Conspiracy: NBA Draft - Rigged?

[Gee!]

There would be proof and there would be leaks from inside personnel instead of speculation and wild internet rumors.

Steve

You mean like the owners saying this isn't right? And threads like the one you are posting in, that happen to be everywhere on the net right now?

 

[gmabel830]

Huh? None of the NBA teams are in the room where the ping pong balls are pulled. The representative from each team is in the main room where the public and TV hear the results. If there was a representative from each team where they pull the ping pong balls, then that's where the TV would show. Honestly, that's where they should pull the ping pong balls. In front of the country on TV like the real lotteries are done. That way, it would be easier to keep it honest and not rigged.

http://www.insidehoops.com/nba_draft_lottery.shtml

"The actual Lottery procedure will take place in a separate room prior to the national broadcast on ESPN with NBA officials and representatives of the participating teams and the accounting firm of Ernst & Young in attendance.

Following the drawing, team logo cards will be inserted into envelopes marked 1 through 14 by an Ernst & Young representative. These envelopes then will be sealed and brought on-stage, where the announcement of the Lottery results will be made by NBA Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver. A second representative from each participating team will be seated on-stage. Neither the Deputy Commissioner nor the team representatives will be informed of the Lottery results prior to the opening of the envelopes."

Teams do have a representative in the room, but it is different than the representative on stage. I'm quite sure the other owners wouldn't go for a rigged system, and a $20 billion/year accounting firm would never risk its reputation on something so public if they certified rigged results. So given all this, I've still never seen a legitimate suggestion of how they actually would rig the process.

 

[carey]

It's not rigged. However, the result of the lottery the last two years sure fosters the appearance of impropriety.

Yes, I'm from New Orleans. Yes, I watch a lot of Hornets games and go to a lot of games. The tickets are cheap, well, they used to be...

 

[Gee!]

http://www.insidehoops.com/nba_draft_lottery.shtml

"The actual Lottery procedure will take place in a separate room prior to the national broadcast on ESPN with NBA officials and representatives of the participating teams and the accounting firm of Ernst & Young in attendance.

Following the drawing, team logo cards will be inserted into envelopes marked 1 through 14 by an Ernst & Young representative. These envelopes then will be sealed and brought on-stage, where the announcement of the Lottery results will be made by NBA Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver. A second representative from each participating team will be seated on-stage. Neither the Deputy Commissioner nor the team representatives will be informed of the Lottery results prior to the opening of the envelopes."

Teams do have a representative in the room, but it is different than the representative on stage. I'm quite sure the other owners wouldn't go for a rigged system, and a $20 billion/year accounting firm would never risk its reputation on something so public if they certified rigged results. So given all this, I've still never seen a legitimate suggestion of how they actually would rig the process.

Doesnt mean jack squat.. If this was an isolated icident, Id be more inclined to give this the benefit of the doubt.. But there is a long history shady happenings.. Not only with the draft.. Its the reason the NBA is losing..

Meanwhile.. The NFL is going out of its way to make sure things are done correctly.. And they are the #1 sport in America for that very reason..

 

[Cheesebeef]

Doesnt mean jack squat.. If this was an isolated icident, Id be more inclined to give this the benefit of the doubt.. But there is a long history shady happenings.. Not only with the draft.. Its the reason the NBA is losing..

Meanwhile.. The NFL is going out of its way to make sure things are done correctly.. And they are the #1 sport in America for that very reason..

do you guys REALLY think the NBA WANTS a possible transcendant player to be in a really horrible market like NO? If the NBA was rigged, the Knicks would have been winning lotteries forever and the Lakers would have been able to pull off that atrocity of a Chris Paul deal.

 

[dreamcastrocks]

do you guys REALLY think the NBA WANTS a possible transcendant player to be in a really horrible market like NO?

Absolutely. How else do you revitalize the team?

 

[Gee!]

do you guys REALLY think the NBA WANTS a possible transcendant player to be in a really horrible market like NO? If the NBA was rigged, the Knicks would have been winning lotteries forever and the Lakers would have been able to pull off that atrocity of a Chris Paul deal.

Im not convined unibrow is a great player at all.. They say he is.. But the NCAA Championship Game told a different story.. Dude wasnt even into basketball years ago.. One hit wonder..

I was right on Durant over Oden (go look at past threads).. And some other things even though I didnt type em on here..

Its just a way to get the price up for the Hornets sale..

