Holy crumpled envelopes, Batman!
My Wizards won the lottery!
John Wall, come on down!!!!
Some are already squealing about how the "fix" was in - again. Well, maybe. But it's about sweet damn time we benefited from some (possible) David Stern tom-foolery.
The story line is pretty easy to see. Abe Pollin, beloved original owner of the Bullets/Wiz, gets one final posthumous hook-up from the Commissioner after a farcically troubled season in which a star player brought guns into the locker-room as a joke.
Abe and The Commish were always tight. Abe was a loyal NBA guy through and through. He truly did think about the league's health, always, his own team, often second.
Why not throw him a bone? Surely, the NBA won't give some punk-ass Russian playboy the juicy first pick all of 5 minutes into owning one of the league's perennial cesspools.
Oh, what's that? You are saying the lottery is HONEST? Why would you believe that?
If the NBA wanted to actually end this kind of cynicism, they would expose the lottery to the light of day. Instead, they make it laughably convoluted.
Here, you want a weighted lottery? Fine. Do it this way.
Take 100 ping pong balls. Color them according to each team's chances. Nets have 25% chance at top pick? Fine. 25 blue balls. Wiz have 10% chance? Fine. 10 balls. And so on.
Put all 100 balls into big ol' vaccuum hopper. Turn it on. Let fans watch balls rattle around randomly. Open hatch on top. Announce who's ball it is.
Repeat.
When you get multiple Nets ping pong balls, just put them aside. Throw them to fans as souvenirs, or see how many Russ Granik can stuff in his mouth at one time.
It wouldn't be quite as "smooth" as the current set-up. A little clumsy. But so, freaking what!
NBA fans are too damn suspicious, and this league has proven to be too clever by half, too many times.
Either that, or just get rid of the lottery altogether.
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