Nah…NBA is rigged, shady, disingenuous when it’s for the better of the product. You see it in how games are reffed when outcomes need to be skewed. You see it in some of the lottery results/trades. An avalanche of circumstantial evidence is what attorneys would say, right?
Draft Lotto Thread (2025 edition)
- Thread starter Tetsujin
- Start date
Löwenherz
Starter
You’re making the common mistake of asking the non-conspiracists to prove a negative, then claiming because they cannot do so to YOUR satisfaction (despite presenting compelling evidence), it is equal to you being unable to prove the positive based on little more than vibes.
When you make a claim, “The NBA is rigging the lottery” the burden of proof lies entirely with you to prove it beyond any doubt. Not simply “that’s fishy and feels wrong” but with actual, undeniable evidence. It is not the responsibility of the non-conspiracist to prove your conspiracy wrong.
I agree with you: the Mavs winning with a 1.8% chance feels wrong, coupled with them lucking into the position mere months removed from the most questionable lopsided trade of a superstar to a marquee franchise since the last time there was a lopsided questionable trade of a superstar to that same marque franchise (and that team ended up with the first overall pick as well), along with teams consistently getting higher picks with obscenely long odds of doing so year after year makes it all feel fishy.
But feelings are not facts. And until proven otherwise, I accept and judge based on the evidence that has been presented. Non-conspiracists have provided evidence. Conspiracists have provided only theories.
TaxMan
Starter
Never going to eliminate some form of tanking unless there is absolutely no statistical advantage to having a lower record. We are living in a world of analytics gone amuck where we see teams now shooting 50+ three pointers in a game because the probabilities of winning are better. Unless we do away with a draft order structured from lowest to highest (with or without a lottery system in place) GMs will still take the higher odds of getting a better pick, combined with the higher odds of getting a better player with a better pick.
I'm totally fine with the flattening of odds for getting the top pick. While maybe it doesn't dissuade "bad" behavior, it at least lowers the probability of rewarding it. The issue is that not every team situation is created equal, so for certain teams, a superstar is only going to be coming through the draft. With that said, I would be in favor of potentially even flattening the odds MORE for the lottery teams, but limit the lottery positions to just the first one or two picks. Washington and Utah with the 5th and 6th picks is absolutely crushing given the seasons their fans just went through. Now, if they had struck out in the lottery, but still ended up with the 2nd and 3rd picks, that seems like a reasonable landing spot while not totally rewarding tanking.
I'm totally fine with the flattening of odds for getting the top pick. While maybe it doesn't dissuade "bad" behavior, it at least lowers the probability of rewarding it. The issue is that not every team situation is created equal, so for certain teams, a superstar is only going to be coming through the draft. With that said, I would be in favor of potentially even flattening the odds MORE for the lottery teams, but limit the lottery positions to just the first one or two picks. Washington and Utah with the 5th and 6th picks is absolutely crushing given the seasons their fans just went through. Now, if they had struck out in the lottery, but still ended up with the 2nd and 3rd picks, that seems like a reasonable landing spot while not totally rewarding tanking.
HndsmCelt
Hall of Famer
Or, just scrap the draft altogether. I can not believe I have come to this point, but you are right, the draft-lotto creates tanking, full stop. Sure, even odds at a draft solve THAT problem, but it creates new inequalities based on luck. A stricter salary cap and perhaps temporarily expanded rosters and cap relief for teams that do not make the playoffs might just encourage continued development, while discouraging tanking. I know that big cities will have some advantages in signing rookie FA's but that is not really new and if the winning teams have fewer roster openings for rookies while developing teams have more that sort of evens things out a bit. There is NO perfect solution to bringing new players into the league each year but it seems to me that every effort to manipulate the process just creates 2 new problems.
QWERTYLICIOUS
Starter
Do you have evidence that proves that was the reason they changed it to a 7-game series???
You are under the assumption that the non conspiracy theorists are right about this. That is based on what? You're telling me that they don't require proof to hold their opinion while the other side does. That's not correct. The NBA has never been transparent about the lottery. You have no more proof that they don't rig it than I do that they do rig it. What non conspiracy theorists have is that it's never been leaked that they do rig it, which lends evidence that it is not rigged. But that's far from proof.
The proof that it is not rigged would be them actually showing us the lottery itself. That has never been done to my knowledge so there is no proof here on either side and the burden of proof lies on both sides. Part of the point here is that neither you, nor I, nor anyone who is not a part of the lottery process can provide proof in any manner. All we can apply is some evidence and some logic. Non conspiracy theorists are not in the driver's seat here but they do have a little more evidence than the conspiracy theorists have.
