Draft Lotto Thread (2025 edition)

[hrdboild]

The mutability of knowledge is certainly a defining principle of scientific study, but in the absence of new information, the presently known remains our best understanding of the world and universe in which we live, and therefore it remains the footing from which we must operate. What else is there, until we learn something new? We can reserve intellectual space for that which we deem inexplicable and beyond our current comprehension, but we do ourselves no favors by ignoring the ground beneath our feet. As a species, we craft value systems, social mores, laws, and the like from a shared understanding of what is known. When our understanding of the known shifts, we update those value systems, social mores, laws, etc. in accordance with our refreshed understanding of our world.

I'm attempting to be conscientious about KF.com rules around discussion of current events/politics, so I'll frame an example this way. There's not a lot of sense in granting Flat Earthers a seat at the legislative table simply because they've reserved a considerable amount of their intellectual space for that which they deem inexplicable, in spite of all available evidence to the contrary. That's not a valuable kind of open-mindedness, and it would be deeply unwise to charge such persons with stewardship of the FAA, for instance. Instead, we should charge the administration of such an important agency to persons who recognize and understand the known physical laws that govern our world. After all, Newtonian physics does not meet any kind of reasonable threshold for skepticism in 2025. At least, not until we learn something new.

And more to the point, the NBA draft lottery likewise does not meet any kind of reasonable threshold for skepticism. The stakes aren't as high as airline safety, but they are still quite high for the various stakeholders involved, all of whom have a vested interest in the fair execution of that lottery. After all, if the game was "rigged" in your favor one year, it could be "rigged" against you in every other year. This is why its incredibly challenging to get the wealthy owners of sports franchises to vote for the removal of one of their own; they operate with a shared understanding that safety for one is safety for all, and in the inverse, that what threatens one can threaten all.

So while the NBA may not march every member of every ownership group, every front office staffer, every coach, player, and fan to the stage for the ping pong ball selections, what we know about the draft lottery, its agreed-upon logic, the representatives and stakeholders who witness its administration, and the monumental difficulties that would exist in executing and covering up a lottery grift of the size and scope being suggested here by many, it is folly to craft an argument assuming a "rigged" lottery process that doesn't strain credulity. It doesn't mean you can't craft that argument, of course. Any mind is free to think as it wills. But... what's the point?

I mean, I can argue until I'm blue in the face that I'm being "scammed" about any number of things, like, say, that my morning tea is not authentic and does not, in fact, come from Sri Lanka, despite the claims on its labels and the supply chain data that supports its transit from that part of the world to my kitchen table. But what would be the point of such an argument? Yes, I was not personally privy to the tea leaves that were plucked from a Sri Lankan farm and then shipped overseas, but my existing insight into the tea world and free trade, as well as the strong reputation of Steven Smith Teamaker, suggests that it's fair to say I know from where my tea is being sourced. It would strain credulity to say that I'm being scammed by Smith Teas simply because there may be some plausible outcome I have not yet considered.

I get what you're saying in abstract and like you I want to be careful about getting specific on anything overtly political so I'll try to frame this carefully. We're communicating through an online message board so I can assume everyone here is at least a little bit aware of some current events and the advancements in technology which go along with making this communication possible. What you're describing is a collective shared understanding (of physics, biology, history, language, etc) from which social customs are derived and by which mutually agreed upon changes to laws and customs are made when changing conditions demand it. Is that fair to say? Based on what you know about history and what you see all around you, does that sound like a process that exists (has ever existed) or does it sound more like a theoretical ideal?

In your example you dismiss 'Flat Earthers' off-hand as failing to meet the threshold of intellectual discourse demanded of the legislative body in this country and yet at the same time you're leaning on science which is over 100 years old to anchor your arguments about what is and is not plausible. I didn't bring up Multiple-Worlds Interpretation to be pedantic, I brought it up to illustrate that the state-of-the-art in scientific research is far beyond the current mainstream model of the universe that you are using to ground your world view. MWI fully obeys the Schrödinger equation where most of the other quantum mechanical models tweak the math in order to conform better to a 'shared understanding' of plausibility because scientists are human and many of them just are not ready to accept that so many of their existing models could be that wrong. There were also scientists during the period of time in Europe that we now refer to as the Dark Ages and all of them had models of the universe which they used to ground their hypothesis. None of them knew they were living in a time that future historians would look back on and brand with the scarlet letter 'I' for Ignorance.

As regards the NBA, you and the Capt. are focusing on the process of how ping pong balls are placed into a hopper and drawn. That's just theater. I can go to a magic show and watch doves vanish from thin air and people teleport across the stage. I don't need to know how it was done to know it was an illusion (and frankly, I don't want to know -- the reality of it is always pretty dull). I don't care to know how or if the ping pong ball hopper is or is not manipulated. What I do strongly believe to be true is that everything related to professional sports is subject to the same economic realities that you and I fit into. Consumer goods prices fluctuate based on the principles of supply and demand but they also fluctuate based on the will of the companies which produce them, ship them, and re-sell them. And without some level of independent oversight, there is no check on these companies' ability to set those prices as high as they can get away with in order to maximize profits.

