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What are your thoughts on the "cinderella story" of Cleveland this year? I have never believed in the integrity of this type of lotto for draft position. It should go from worst on up.

Cant do that because in the NBA you have a history of teams "tanking" games. And its too easy in the NBA to tank games.

I think all sports should have the lottery, keeps the integrity of the regular season.

I've always had doubts about the NBA draft lottery. It always seems too convenient that the underdog team comes out on top. Cleveland loses LeBron, low and behold they get the #1 pick. The Bulls a few years ago get the #1 pick when they had something like a 3% chance(I'm a Bulls fan so I'm not complaining), and they get the future MVP in D Rose. The conspiracy theories on the draft go back decades.

I don't think it's necessary to have a lottery for all other sports: Baseball it doesn't matter much in most years to have the top pick, Football is much harder to tank games and teams don't necessarily want the # 1 pick anymore.

How about worst to first.  But for non playoff teams you use the team record as of midway thru the season.  The team second half record doesn't matter at all. 

^^^ But then you run into the situation where a team with a more difficult first half schedule is rewarded with a better draft position than an equally sucky team who had a more difficult second half schedule.

^^^ didn't say it was a perfect system.  Just better than all others tried. 

Does eliminate the the risk of tanking and the very problem plagued lottery.   

Lebron & the Heat must really be worried that the Cavs will exact their retribution. :o

I'm not sure that the lottery is a "problem" as-is.

The worst team is not entitled to the best pick.  I'm fine with them simply having a better chance.  The worst team is guaranteed no worse than #4, and there are countless Hall of Fame players drafted at #4 or lower.

The Lottery works perfect. I mean the people who think its fixed are the same bunch who think Bin Laden is still alive and Obama wasn't born in this country.

Bottom line, if it was Fixed how come the Knicks (in the #1 media market) have only won the damn thing once and that was back in the mid 80's!! Why wouldn't the league have wanted Tim Duncan in BOSTON, instead he ended up in San Antonio where nobody really saw how great he was in his career. And I'm sure the leagues top destenation for Lebron was NEVER Cleveland! I don't care if he was from Ohio or not!!

Yeah, Cleveland had the 2nd worst record, so it's not like Orlando the year after they got Shaq.  I think on occasion the lottery can be rigged, as it is VERY easy to do, but it isn't most of the time. I certainly don't feel it was this year. I think it was rigged when the Knicks got Ewing and the Magic got Penny Hardaway with the worst odds of getting it after they got Shaq the year before.

I don't think Stern made the Knicks win it the past few years because what would our incompetent management do with Derrick Rose anyway? Probably trade him for Baron Davis.

It's never been rigged! ::)

People win MILLIONS in the lottery daily with far worse odds than NBA teams have to win the #1 pick!

It's not rigged.  C'mon guys.  There's millions and millions of dollars at stake from these teams.  You think that there isn't some serious legal protection going on to make sure that everything is on the up and up?

The same protection that was used to ensure that an official didn't owe money to the mafia so he wouldn't call games in favor of certain teams? I am not saying it definitely is rigged, but the NBA has shown it isn't the most brilliantly run league.

^^^ Apples and carburetors...

The NBA Draft is a mathematical formula whose physical process is overseen and validated by an impartial third party (Ernst & Young).

Tim Donaghy was an official who was weak of character and the league had very little oversight into his personal life. The gamblers he was involved with weren't actually "mafia" either.

 

The same Ernst & Young that was implicated with Lehman Bros? I don't think it is rigged either, but the NBA sure is good a creating the skepticism around their lottery.

I can believe the lottery isn't rigged without some mathematical facts backing it up, as it is kind of a conspiracy theory. However, plenty of things about the NBA are shady, ridiculous officiating aside(Miami Heat 2006 NBA Champions), that lead me to believe that if David Stern ever wanted to rig it, it wouldn't be hard to do so.

The strongest evidence against the Lottery being rigged are the results that it has produced.

What kind of idiot would rig the lottery so that Orlando wins back-to-back?  So that Tim Duncan goes to San Antonio?  So that LeBron James winds up a Cleveland Cavalier instead of an L.A. Clipper?  So that Boston misses out on both Greg Oden and Kevin Durant?  So that the L.A. wins the #1 pick (with a <3% chance) in a year when said pick will belong to Cleveland (again!)?

The only NBA Lottery conspiracy claim that makes the tiniest bit of sense is the frozen envelope, and that was nearly 30 years ago.