A link to the video of this year's actual lottery draw has been posted twice in this thread. Update: three times.
Dime Dropper
All-Star
The NBA does provide evidence of the lottery taking place.
Unless you're suggesting everyone is in on it, including law firms and the representatives of teams who don't benefit from it at all.
Unless you're suggesting everyone is in on it, including law firms and the representatives of teams who don't benefit from it at all.
I think the WNBA does top two picks for the lottery and then past two season average for the remaining order.
I'd argue the NBA it should be previous five season average given how transformative top picks are.
QWERTYLICIOUS
Starter
In other words...
Tell us you haven't actually read the entire thread without actually telling us that you haven't read the entire thread.
LOL!!!
- Top four. The remaining picks are descending order by record.
- Lottery odds are based on your combined records for the past two seasons.
Padrino
All-Star
When you boil it all down, not all sides are created equal. And as has been pointed out a few times in this thread, there's plenty of transparency regarding the draft lottery. It is a perfectly ordinary claim to say that the NBA conducts a draft lottery in which outlier ping pong ball combinations occasionally result in less deserving teams winning the top few picks. It is quite an extraordinary claim to say that the NBA conducts a rigged lottery in which they've managed to hide their grift from all interested parties. Thus, it requires extraordinary evidence to mount a convincing defense of such a claim.
As an analogy, what you're saying is the burden of proof was on the viewers at home to substantiate that the moon landing was real. The science was vetted and transparently tested, and the evidence was ultimately placed right in front of the viewers' eyes to support the ordinary claim that man had walked on the moon. Extraordinary event, of course. But an ordinary claim. Whereas the production and subsequent cover-up necessary to fake such an event would represent an extraordinary claim that requires a much greater amount of evidence to prove that man had, in fact, not walked on the moon.
You're asking us not to believe our eyes, but instead to believe that a shadowy NBA cabal led by Adam Silver has managed to fool a wide variety of stakeholders about the veracity of the lottery results, putting the league's credibility and their entire business at risk. And for what, exactly? What's the upside of such a massive scam? A more engaged Dallas Mavericks fanbase? Some additional revenue in the pockets of the Mavs' owners?
So it was just blind chance that the Cleveland Cavaliers won the lottery in the year (2003) that the #1 prospect was Akron, Ohio native Lebron James. And it was blind chance that the Chicago Bulls won the lottery in 2008 when the #1 prospect was Chicago native Derrick Rose (1.7% odds). And it was blind chance that the team with the biggest connection to France, San Antonio, traded a 25 year old All-Star and then won the Wembanyama sweepstakes in 2023 after he played for Tony Parker's Euroleague team. Also it was just a coincidence that the Pelicans won the next draft lottery after trading Anthony Davis to the league's marquee team. And 6 years later after the Dallas Mavs' GM (a former head of marketing for Nike) traded Luka to rescue the Lakers again from Anthony Davis' injury history, what do you know they also get rewarded with magical lottery luck (1.8% odds).
I'm not saying the lottery is rigged. I'm saying if it was rigged, would the results be any different? Maybe 80% of the time the lottery is somewhat inconsequential but when it really matters, when the league would be best served by one outcome and one outcome only, the league gets the result it wants.
I'm not saying the lottery is rigged. I'm saying if it was rigged, would the results be any different? Maybe 80% of the time the lottery is somewhat inconsequential but when it really matters, when the league would be best served by one outcome and one outcome only, the league gets the result it wants.
I'm not saying it's rigged, but given how I now understand it works - 4 balls drawn, order doesn't matter, just which balls - wouldn't that be pretty simple to rig just by slightly changing the size or weight of the balls? We need Mark Rober on the case.
The Pelicans traded AD to the Lakers on July 6, 2019 - more than a week after drafting Zion and coming on two months after hitting the draft lottery. Sometimes narratives get a head of steam and you have to stop and check your premises for a second.
I'm not asking you to not believe your eyes. I'm just saying consider that everything you see and hear is not what you think it is and to at least consider that alternatives are possible. We had a pretty extraordinary event worldwide about 5 years ago that proved that point as well as it's ever been proved.
I didn't know a video existed of the actual lottery play so good on the NBA for the transparency.
Padrino
All-Star
Well of course alternatives are possible. As I've said before, I don't think I'm necessarily "right" about the veracity of the NBA's draft lottery. I simply think that there's no convincing case against the ordinary claim that the NBA hosts a fair (if slightly tortured) draft lottery, and that it would require extraordinary evidence to support the notion that the league has managed to cover up a massive grift right in front of many dozens of its stakeholders, most of whom don't stand to gain from a rigged lottery and thus are deeply invested in its fair execution. And until an alternative case is presented that is credible and convincing, taking time to wander down the rabbit holes of possible conspiracy is largely a fool's errand.