The whole Tim Donaughy scandal took place at a time when sports gambling was, for the most part, not a legally sanctioned activity in this country. Now every major sports league in the U.S. actively promotes sports gambling and some even take a share of the profits. In that context, is there more motivation or less motivation for the NBA to manipulate game scores, create matchups which target larger segments of the population, synergize with broadcasting corporations to push narratives and drive engagement, and so on? I can see how the motivation to do all of the above must be so high that even the most honest and scrupulous among us might subconsciously bend the rules from time to time. And then when that goes well, bend them a little more.

And just briefly about 2002, I've always felt that the team's collective will was so badly broken by what transpired in Game 6 (blatant one-sided manipulation on the part of the league appointed officiating team) that they went into Game 7 already feeling like they needed to work 10 times harder to win the next game while their opponent obviously felt the exact opposite. In a matchup that close (because the Lakers in 2002 were also a damned good team) phycological edge can be (and in this case, I think, was) the factor which tips the balance to one side. The massive disparity in free throw shooting percentages in that game that you cited above points directly at psychological edge being the deciding factor.

And I also think (much more controversially I assume) that the NBA had finally resolved to make up for this in 2018 when the draft lottery shined on us with a top prospect playing at the University of Arizona and a lock to be drafted by Phoenix at #1 and a #2 prospect out of former Yugoslavia with ties to Vlade through the Yugoslav national team destined to play for the team that established a strong international fandom in that part of the world throughout the early 2000s. But Vlade Divac couldn't just secure the rebound, he had to tap it out to Robert Horry at the three-point line (metaphorically speaking) so now Luka Doncic plays on the Lakers and we may have to wait another 40 years for the NBA to give us another chance to make the right decision.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

I get what you're saying in abstract and like you I want to be careful about getting specific on anything overtly political so I'll try to frame this carefully. We're communicating through an online message board so I can assume everyone here is at least a little bit aware of some current events and the advancements in technology which go along with making this communication possible. What you're describing is a collective shared understanding (of physics, biology, history, language, etc) from which social customs are derived and by which mutually agreed upon changes to laws and customs are made when changing conditions demand it. Is that fair to say? Based on what you know about history and what you see all around you, does that sound like a process that exists (has ever existed) or does it sound more like a theoretical ideal?

In your example you dismiss 'Flat Earthers' off-hand as failing to meet the threshold of intellectual discourse demanded of the legislative body in this country and yet at the same time you're leaning on science which is over 100 years old to anchor your arguments about what is and is not plausible. I didn't bring up Multiple-Worlds Interpretation to be pedantic, I brought it up to illustrate that the state-of-the-art in scientific research is far beyond the current mainstream model of the universe that you are using to ground your world view. MWI fully obeys the Schrödinger equation where most of the other quantum mechanical models tweak the math in order to conform better to a 'shared understanding' of plausibility because scientists are human and many of them just are not ready to accept that so many of their existing models could be that wrong. There were also scientists during the period of time in Europe that we now refer to as the Dark Ages and all of them had models of the universe which they used to ground their hypothesis. None of them knew they were living in a time that future historians would look back on and brand with the scarlet letter 'I' for Ignorance.

As regards the NBA, you and the Capt. are focusing on the process of how ping pong balls are placed into a hopper and drawn. That's just theater. I can go to a magic show and watch doves vanish from thin air and people teleport across the stage. I don't need to know how it was done to know it was an illusion (and frankly, I don't want to know -- the reality of it is always pretty dull). I don't care to know how or if the ping pong ball hopper is or is not manipulated. What I do strongly believe to be true is that everything related to professional sports is subject to the same economic realities that you and I fit into. Consumer goods prices fluctuate based on the principles of supply and demand but they also fluctuate based on the will of the companies which produce them, ship them, and re-sell them. And without some level of independent oversight, there is no check on these companies' ability to set those prices as high as they can get away with in order to maximize profits.

The whole Tim Donaughy scandal took place at a time when sports gambling was, for the most part, not a legally sanctioned activity in this country. Now every major sports league in the U.S. actively promotes sports gambling and some even take a share of the profits. In that context, is there more motivation or less motivation for the NBA to manipulate game scores, create matchups which target larger segments of the population, synergize with broadcasting corporations to push narratives and drive engagement, and so on? I can see how the motivation to do all of the above must be so high that even the most honest and scrupulous among us might subconsciously bend the rules from time to time. And then when that goes well, bend them a little more.

And just briefly about 2002, I've always felt that the team's collective will was so badly broken by what transpired in Game 6 (blatant one-sided manipulation on the part of the league appointed officiating team) that they went into Game 7 already feeling like they needed to work 10 times harder to win the next game while their opponent obviously felt the exact opposite. In a matchup that close (because the Lakers in 2002 were also a damned good team) phycological edge can be (and in this case, I think, was) the factor which tips the balance to one side. The massive disparity in free throw shooting percentages in that game that you cited above points directly at psychological edge being the deciding factor.

And I also think (much more controversially I assume) that the NBA had finally resolved to make up for this in 2018 when the draft lottery shined on us with a top prospect playing at the University of Arizona and a lock to be drafted by Phoenix at #1 and a #2 prospect out of former Yugoslavia with ties to Vlade through the Yugoslav national team destined to play for the team that established a strong international fandom in that part of the world throughout the early 2000s. But Vlade Divac couldn't just secure the rebound, he had to tap it out to Robert Horry at the three-point line (metaphorically speaking) so now Luka Doncic plays on the Lakers and we may have to wait another 40 years for the NBA to give us another chance to make the right decision.

