Posted by GKFv2:
Right. So they would fix it so one of the league's most pathetic and irrelevant franchises wins the lottery instead of a more well-known one and that a team with literally no fans and thinking of relocating wins #2. If they were gonna do a "fix" for the small market teams, they would have given OKC #1. The #3 pick is pointless in this draft.
[Edited by - gkfv2 on 05-19-2009 9:52 PM]
Stern has jokingly said in the past that it would be best for the Knicks not to win the lottery anymore, so he can't be accussed of anything. There is some truth to that.
This is the process as per wikipedia. One of my senior managers from the NY office took part a couple of years ago and said he didn't even understand the process.
To determine the winner, fourteen ping pong balls numbered 1–14 are placed in a standard lottery machine and four balls are randomly selected from the lot. Just as in most traditional lotteries, the order in which the numbers are drawn is not important. That is, 1-2-3-4 is considered to be the same as 4-3-2-1. So although there is a total of 24 orders in which the balls numbered 1-2-3-4 can be picked, they are all treated as the same outcome. In doing this, the permutation of 4 balls from 14 becomes the combination of 4 balls from 14. That is, the total of 24,024 (14! / 10!, or 14x13x12x11) possible permutations is reduced by a factor of 24, to 1,001 combinations. Of these, 1 outcome is disregarded and 1,000 outcomes are distributed among the 14 non-playoff NBA teams. The combination 11-12-13-14 (in any order that those numbers are drawn) is not assigned and it is ignored if drawn; this has never occurred in practice.
The drawing of the ping-pong balls is conducted in private, though observed by independent auditors and representatives from each team. The results are subsequently presented in a short ceremony (typically broadcast prior to or during halftime of an NBA playoff game), in which the order of the lottery is announced in reverse order, from the fourteenth selection to the first. Representatives from each NBA franchise with a lottery pick are present at the lottery ceremony.
The decision of not showing the ping-pong balls live has fueled speculation that the NBA will occasionally fix the Draft Lottery if it can benefit the league.[citation needed] The root of this speculation is the 1985 Draft Lottery that sent Patrick Ewing to New York. The theory being that the NBA wanted to send the best player in the draft to New York to increase ratings in a large television market. At that time the NBA used 7 envelopes in a tumbler representing the seven teams with the worst record. When the envelopes were added to the tumbler, one envelope was put in forcibly, and banged against the edge, while all the rest were set in gently.[1] The first envelope drawn was the 1st pick, and it went onwards up to the 7th pick. David Stern went right for the envelope with the bent corner, which upon opening the envelope, it was revealed that the New York Knicks logo was inside, fueling speculation of a draft fix ever since. Afterward the Draft Lottery Format was changed to the current ping-pong ball lottery in a private room with team representatives.
5/19/2009 9:55 PM