Conspiracy theories are comforting, of course, because they provide explanation for what might otherwise seem like inexplicable events. But low odds are not the same thing as no odds. Most improbable events remain quite plausible in spite of their improbability. I'm an English professor. I'm hardly a math wizard. But I find that most Americans don't have a strong grasp of how probability works. For example, in 2016, 2020, and 2024, Americans cried foul that pollsters "got it wrong" when it came to general election forecasting. But pollsters are making predictions based on the likelihood of events. They are usually quite transparent with their methodology, and they ultimately account for the unlikelihood of one candidate or another being elected. If someone says that Candidate A has a 70% chance of winning and Candidate B has a 30% chance of winning, they're not "wrong" if Candidate B gets elected. It just means that an unlikely thing has happened. But for whatever reason, Americans have a hard time accepting that, sometimes, unlikely things happen. Not everything is rigged just because the individual assessing an event is unable to grasp the nuances, the details, and/or the choices that led to a particular outcome.
Many cultures throughout history conjured gods of the sea and gods of the sun and gods of the harvest to explain natural phenomena for which they possessed no explanation. What else could they do in the face of a massive information vacuum? But we know more today. We know considerably more. And we're still not always "right", but it's far better to be armed with information when constructing one's worldview than to go looking for satisfying conclusions that aren't supported by evidence.
Jdbraver137
Bench
They post it after….You can watch the whole thing here, if you like. They post the video after the announcements are made.
2025 Draft Lottery: Watch the full drawing | NBA.com
2025 Draft Lottery: Watch the full drawingwww.nba.com
The witnesses were still there. What, did you think they added them in with AI, or are you going to tell us that they're all in on it?
Jdbraver137
Bench
Magnets.
This guy when you tell him there are 14 different types of magnetic field, one for each ball.
Jdbraver137
Bench
Lack of imagination will never lead to discovery.
This guy when you tell him there are 14 different types of magnetic field, one for each ball.
This guy when you tell him there are 14 different types of magnetic field, one for each ball.
As long as we're talking about the Pelicans, you can't leave out the significant detail that the team was without an owner for a period of time and thus was de facto owned by the NBA for roughly 2 years. I wasn't sure when that period of time was though and my brief cursory searches seemed only to reveal that Google and/or the NBA would very much like us to forget this ever happened. So I didn't mention that part of the story in the post you quoted.
Since you've pressed me on the topic though, further effort reveals that the NBA bought the team in December 2010 at which time they were still called the New Orleans Hornets (the name change is the real reason why my searches came up empty). The New Orleans Hornets were owned by the NBA until June 15th, 2012 at which point the league sold the team officially to Tom Benson (who re-named them to the Pelicans a year later). But when the sale officially goes through is not the same as when it was agreed to in principal. As it happens, the New Orleans Hornets (owned by the NBA, remember) won the 2012 draft lottery on May 30, 2012 and later selected Anthony Davis with that first overall pick. The sale had already been reported at the time of the lottery though. Was the lottery part of the terms of the sale? If nothing else there's a serious conflict of interest case there.
But let's also look at the AD-Lakers trade timeline in 2019. Anthony Davis' agent in 2019 was Rich Paul of Klutch Sports and, as was often mentioned throughout the Fox trade saga, Anthony Davis through his agent demanded a trade from the Pelicans in January of 2019 by saying he would not sign any kind of extension with the Pelicans that summer. Furthermore, he had only one destination in mind: the Los Angeles Lakers. This all went down way before the draft lottery. The only reason the trade didn't happen before the trade deadline is because the Lakers knew they held all the cards and could simply wait the Pelicans out and get a sweetheart deal, which is eventually what happened. The final terms of the trade were reported on June 15th but didn't officially go through until free agency started in July.
If you don't think the AD to the Lakers trade was basically a done deal in May of 2019 after 4 months of negotiations between the two teams, than I would have to question whether you've even followed the NBA since the 1990's. In the modern era where draft picks are leaked before they get announced on TV, every major free agency deal is in place long before free agency even officially begins, and every agent and GM has 24/7 phone access it strains belief to imply that a major franchise-altering trade deal just appears out of nowhere on the date that paperwork gets filed. It's incredibly convenient that the Pelicans relented and gave away their franchise big man at roughly the same time they were handed a lottery ticket to draft a new franchise player who plays the exact same position. Just like with the aforementioned team sale, nothing would end a negotiation stand-off faster than the promise of lottery "luck".