Even Eric Gordon said he is out, even with the #1 pick and Unibrow coming in..

 

[Cheesebeef]

Im not convined unibrow is a great player at all.. They say he is.. But the NCAA Championship Game told a different story.. Dude wasnt even into basketball years ago.. One hit wonder..

I was right on Durant over Oden (go look at past threads).. And some other things even though I didnt type em on here..

Its just a way to get the price up for the Hornets sale..

they already sold the Hornets to Tom Benson. Try again.

 

[Cheesebeef]

Absolutely. How else do you revitalize the team?

you think he'd really rather revitalize New Orleans... instead of helping out the new Brooklyn Nets, who are now in a MAJOR MARKET and have been horrendous forever? Sorry... that doesn't make a lick of sense.

if it was rigged, the Nets get that pick and are able to ship it as part of a package to get Howard, teaming him with Deron Williams and finally giving the biggest market in the country an actual basketball team to build around.

 

[gmabel830]

I'm still waiting for a legit explanation... given the way the process actually works, how would they actually rig it?

 

[Gee!]

they already sold the Hornets to Tom Benson. Try again.

Yup.. ok.. I dont think it should be hard for you to connect the dots.. I never said the team wasnt or still was .. Man F it.. I shouldnt have to get in a piss match with you over details we all know already...

It is what it is..

 

[Gee!]

I'm still waiting for a legit explanation... given the way the process actually works, how would they actually rig it?

Im still waiting on how all the weird things that happened in the past.. I guess youll just keep wondering..

I think I get it.. In the 80's when only the Suns were the team in PHX.. We were all huge fans.. I defended the NBA to my NFL buddy in the early 90's ( I am a Cards fan too) We had talks of the superior league..

But the unexplained things that happen in NBA are just something where you lose faith in.. I appluad you for still holding the line.. Good for you..

 

[gmabel830]

Im still waiting on how all the weird things that happened in the past.. I guess youll just keep wondering..

I think I get it.. In the 80's when only the Suns were the team in PHX.. We were all huge fans.. I defended the NBA to my NFL buddy in the early 90's ( I am a Cards fan too) We had talks of the superior league..

But the unexplained things that happen in NBA are just something where you lose faith in.. I appluad you for still holding the line.. Good for you..

I'm still legitimately interested in hearing someone's thoughts about how they could actually rig the process given the way it is conducted? I just don't see how it would be plausible to actually do given the way the process works.

 

[dreamcastrocks]

you think he'd really rather revitalize New Orleans... instead of helping out the new Brooklyn Nets, who are now in a MAJOR MARKET and have been horrendous forever? Sorry... that doesn't make a lick of sense.

if it was rigged, the Nets get that pick and are able to ship it as part of a package to get Howard, teaming him with Deron Williams and finally giving the biggest market in the country an actual basketball team to build around.

Do I think that Brooklyn would have been a better fit, absolutely. Stern has had his hands all over the Hornets, including the Paul trade. Is it outside of the realm of possibility that he could have his hands on this too? To me it is.... and I don't even like to believe the conspiracy theories.

 

[dreamcastrocks]

I'm still legitimately interested in hearing someone's thoughts about how they could actually rig the process given the way it is conducted? I just don't see how it would be plausible to actually do given the way the process works.

Small magnets in the ping pong balls. Even though there are representatives from each of the teams in attendance, I'm sure that they do not inspect all of the balls individually.

 

[Phrazbit]

As much as I'd love to call conspiracy here I just dont see it. The most hyped lotto drawings of the last decade have gone to Cleveland (Lebron), Portland (Oden), New Orleans (Davis), Houston (Ming), Orlando (Howard). The biggest market in that group is Houston, and the rest comprise a "whose-who" of the smallest markets in the league. If the league is rigging it for those markets then their business model does not make sense.

Now, if you want to talk me into the league having some extremely shady officiating jobs in crucial playoff games... thats one I am willing to listen to. There are many games where either the officials are taking a blatant bias onto the court (which has been proven pretty soundly) and/or the league is flat out telling guys to extend marquee series on occasion. The only game in that I am utterly convinced was rigged was game 6 in 2002, Kings vs Lakers. The league should be ashamed of themselves and if it had been the Lakers getting screw instead of little ol Sacramento then the officials would probably still be locked in Stern's basement.