Third eye wide open!

 

[Padrino]

In your example you dismiss 'Flat Earthers' off-hand as failing to meet the threshold of intellectual discourse demanded of the legislative body in this country and yet at the same time you're leaning on science which is over 100 years old to anchor your arguments about what is and is not plausible. I didn't bring up Multiple-Worlds Interpretation to be pedantic, I brought it up to illustrate that the state-of-the-art in scientific research is far beyond the current mainstream model of the universe that you are using to ground your world view. MWI fully obeys the Schrödinger equation where most of the other quantum mechanical models tweak the math in order to conform better to a 'shared understanding' of plausibility because scientists are human and many of them just are not ready to accept that so many of their existing models could be that wrong. There were also scientists during the period of time in Europe that we now refer to as the Dark Ages and all of them had models of the universe which they used to ground their hypothesis. None of them knew they were living in a time that future historians would look back on and brand with the scarlet letter 'I' for Ignorance.

I suppose I don't understand what you're arguing. Or implying. Is it your opinion that all deserve a seat at the table, regardless of known facts and quality of evidence? I'm not getting it. Is it that you're operating from a nihilistic position? Do you simply view knowledge as an impossibility, therefore it doesn't matter who is trusted with decision-making power, since we'll never know for certain that we are "right"?

I mean, we have heaps of evidence to ground our understanding of the shape of the earth and it's gravity, evidence that without fail overturns any oddball notion that the earth is flat. On the flip side, we do not have heaps of evidence to overturn our basic understanding of Newtonian physics. One of these things is not like the other, and I have no problem dismissing those who fail to meet certain thresholds for discourse. "Don't suffer fools" is not a foolproof maxim, but it does save headaches, and from time to time, it saves lives.

And just briefly about 2002, I've always felt that the team's collective will was so badly broken by what transpired in Game 6 (blatant one-sided manipulation on the part of the league appointed officiating team) that they went into Game 7 already feeling like they needed to work 10 times harder to win the next game while their opponent obviously felt the exact opposite. In a matchup that close (because the Lakers in 2002 were also a damned good team) phycological edge can be (and in this case, I think, was) the factor which tips the balance to one side. The massive disparity in free throw shooting percentages in that game that you cited above points directly at psychological edge being the deciding factor.

I'm not sure if you're just agreeing with me here, but either way, I do think this largely makes my point for me. Game 6 was certainly a psychological downer for the players and for the fans. But dozens of great teams have rebounded from difficult losses and mentally rallied themselves to win a hard-fought series. Untimely misses. Poor execution. Lack of leadership. Miscommunication. Blown calls. Frustration. Anger. These things can tear any team apart at the seams, and the conference finals are a terrible place to come undone. Game 6 was a travesty and remains a travesty. But game 7 was always right there for the taking. And the Kings couldn't take it. Very few titles are won without hardship, and that team lacked the mental toughness necessary to overcome their particular hardships.

 

[hrdboild]

I suppose I don't understand what you're arguing. Or implying. Is it your opinion that all deserve a seat at the table, regardless of known facts and quality of evidence? I'm not getting it. Is it that you're operating from a nihilistic position? Do you simply view knowledge as an impossibility, therefore it doesn't matter who is trusted with decision-making power, since we'll never know for certain that we are "right"?

I mean, we have heaps of evidence to ground our understanding of the shape of the earth and it's gravity, evidence that without fail overturns any oddball notion that the earth is flat. On the flip side, we do not have heaps of evidence to overturn our basic understanding of Newtonian physics. One of these things is not like the other, and I have no problem dismissing those who fail to meet certain thresholds for discourse. "Don't suffer fools" is not a foolproof maxim, but it does save headaches, and from time to time, it saves lives.



I'm not sure if you're just agreeing with me here, but either way, I do think this largely makes my point for me. Game 6 was certainly a psychological downer for the players and for the fans. But dozens of great teams have rebounded from difficult losses and mentally rallied themselves to win a hard-fought series. Untimely misses. Poor execution. Lack of leadership. Miscommunication. Blown calls. Frustration. Anger. These things can tear any team apart at the seams, and the conference finals are a terrible place to come undone. Game 6 was a travesty and remains a travesty. But game 7 was always right there for the taking. And the Kings couldn't take it. Very few titles are won without hardship, and that team lacked the mental toughness necessary to overcome their particular hardships.

I'm not confident that I even remember what I was arguing at this point. It was something about glass stones and houses made of lath and plaster I think? It's probably reasonable to just ignore me. I enjoy words a little too much I'm afraid and once I get the hose turned on I'm not always sure how to turn it back off. Case in point...

That's the second time you've used the word 'nihilism' in your responses to me so I can see that I've articulated myself poorly. I'm not nihilistic about the nature of knowledge, rather the opposite actually. I suppose I just get disappointed when others stop short in their pursuit and satisfy themselves with what is familiar instead. I'll own up to being a cynic though. I grew up in the California public school system and rather resent how the process of disengaging from so much of what I've later come to learn is fiction has taken me twice as long as the initial acquisition. And I resent even more that so much of the fiction has endured because that now puts me in the uncomfortable position of being the pathogen in a sea of white blood cells.