Again, I'm not saying that the lottery is rigged. I don't know that it is. I'm just saying that the NBA conducts the lottery and certifies the results themselves and if those results happen to benefit their bottom line, well who is going to tell them no?
EDIT (Cause I'm not done venting, evidently):
If David Stern saying his ideal NBA Finals matchup was Lakers vs. Lakers isn't enough evidence for you that helping the Lakers win is always the league's #1 priority, consider this... Prior to the AD trade, the Lakers had not made the playoffs in 6 seasons, by far the longest drought in team history (yes, really. look it up). Furthermore, the most popular NBA player in the world (Lebron James) had just signed a contract with the Lakers the year before but the team still finished only 10th in the West at 37-45 in the 2018-2019 season. The following season (after Rich Paul and some lucky ping pong balls sent AD to the Lakers) guess who won the NBA Finals? I didn't think it was possible for me to hate the Lakers any more than I already do but digging up all of this just makes it blatantly obvious how much manipulation is taking place right under our noses.
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Nothing ends a negotiation stand-off faster than lottery luck: Probability of lottery luck = 6%
Nothing ends a negotiation stand-off faster than the promise of lottery "luck": Probability that the known setup, involving a transparent plastic case and 14 ping pong balls can be manipulated to deliver the exact ball required with near 100% reliability using no known technology, and that all of the people involved in the R&D and operation of this technological marvel can keep their mouths shut and have done so for more than 20 years ~ 0.0000000000000000000000%
Barring a remotely convincing *theory* (not a demonstration model, just a *theory*) of how this could be pulled off, I think we've got to go with door #1, no matter how many stories we can tell ourselves about why the NBA would WANT to do door #2.
You're assigning weighted probabilities to outcomes as if they are quantifiable certainties but scientists can't even agree on fundamental principles of how the universe works. Is it spooky action at a distance? Is there an as-yet-undiscovered Unified Field Theory which will one day seem as trivial and obvious as gravity seems to us today? I wouldn't call myself a scientist, unless by the Ancient Greek definition which is something more like a Philosopher of the natural world, but to the extent that I understand it I'm in a very small minority of people who believes that Many-Worlds Interpretation is not just a fun thought experiment but is actually the most plausible theory for describing quantum phenomena. And in MWI both of your proposed scenarios have the same probability. Or rather it would be more accurate to say that in MWI the entire concept of probability is nonsensical.
Padrino
All-Star
Scientists may struggle to agree on those fundamental principles, but they still abide by a set of principles when testing both old and new hypotheses. Good science isn't governed by nihilism, after all.
I'm not a scholar of the Many-Worlds Interpretation, but to say that the concept of probability is nonsensical is to live in a world ungirded by cause and effect, in which likelihoods and unlikelihoods should have no bearing on our daily decision-making. That is, to put it mildly, insane. If I'm a renter, and I know the likelihood of eviction is extremely high should I decide not to pay my rent for the next few months, I'm not going to toss out my rudimentary understanding of probabilistic outcomes just because someday Earth's scientists may discover a new theory of the universe that overwrites our current understanding. Today, I have to operate within the confines of the known.
I'm just curious as to what the other teams that don't win the draft lottery get out of supporting a "rigged" system? If it wasn't on the up and up, and the teams didn't fully believe themselves in the honesty of the drawing system, why would they just sit there on the occasions when the rich get richer or when the lottery odds favor a team unjustifiably? Every team participating has representatives in the room
All of these owners are mega rich and insanely competitive, even if they don't necessarily know how to stay out of the way of their front office. Do you honestly think folks like Vivek and Balmer, etc., are going to willingly participate in a "corrupt" system that isn't honest?
These guys have hundreds of millions or more on the line of their franchises. They aren't going to sit there and let a "rigged" system cheat them out of a top draft pick.
You can argue about the logic behind the current lottery process, or the odds, or whatever, but you aren't going to get these guys to just sit there and get screwed in the lottery. No way.
All of these owners are mega rich and insanely competitive, even if they don't necessarily know how to stay out of the way of their front office. Do you honestly think folks like Vivek and Balmer, etc., are going to willingly participate in a "corrupt" system that isn't honest?
These guys have hundreds of millions or more on the line of their franchises. They aren't going to sit there and let a "rigged" system cheat them out of a top draft pick.
You can argue about the logic behind the current lottery process, or the odds, or whatever, but you aren't going to get these guys to just sit there and get screwed in the lottery. No way.
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