 

[Cheesebeef]

Do I think that Brooklyn would have been a better fit, absolutely. Stern has had his hands all over the Hornets, including the Paul trade. Is it outside of the realm of possibility that he could have his hands on this too? To me it is.... and I don't even like to believe the conspiracy theories.

if the NBA was really rigging ****, why has the team in the number one media market in the entire country been awful for over a decade?

why would Stern put the kibosh on Paul going to the Lakers when it would have made them title contenders for the next five years?

why in god's green earth, would he maroon LeBron in Cleveland instead of NY?

why would he have allowed Duncan to go a team that was already one of the best in the NBA, in a horrendous market, when the Celtics, one of the banner franchises of the league had TWO lotto picks and everyone thought Duncan was the way to bring them back?

sorry... I just don't buy it. If Stern had a hand in most of these moves, he's an idiot, because all he's done is drive DOWN the value of the league with most of the above.

 

[The Polecat]

If Stern had a hand in most of these moves, he's an idiot, because all he's done is drive DOWN the value of the league with most of the above.

Now we're starting to make some progress in this discussion.

 

[carey]

Small magnets in the ping pong balls. Even though there are representatives from each of the teams in attendance, I'm sure that they do not inspect all of the balls individually.

Seriously? What do you think the auditing firm is there for?

 

[gmabel830]

Small magnets in the ping pong balls. Even though there are representatives from each of the teams in attendance, I'm sure that they do not inspect all of the balls individually.

I've thought about something like this.. it's probably what would have to go down if you believe the other owners and the auditing firm wouldn't willing collude on this. But here's something it doesn't solve: even if you could ensure which 4 balls get picked, the order in which the balls get picked matter. I did some digging and saw an article on the Warriors website explaining the lottery that mentioned the combinations are automatically assigned via a computer. So, not only would you need to rig the selection process, you would need to rig the computer software to ensure that the 4 numbers you will select are all "randomly" assigned to the team you want to win. Not saying it couldn't ever happen, but now you are talking about a multi-stage, complicated process that it would take to rig, and multiple people who would need to be involve and never tell anyone. Just seems a little too implausible to me, but something like this is how the NBA would have to do it if there wasn't wide spread collusion in the process.

 

[elindholm]

But here's something it doesn't solve: even if you could ensure which 4 balls get picked, the order in which the balls get picked matter.

Not that it really matters to this discussion, since the conspiracy theorists will always have another explanation in hand, but in fact the order in which the balls are selected does not matter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_Draft_Lottery ("Process" section, second paragraph)

 

[azsouthendzone]

My issue is that it is way too complicated. Just give each team one ball, put it in the mixer, and draw, live, in front of everyone. Any other way it opens the door for people to question it, especially with it taking place behind closed doors.

How could anyone not think that there have ever been ANY shenanigans taking place? We already know the dirty ref TD screwed the Sac Kings vs the Lakers. We knew that game was BS at the time and years later it was confirmed. I wouldn't be shocked if there was a lot more of that going on over the years. It is what it is.

 

[gmabel830]

Not that it really matters to this discussion, since the conspiracy theorists will always have another explanation in hand, but in fact the order in which the balls are selected does not matter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_Draft_Lottery ("Process" section, second paragraph)

Oops.. thanks for the clarification - I actually read that but thought it was not accurate (it is wikipedia after all). The way they explain it, it does make sense that order does not matter. They must just assign the combinations from low to high.

 

[gmabel830]

My issue is that it is way too complicated. Just give each team one ball, put it in the mixer, and draw, live, in front of everyone. Any other way it opens the door for people to question it, especially with it taking place behind closed doors.

How could anyone not think that there have ever been ANY shenanigans taking place? We already know the dirty ref TD screwed the Sac Kings vs the Lakers. We knew that game was BS at the time and years later it was confirmed. I wouldn't be shocked if there was a lot more of that going on over the years. It is what it is.

They used to just put the envelopes over the 7 worst teams into a hopper and pick them out -- but that led to the Ewing bent envelope conspiracy theory that led to the ping pong balls. Plus, giving a team that missed the playoffs by one game the same chance as a team that loses ~85-90% of its games just doesn't seem fair.

Just televising the actual lottery selection would probably put some of the doubt to rest -- but there will always be conspiracy theorists.

 

[elindholm]

It would be simple enough to have a hopper of 1000 balls, each bearing one team's logo, but my guess is that some people would complain that a chosen team's balls were weighted in a particular way. The advantage of the numbered balls is that it allows for one more level of distance from human involvement in the process -- the lookup table for which combination belongs to which team can be randomized by a computer.