I actually think it matters a great deal who is entrusted with decision-making power, but unfortunately I just don't think it works the way you described. Based on my reading and observations I would say that decision-making power in human society has always been a privilege afforded to the few among us who have either great wealth, claim to vast stores of essential resources, or the threat of violence to back up their authority. One of the three is enough, but they do tend to come in combination.

I'm a little taken aback that so many here are still willing to defend an establishment which was fully resolved to take this team away from us 12 years ago. The other 29 owners would have voted yes to relocation at David Stern's word so I'm thankful that he took our side on that issue. But I also recognize that Mr. Stern is no longer alive and I don't see anyone in the current NBA office who would have done us the same favor. The NBA has (rather clumsily, in my opinion) leaned very strongly into creating an environment where the pursuit of profit comes first, last, and everywhere in between and a foul is whatever they decide to call a foul and as a result I find it difficult to take all other claims to impartiality seriously.

We may be in agreement about the facts of what happened in that 2002 series, but you're splitting hairs in a way that I'm not willing to. What transpired in Game 6 was not a 'difficult loss' it was the NBA crossing a line and all but deciding the outcome of the game irrespective of what took place on the court. To say the Lakers were the mentally tougher team because they won fair and square in Game 7 is a far more charitable interpretation of events than I'm willing to make. They shouldn't have even gotten to a Game 7 for one thing, and for another how much easier is it to play loose in an elimination game when it was just demonstrated to you that you've got the advantage of favorable calls and need only to keep the game close enough for the officiating bias to carry you over the finish line? This is a psychological stigma which has haunted our franchise not just for 1 game but for the last 20+ years. That series ending the way it did played into the later decisions to unload Webber and Peja and give up on Rick Adelman. Fair or not all of them were branded as losers for never reaching the NBA Finals together.

 

[Capt. Factorial]

I'm a little taken aback that so many here are still willing to defend an establishment which was fully resolved to take this team away from us 12 years ago. The other 29 owners would have voted yes to relocation at David Stern's word so I'm thankful that he took our side on that issue.

Just jumping back in to be clear on this one issue:

My defense of the integrity of the NBA lottery process does not mean that I believe 1) that the NBA league office is completely impartial, nor 2) that it finds no underhanded methods to advantage teams that it wishes to advantage, nor 3) that it would not rig a lottery if it felt it could get away with it.

My defense of the integrity of the NBA lottery process is wholly due to 1) the large level of transparency around the entire event (indeed, even the literal transparency of the ball machine itself) combined with my complete inability to propose any plausible mechanism that would allow it to be rigged, 2) the level of buy-in required from parties that would be aggrieved at its rigging (certain rigging methods only), and 3) the huge consequences that the NBA would face if such a rigging were to be exposed. I mean, mostly 1), but the other two just make it even more implausible.

 

[dude12]

Shaq saying David Stern asked him if he wanted to go to a warm or cold city, then Orlando wins the lottery sure isn’t helping the optics on a rigged NBA…….nor is Cleveland winning the lotto when hometown kid Lebron is coming out.
I’m sure it’s just pure luck.

 

[QWERTYLICIOUS]

Shaq saying David Stern asked him if he wanted to go to a warm or cold city, then Orlando wins the lottery sure isn’t helping the optics on a rigged NBA…….nor is Cleveland winning the lotto when hometown kid Lebron is coming out.
I’m sure it’s just pure luck.

Your claim that the draft was rigged in 2003 for Cleveland would carry so much more weight if Cleveland hadn't had the best odds of landing the number 1 pick that year.

 

[Padrino]

Shaq saying David Stern asked him if he wanted to go to a warm or cold city, then Orlando wins the lottery sure isn’t helping the optics on a rigged NBA…….nor is Cleveland winning the lotto when hometown kid Lebron is coming out.
I’m sure it’s just pure luck.

Shaq was drafted in 1992, and the vast majority of the teams drafting in the lottery that year represented warm weather cities. I mean, there's not really even that many cold weather cities in the entire NBA. Minnesota and Milwaukee were in the lottery that year. But Orlando, Charlotte, Dallas, Washington, Sacramento, Philly, Atlanta, Houston, and Miami are certainly all warm weather cities. Odds were pretty good that year that Shaq was going to end up in one of those places.

 

[Tetsujin]

Your claim that the draft was rigged in 2003 for Cleveland would carry so much more weight if Cleveland hadn't had the best odds of landing the number 1 pick that year.

Yeah, the thing people forget about the Cavs in the LeBron draft year is that they were really really really (fire your coach and replace him with Keith Smart while Ricky freaking Davis is your best player) bad. They deserved LeBron and it just so happened he was from there

 

[Capt. Factorial]

Shaq was drafted in 1992, and the vast majority of the teams drafting in the lottery that year represented warm weather cities. I mean, there's not really even that many cold weather cities in the entire NBA. Minnesota and Milwaukee were in the lottery that year. But Orlando, Charlotte, Dallas, Washington, Sacramento, Philly, Atlanta, Houston, and Miami are certainly all warm weather cities. Odds were pretty good that year that Shaq was going to end up in one of those places.

I recognize that Minneapolis and Milwaukee are at the extremes, but I'm not sure I would count Washington and Philly - cities with 1-2 feet of snow a year and with 2-3 months with the mean low being below freezing as "warm weather" cities, especially in reference to Sacramento, Houston, Orlando, and Miami where snow is a freak event.

