health, and modest savings?
It's my contention that the risk for the league, and other involved parties, is so massive* that there's just about no reward that makes it worthwhile (unless you think the league will go under or massively regress if they don't keep the fix going). (Again, I've been talking exclusively about contemporary conspiracies here - relevant factors could have been a lot different in years passed.)
*To re-use the words from that CBS article I posted earlier:
Spoiler:
Matt Moore wrote:Let's say for a minute that the NBA decided this was a good idea. How would they go about it? Well, for starters, they wouldn't just do it. They would commission an internal report outlining the pros and cons of perpetrating a massive conspiracy on the public while also violating several tenets of fair practice in its relationships with the owners of the other 29 teams. Now, they would need for that report to indicate that the benefit of providing a first-round draft pick that could just as easily turn out to be a bust as a Hall of Famer outweighs the potential for public humiliation and rejection of their product, lawsuits from their owners and possibly the violation of federal law.
But, more importantly, before you can start analyzing motive, means, and opportunity, you need a suspect. And, as far as I can tell, none of the conspiracy theorists can even agree on their suspect.
- Is it the league as a whole, with the commish, key league executives, and all 30 teams fully on board with doing whatever they determine to be best for the health and bottom line of the league overall, even if it means individual teams getting screwed or having to wait a long time for their payoff? - Is it just the commish and key league execs, aiming for the same objective - to improve the health of the league overall - behind the backs of the 30 owners? - Is is a smaller number of top league execs (that may or may not include the commissioner) doing it for immediate personal gain, with health of the league as a concern, but a secondary one? - Is it some subset of the 30 teams either exerting their influence, or "crying bloody murder", to get a little favorable treatment?
Basically, who, exactly, is the "they" everyone keeps talking about? If the whole thing is conceived and executed by one person, and success is the difference between them being out of the league, or making a multi-million dollar salary, then millions vs. jail time is an understandable (and classic) risk/reward profile, and you have your motive. But, the more parties you start to draw in, the murkier the picture gets.
So, to me, just saying "money", doesn't satisfy motive here any more than it does for me and the bank robbery. You need a suspect, a clear objective, and a sane risk/reward profile.
Now, I agree that "opportunity" is by far the easiest condition to satisfy.
This is getting a little 'JFK', we need to tweet at Oliver Stone.. but it would really only take the commissioner and one or two people in the lotto process. I don't think it's likely, but conspiracies do take place, and as long as the circle of people in the know are small enough, they can stay secret for decades. The identity of 'Deep Throat' was kept secret for 30 years..
