Every NBA Draft Lottery brings out the conspiracy theorists. As they say on The X Files, “the truth is out there.”
Unfortunately, it’s not out there for you or me. In reality, the NBA Draft Lottery is an endeavor of mixed integrity. The genuine truth probably lies somewhere in between the two extremes of “hey, man it’s all manipulated by the league, the Illuminati know!” and “luck/serendipity or what economists call pure competition.”
It’s within this framework that we ranked every team in the NBA Draft Lottery by “practicality of manipulation.”
Meaning if I were in charge of the NBA and I could fix the lottery, this is who I would have win tomorrow night. (Tuesday 7:30 on ESPN). That team is ranked #1.
My second choice is ranked #2 and so on. The franchise ranked #14 is the last team I’d manipulate the ping ping balls for.
(Photo Credit: “Inside the NBA” on TNT)
1. New York Knicks- #1 overall pick chances: 19.9%
Fixing it for the Knicks is the path of (almost) least resistance as they have the second highest probability anyway. Of course, Gotham also makes the most practical sense.
Likely #1 overall pick Karl Anthony Towns is from a New Jersey suburb across the river from Staten Island. You’ve got the cliched Homecoming narrative (see 2003 NBA Draft Lottery, 2008 NBA Draft Lottery), the #1 media market, a historic, name brand franchise, and you have Phil Jackson. The Zen Master has done so much for the league, they should throw him a bone here. Also, he needs all the help he can get.
2. Charlotte Hornets- #1 overall pick chances: 1.7%
Remember, the NBA is a quasi-individual sport hidden within a team sport, and the Hornets are owned by the biggest individual in the entire history of the sport. Michael Jordan needs all the help he can get trying to build these losers into something competitive. Since individual star power always outranks market size in terms of importance (way more people tune in to see the name on the back of the jersey than they do the name on the front) the NBA owes MJ for single-handedly growing the brand.
Duke one-and-done Jahlil Okafor, a Chicago native will be the #1 overall pick if Anthony-Towns is not. You can spin that into some MJ related media and marketing hype somehow.
I’m here to help out anyway I can with this one.
(Photo Credit: “Inside the NBA” on TNT)
3. L.A. Lakers- #1 overall pick chances: 11.9%
This is yet another proverbial slam dunk. As the NBA’s biggest brand and most well known franchise, the league needs the Lake Show to be as relevant as possible at all times.
Factor in the 2nd largest market, and hell, even I want to fix the NBA Draft Lottery for the Lakers. Think of how many “Kobe passes the torch to Okafor/KAT” stories you can write.
4. Indiana Pacers- #1 overall pick chances: 0.8%
See Charlotte/Michael Jordan but apply it to Pacers President Larry Bird. Now Larry Legend isn’t quite the brand name Jordan is, but he helped make the league mainstream. Before Bird, Jordan and Magic, the NBA was essentially what the MLS is now. It’s time to give him some love and pay him back.
5. Philadelphia 76ers- #1 overall pick chances: 15.6%
Traditional Power with a crazed fan base currently resides as a sleeping giant. It’s also a big market team that borders the home state of the potential #1 pick. There are worse ideas than this. There are loonier conspiracy theories than the NBA fixed the lottery for the Sixers.
6. Oklahoma City Thunder- #1 overall pick chances: 0.5%
Everyone returning healthy next season + the #1 overall pick = championship. Done. Period. So if the NBA wants Oklahoma City to win the title, Adam Silver can make sure the ping pong balls bounce their way. A Thunder national title would provide the provide some real feedback on how to maximize profits in tiny markets. This could provide a blueprint for possibly repeating the process in other cities where the NBA would be the only game in town.
Oh wait, that whole the San Antonio Spurs are a thing that exists thing.
7. Phoenix Suns- #1 overall pick chances: 0.6%
Here’s who we have every team drafting #1 overall, should they win the lottery and acquire the first overall selection.
For this one we quote Business Insider:
The 1985 Draft — the first to use a lottery to determine which team got the number one pick — is the most notorious. Conspiracy theorists think the NBA rigged the lottery in order to send Patrick Ewing to the struggling New York Knicks.
The order of the Draft was determined by a league official pulling cards out of a big, spinning glass bowl. Conspiracy theorists say that the Knicks’ card was marked (with a bent corner), so that it wouldn’t be picked until the end.
This a screenshot of the “bent corner” evidence from an NBA fan forum
As you can see, the “bent corner” conspiracy theory is really broke. As is pretty much any theory out there explaining why the Suns would win it.
8. Denver Nuggets- #1 overall pick chances: 4.3%
When it comes to the Nuggets, I literally have nothing, but I do have this piece on NBA Conspiracies you should read by CBS Chicago’s Tim Baffoe. And the aliens from Xenoduxcvax 7, who happen to be huge Nuggets fans for some reason, instructed me to link that piece.
(Another photo of Mallory Edens even though the Bucks aren’t even in this year’s NBA Draft Lottery because….reasons…)
9. Detroit Pistons- #1 overall pick chances: 2.8%
I came up with a few Pistons scenarios, but none of them were all that compelling. At least not as compelling as my exclusive with Tim Donaghy; one of the more highest viewed posts in the site’s history, Therefore, I republish it every year during NBA Finals time.
10. Orlando Magic- #1 overall pick chances: 1.8%
The NBA feels really bad about what the Chicago Bulls are about to do to Tom Thibodeau, and they believe he’s really great for the game. Seriously, he does stand for some of the more wholesome aspects of the sport. The league wants to reward that (provided Thibs goes to Orlando and not New Orleans) by giving him a franchise player that he can immediately play 46 minutes per night.
By the time you get to #10, you’re not quite in “Faked the Moon Landing” Town, but you’re certainly in the suburbs.
11. Minnesota Timberwolves- #1 overall pick chances: 25%
If the T’Wolves win the lottery, and you think it happened only because it’s fixed, you’re wearing a tin foil hat while reading this. I’ll let Weird Al Yankovic explain that:
12. Miami Heat- #1 overall pick chances
Let’s just say that if the Miami Heat win the 2015 NBA Draft Lottery…you can say for sure that the 2015 NBA Draft Lottery is not rigged. Or at least that’s what the men in the black helicopters instructed me to type here at gunpoint.
13. Utah Jazz- #1 overall pick chances
Let’s see….hhmmm……(silence)…..(waiting)……*crickets chirping*
I’m really drawing a blank on this one. Perhaps that’s because by the time I got down to #13 the CIA and Secret Service had already injected me with a classified chemical compound.
14. Sacramento Kings- #1 overall pick chances: 6.3%
Getting a team back in Seattle isn’t high on the NBA’s priority list, and both sides of the Kings ownership handover in 2013 did their part to keep the Kings in Sac-town. Hence the NBA is rewarding them with…wow….Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith just didn’t try very hard in the story they told me after using that flashing, mind-eraser thing on me.
Here’s who we have every team drafting #1 overall, should they win the lottery and acquire the first overall selection.
By the way, here’s our latest NBA mock draft round ones and our latest NBA mock draft round two.
(Editor’s Note: obviously, you realized that this piece is parody and not intended to be taken literally)
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with Fox Sports Digital. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes to the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. He also appears regularly on numerous sports talk radio stations all across the country.
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