 

[Padrino]

I'm a little taken aback that so many here are still willing to defend an establishment which was fully resolved to take this team away from us 12 years ago. The other 29 owners would have voted yes to relocation at David Stern's word so I'm thankful that he took our side on that issue. But I also recognize that Mr. Stern is no longer alive and I don't see anyone in the current NBA office who would have done us the same favor. The NBA has (rather clumsily, in my opinion) leaned very strongly into creating an environment where the pursuit of profit comes first, last, and everywhere in between and a foul is whatever they decide to call a foul and as a result I find it difficult to take all other claims to impartiality seriously.

We may be in agreement about the facts of what happened in that 2002 series, but you're splitting hairs in a way that I'm not willing to. What transpired in Game 6 was not a 'difficult loss' it was the NBA crossing a line and all but deciding the outcome of the game irrespective of what took place on the court. To say the Lakers were the mentally tougher team because they won fair and square in Game 7 is a far more charitable interpretation of events than I'm willing to make. They shouldn't have even gotten to a Game 7 for one thing, and for another how much easier is it to play loose in an elimination game when it was just demonstrated to you that you've got the advantage of favorable calls and need only to keep the game close enough for the officiating bias to carry you over the finish line? This is a psychological stigma which has haunted our franchise not just for 1 game but for the last 20+ years. That series ending the way it did played into the later decisions to unload Webber and Peja and give up on Rick Adelman. Fair or not all of them were branded as losers for never reaching the NBA Finals together.

To be clear, I'm not defending anybody in this equation. The league office no doubt has its preferences, and those are very likely misaligned with my own. The Board of Governors also surely has its preferences, and because it's an exclusive club, they're very inclined to protect their own. I certainly don't make it my business to defend the billionaire class. But because each owner is heavily invested in the larger enterprise, the league office has more incentive than not to make sure that league operations are all above board. And I don't believe there is nearly enough incentive within the league office to try and organize a massive draft lottery heist, given all of the transparency around the proceedings and the enormous risks of being caught engineering such a con. This isn't Ocean's 11.

That said, I do believe the NBA has over-legislated its rulebook to the point where referees have an impossible job fairly evaluating all of the action on the court in any given possession, and as a result, unconscious bias is generally allowed to run rampant. In a game that moves as fast as the modern NBA does, officials with only the fallibility of human eyes at their disposal are forced to make highly subjective judgment calls in fractions of a second, and absent a coach's challenge that allows the officials to review a call, they will be fighting an uphill battle against their existing biases damn near every possession of every single game. That represents great odds if you're LeBron James or Stephen Curry or Luka Doncic or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander or Victor Wembanyama, and it represents much worse odds if you're a lesser star on a lowly franchise.

I've been saying for years that the NBA needs to pare back the rulebook and remove the huge footprint that the referees leave on the game. I don't think the league office instructs its referees to blow whistles in favor of one team and not another, but I do think the league office adjusts its rules to advantage certain kinds of players and play styles. And that does hurt small market franchises, because when there are limited play styles that win in the NBA, the more attractive markets are better equipped to lure the kinds of players necessary to execute those play styles. This is why so many are calling for some adjustments to the rulebook, to diversify the game again and give franchises more pathways to win.

 

[Padrino]

I recognize that Minneapolis and Milwaukee are at the extremes, but I'm not sure I would count Washington and Philly - cities with 1-2 feet of snow a year and with 2-3 months with the mean low being below freezing as "warm weather" cities, especially in reference to Sacramento, Houston, Orlando, and Miami where snow is a freak event.

I live just outside DC now, and yes, it's not uncommon to get a bit of snow in the winter. But it is extremely temperate 8 months out of the year, and quite warm/humid for much of that span. It's not like the midwest or the northeast, and there are plenty of years in which it doesn't snow at all in the DMV area. You don't really see players complaining about the weather in DC or Philly the way you see them complaining about Minnesota or Milwaukee. They might complain about playing for a franchise like the Wizards because they're incompetent, but that's a different can of worms come draft night.

 

[QWERTYLICIOUS]

I'm not confident that I even remember what I was arguing at this point. It was something about glass stones and houses made of lath and plaster I think? It's probably reasonable to just ignore me. I enjoy words a little too much I'm afraid and once I get the hose turned on I'm not always sure how to turn it back off. Case in point...

That's the second time you've used the word 'nihilism' in your responses to me so I can see that I've articulated myself poorly. I'm not nihilistic about the nature of knowledge, rather the opposite actually. I suppose I just get disappointed when others stop short in their pursuit and satisfy themselves with what is familiar instead. I'll own up to being a cynic though. I grew up in the California public school system and rather resent how the process of disengaging from so much of what I've later come to learn is fiction has taken me twice as long as the initial acquisition. And I resent even more that so much of the fiction has endured because that now puts me in the uncomfortable position of being the pathogen in a sea of white blood cells.

I actually think it matters a great deal who is entrusted with decision-making power, but unfortunately I just don't think it works the way you described. Based on my reading and observations I would say that decision-making power in human society has always been a privilege afforded to the few among us who have either great wealth, claim to vast stores of essential resources, or the threat of violence to back up their authority. One of the three is enough, but they do tend to come in combination.

I'm a little taken aback that so many here are still willing to defend an establishment which was fully resolved to take this team away from us 12 years ago. The other 29 owners would have voted yes to relocation at David Stern's word so I'm thankful that he took our side on that issue. But I also recognize that Mr. Stern is no longer alive and I don't see anyone in the current NBA office who would have done us the same favor. The NBA has (rather clumsily, in my opinion) leaned very strongly into creating an environment where the pursuit of profit comes first, last, and everywhere in between and a foul is whatever they decide to call a foul and as a result I find it difficult to take all other claims to impartiality seriously.

We may be in agreement about the facts of what happened in that 2002 series, but you're splitting hairs in a way that I'm not willing to. What transpired in Game 6 was not a 'difficult loss' it was the NBA crossing a line and all but deciding the outcome of the game irrespective of what took place on the court. To say the Lakers were the mentally tougher team because they won fair and square in Game 7 is a far more charitable interpretation of events than I'm willing to make. They shouldn't have even gotten to a Game 7 for one thing, and for another how much easier is it to play loose in an elimination game when it was just demonstrated to you that you've got the advantage of favorable calls and need only to keep the game close enough for the officiating bias to carry you over the finish line? This is a psychological stigma which has haunted our franchise not just for 1 game but for the last 20+ years. That series ending the way it did played into the later decisions to unload Webber and Peja and give up on Rick Adelman. Fair or not all of them were branded as losers for never reaching the NBA Finals together.

To be clear, I'm not defending anybody in this equation. The league office no doubt has its preferences, and those are very likely misaligned with my own. The Board of Governors also surely has its preferences, and because it's an exclusive club, they're very inclined to protect their own. I certainly don't make it my business to defend the billionaire class. But because each owner is heavily invested in the larger enterprise, the league office has more incentive than not to make sure that league operations are all above board. And I don't believe there is nearly enough incentive within the league office to try and organize a massive draft lottery heist, given all of the transparency around the proceedings and the enormous risks of being caught engineering such a con. This isn't Ocean's 11.

That said, I do believe the NBA has over-legislated its rulebook to the point where referees have an impossible job fairly evaluating all of the action on the court in any given possession, and as a result, unconscious bias is generally allowed to run rampant. In a game that moves as fast as the modern NBA does, officials with only the fallibility of human eyes at their disposal are forced to make highly subjective judgment calls in fractions of a second, and absent a coach's challenge that allows the officials to review a call, they will be fighting an uphill battle against their existing biases damn near every possession of every single game. That represents great odds if you're LeBron James or Stephen Curry or Luka Doncic or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander or Victor Wembanyama, and it represents much worse odds if you're a lesser star on a lowly franchise.

I've been saying for years that the NBA needs to pare back the rulebook and remove the huge footprint that the referees leave on the game. I don't think the league office instructs its referees to blow whistles in favor of one team and not another, but I do think the league office adjusts its rules to advantage certain kinds of players and play styles. And that does hurt small market franchises, because when there are limited play styles that win in the NBA, the more attractive markets are better equipped to lure the kinds of players necessary to execute those play styles. This is why so many are calling for some adjustments to the rulebook, to diversify the game again and give franchises more pathways to win.

The only question I have here is...What would the NBA have had to gain by instructing Tim Donaghy (who came out and openly admitted that he was the one who bet on games back then and instructed those games' assigned officials to officiate them a certain way for his benefit and "financial" game) to do what Tim Donaghy did?

Like, are we seriously trying to imply that it wasn't actually Tim Donaghy who initiated the "screw job", but rather that the NBA instructed him to initiate the "screw job", and he just carried it out???

 

[hrdboild]

The only question I have here is...What would the NBA have had to gain by instructing Tim Donaghy (who came out and openly admitted that he was the one who bet on games back then and instructed those games' assigned officials to officiate them a certain way for his benefit and "financial" game) to do what Tim Donaghy did?

Like, are we seriously trying to imply that it wasn't actually Tim Donaghy who initiated the "screw job", but rather that the NBA instructed him to initiate the "screw job", and he just carried it out???

I think you've misread what the Donaghy scandal was about. He didn't claim that he had officials helping him to manipulate game outcomes or even that he consciously did that himself (though it's hard to believe he wouldn't have). That was another case of the NBA PR machine going out of their way, once the story leaked, to paint Donaghy as a rogue element who could be easily quarantined and eliminated.

What Tim Donaghy actually claimed is that it was common knowledge within the NBA that certain officials liked certain players and teams and disliked others. And also that some officials liked to let the players play and others tried to insert themselves into the game as much as possible. He used his insiders knowledge of those preferences and early access to the ref assignments (which officials were assigned to which games) to place bets that he believed had a better than average chance of paying off. He also claimed that the NBA could manipulate the outcome of a game or series by strategically assigning officials that were going to skew the outcome in the direction they wanted. This was his claim about the 2002 Western Conference Finals.

 

[QWERTYLICIOUS]

I think you've misread what the Donaghy scandal was about. He didn't claim that he had officials helping him to manipulate game outcomes or even that he consciously did that himself (though it's hard to believe he wouldn't have). That was another case of the NBA PR machine going out of their way, once the story leaked, to paint Donaghy as a rogue element who could be easily quarantined and eliminated.

What Tim Donaghy actually claimed is that it was common knowledge within the NBA that certain officials liked certain players and teams and disliked others. And also that some officials liked to let the players play and others tried to insert themselves into the game as much as possible. He used his insiders knowledge of those preferences and early access to the ref assignments (which officials were assigned to which games) to place bets that he believed had a better than average chance of paying off. He also claimed that the NBA could manipulate the outcome of a game or series by strategically assigning officials that were going to skew the outcome in the direction they wanted. This was his claim about the 2002 Western Conference Finals.

I appreciate you calling me out on my statement(s), and yes, you are correct that he didn't actually instruct officials to call their assigned games a certain way in order to benefit him.

What I had meant to point out, and I am also going to correct you on one of your claims, is that he had actually admitted to betting on games he officiated in himself (although the time period that was presented was after the 2002 WCF). I find it hard to believe that a league like the NBA would've known such a fact and, as a result, would've assigned him to certain key games that they would've wanted to go a certain way. And because of that, I also find it extremely hard to believe that a league like the NBA would've "strategically" assigned certain officials to key games in order to obtain a desired outcome.

In order to change my stance on this, one would need to actually be able to provide concrete, confirmed, and validated evidence that shows that the NBA actually assigned certain officials to certain key games in order to obtain a desired outcome.

 

[hrdboild]

Your claim that the draft was rigged in 2003 for Cleveland would carry so much more weight if Cleveland hadn't had the best odds of landing the number 1 pick that year.

The team with the worst record has won the draft lottery 8 times in 41 years so it's hardly a certainty. Sacramento had the worst record in the league (and an even better 25% chance to land the #1 overall pick) in the 2009 draft lottery and ended up picking 4th.

I appreciate you calling me out on my statement(s), and yes, you are correct that he didn't actually instruct officials to call their assigned games a certain way in order to benefit him.

What I had meant to point out, and I am also going to correct you on one of your claims, is that he had actually admitted to betting on games he officiated in himself (although the time period that was presented was after the 2002 WCF). I find it hard to believe that a league like the NBA would've known such a fact and, as a result, would've assigned him to certain key games that they would've wanted to go a certain way. And because of that, I also find it extremely hard to believe that a league like the NBA would've "strategically" assigned certain officials to key games in order to obtain a desired outcome.

In order to change my stance on this, one would need to actually be able to provide concrete, confirmed, and validated evidence that shows that the NBA actually assigned certain officials to certain key games in order to obtain a desired outcome.

Yes he admitted to betting on games that he officiated, but he also claims that he did not deliberately influence the outcomes of those games with his calls. As I said before it's rather hard to believe that with money on the line he wouldn't have at least tried to influence them, but that was what he told the FBI anyway. I also did not claim that the NBA knew that Tim Donaghy was placing bets on games and that was how they manipulated outcomes. It stands to reason that they fired him as soon as they found out about that. Again, his claim about corrupt officiating in the NBA had nothing to do with gambling on the part of other referees or league awareness of his own gambling. I've seen almost everyone get this wrong in the decades since though.

Donaghy's claim in his sworn testimony was that the officiating in the NBA at the time he was a part of it was substantially biased for myriad reasons all involving errors of judgement (referees were friends with certain players, or they couldn't stand some superstars and wouldn't give them foul calls, or they thought they were helping the league's brand by favoring more popular teams, etc.). And he said it was common knowledge amongst the other referees what many of those biases were. And because he knew what those biases were and could connect the dots on how they would influence the spreads (in the same way that having insider information about an injury to a team's star player would give you a leg up) that meant that little by little he could start to beat the house often enough to turn a pretty good profit. It doesn't mean that the officials were deliberately changing the outcomes of games, rather they were incapable of officiating the game impartially.

A spread is a measure of the margin of victory. Point shaving is where someone involved in the game deliberately conspires not to change the overall outcome of that game but to make the final margin of victory closer than it otherwise would be either by sabotaging their own team in a manner that is hopefully subtle enough to go unnoticed (if it's a player) or deliberately enforcing the rules in an unbalanced way (if it's a referee). The reason Tim Donaghy got away with what he was doing for so long (and again, this is according to his own account) is because he was not point shaving nor was he asking anyone else to point shave. He was merely playing the odds on the NBA officials being so blatantly biased that merely by calling the games as the league intended those officials were in effect accomplishing the same thing that an intentional point shaver would.

Personally I think the evidence of this is obvious. If it hadn't of worked than he would have stopped doing it before attracting the attention of the FBI. The existence of the Tim Donaghy scandal itself is evidence that the league has a problem with biased officiating. And it's damning in my mind that I have not once seen the NBA officially admit that referee bias is a problem. They made a cursory feint toward accountability with the Last Two-Minute Reports but their interpretations of calls even after review remain unconvincing and arbitrary. And even in the increasingly rare case where a game-deciding call is ruled incorrect upon review and that wrong call directly impacted the outcome of a playoff game (as happened this year in the Knicks vs. Pistons opening round series) no change was made to the final score.

 

[Joshyjosh31]

The team with the worst record has won the draft lottery 8 times in 41 years so it's hardly a certainty. Sacramento had the worst record in the league (and an even better 25% chance to land the #1 overall pick) in the 2009 draft lottery and ended up picking 4th.



Yes he admitted to betting on games that he officiated, but he also claims that he did not deliberately influence the outcomes of those games with his calls. As I said before it's rather hard to believe that with money on the line he wouldn't have at least tried to influence them, but that was what he told the FBI anyway. I also did not claim that the NBA knew that Tim Donaghy was placing bets on games and that was how they manipulated outcomes. It stands to reason that they fired him as soon as they found out about that. Again, his claim about corrupt officiating in the NBA had nothing to do with gambling on the part of other referees or league awareness of his own gambling. I've seen almost everyone get this wrong in the decades since though.

Donaghy's claim in his sworn testimony was that the officiating in the NBA at the time he was a part of it was substantially biased for myriad reasons all involving errors of judgement (referees were friends with certain players, or they couldn't stand some superstars and wouldn't give them foul calls, or they thought they were helping the league's brand by favoring more popular teams, etc.). And he said it was common knowledge amongst the other referees what many of those biases were. And because he knew what those biases were and could connect the dots on how they would influence the spreads (in the same way that having insider information about an injury to a team's star player would give you a leg up) that meant that little by little he could start to beat the house often enough to turn a pretty good profit. It doesn't mean that the officials were deliberately changing the outcomes of games, rather they were incapable of officiating the game impartially.

A spread is a measure of the margin of victory. Point shaving is where someone involved in the game deliberately conspires not to change the overall outcome of that game but to make the final margin of victory closer than it otherwise would be either by sabotaging their own team in a manner that is hopefully subtle enough to go unnoticed (if it's a player) or deliberately enforcing the rules in an unbalanced way (if it's a referee). The reason Tim Donaghy got away with what he was doing for so long (and again, this is according to his own account) is because he was not point shaving nor was he asking anyone else to point shave. He was merely playing the odds on the NBA officials being so blatantly biased that merely by calling the games as the league intended those officials were in effect accomplishing the same thing that an intentional point shaver would.

Personally I think the evidence of this is obvious. If it hadn't of worked than he would have stopped doing it before attracting the attention of the FBI. The existence of the Tim Donaghy scandal itself is evidence that the league has a problem with biased officiating. And it's damning in my mind that I have not once seen the NBA officially admit that referee bias is a problem. They made a cursory feint toward accountability with the Last Two-Minute Reports but their interpretations of calls even after review remain unconvincing and arbitrary. And even in the increasingly rare case where a game-deciding call is ruled incorrect upon review and that wrong call directly impacted the outcome of a playoff game (as happened this year in the Knicks vs. Pistons opening round series) no change was made to the final score.

Donaghy was going undercover to get more refs implicated and the nba got wind and leaked the story blowing up the sting

 

[KingsFanSince85]

No it can't. That makes as much sense as the people who say that atheism is a "religious belief" that there is no god.

Yes it can. Your subsequent example is a straw-man. You're arguing against a point that I never made.

If I had said that the color navy blue was similar to light blue due to x, y, and z -- you countering "that makes as much sense as suggesting that navy blue is also a light color" doesn't in any way, shape, or form invalidate my points. All you've done is move the goal posts to create a straw-man.

Conspiracy theorists and anti-conspiracy theorists do share commonalities. Among them are seeing what they want to see and often dismissing that which doesn't fit their established belief system. They both can, and often do, suffer from confirmation bias.

Circling back to your straw-man, while atheism doesn't represent a religious belief system, it does represent an alternate belief system; thus can be compared in that regard.

Moving on......

To be transparent and clear, I don't subscribe to the belief that the NBA lottery, in its current form, is rigged or staged. If it ever was, I believe it was much more likely to have occurred during the infancy stages of the lottery process back during the mid-to-late 80's when they were using envelopes. I'm not even convinced that it happened back then, but rather just acknowledging that it was more possible to rig due to the rather rudimentary process that was used. For example, bending a corner or freezing the envelope as many have suggested happened could have happened.

But today? I don't see it as very likely due to all of the oversight, transparency, and complexity of the process. However, I do believe just having the lottery process lends itself to the mere appearance of impropriety in the eyes of many.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

Conspiracy theorists and anti-conspiracy theorists do share commonalities. Among them are seeing what they want to see and often dismissing that which doesn't fit their established belief system. They both can, and often do, suffer from confirmation bias.

This is absurd. Acknowledging proven facts versus entertaining conjecture is not "seeing what you want to see" any more than acknowledging that grass is green is "seeing what you want to see."

Circling back to your straw-man, while atheism doesn't represent a religious belief system, it does represent an alternate belief system; thus can be compared in that regard.

Atheism is literally the absence of belief.

 

[Insomniacal Fan]

Yes it can. Your subsequent example is a straw-man. You're arguing against a point that I never made.

If I had said that the color navy blue was similar to light blue due to x, y, and z -- you countering "that makes as much sense as suggesting that navy blue is also a light color" doesn't in any way, shape, or form invalidate my points. All you've done is move the goal posts to create a straw-man.

Conspiracy theorists and anti-conspiracy theorists do share commonalities. Among them are seeing what they want to see and often dismissing that which doesn't fit their established belief system. They both can, and often do, suffer from confirmation bias.

Humans and nematodes "share commonalities", in the sense that both can sense light in the environment and take actions based on what they "see". You could make the argument that there's no essential difference between humans and the little worms; but most humans would find that to be nihilistic. This message board is for humans.