Posted by Paladin55:

Posted by TMS:

well, Curry better be the real deal cuz he's as good as ours after tonight... i don't see Walsh taking any other PG over him other than Rubio & he'll be long gone by the time #8 rolls around.

You are assuming that Curry will be there, though.

You might still get your boy DeRozan, and if we get him, you will be held accountable for his performance, good or bad.

Posted by eViL:

Chandler, Mobley and #8 --> Memphis.
Jaric and #2 --> Knicks

It's a salary dump for Memphis. Do they want Rubio after the drafted Conley? Can they get their guy at 8?

Posted by lumbardar:

I was thinking rubio might has well stay in spain for another year anyways because he is not going to a team that are great they are all bad teams. Just think about it why would he want to go to the clippers there always lottery and that not a great even though it a big market there in worst shape then we are. Nobody likes playing for memphis that team is going no where and you got to think his juan carlos narrow is going tell him how much he hated memphis. The number 3 pick oklahoma thunder isn't a great ideal place for him either because 1 that place is crap and team isn't that great either plus they have a point guard. The next team is the kings but kings aren't going to the playoffs anytime soon with him even though they need a point guard. If you really think about it this probally the worst case scenario for him and how many of teams are going to get him a sponsor for his buyout because most of those teams are either cheap or either over the lexury tax.

Posted by oohah:

Okay, let's look at this point by point:

a) No those numbers are not bad.
b) Putting up big numbers as a gunner does not make his numbers more impressive. I can't even figure out the logic behind that statement! Putting up big numbers when an entire offense is designed around 1 guy taking all the shots is more impressive? Maybe you can explain that to me?
c) Curry would produce more if he had better teammates? Goes against all rules of basketball. He took all the shots. Look at how Kobe averages less when he has beter teammates to throw it to. same with Wade. Worse teammates menas his scoring average goes up. Works like this 90% of the time.
d) Curry had some really big games against really good teams. Very true. That does not discount the fact that playing in a mid-level conference helps him pad his stats.

This conversation is starting to become silly.

oohah

Posted by Vmart:

Posted by martin:

Posted by Vmart:

Posted by Andrew:

VMart you do realize that its not 14 balls - 1 for each team right? To get the different percentages you would need 1000 total ping pong balls. Lets pause for commecial break for an hour while someone sifts through all 1000 balls and removes the ones from the team that just got picked.

That is fine put thousand ping pongs if you have to. All you have to do instead since there are 14 teams is allot one ball to the 14th team best record and 14 balls to the worst team. atleast the Knicks would have had 8 ping pongs. Now televise it.

All I know is if they are not doing it in public then they are running a scam.

I think this solidifies why the public is not is on this. You don't even understand lottery percentages and how the system works.

You are right Martin I don't understand, but I do know you have to be in it to win it. I just gave you a percentage based system, the worst team gets 14 ball and reduce it by one ball until the last team which gets 1 ball. The worst team still has the best chance of winning.

OK, the NBA determined that 14 balls are not enough to make the %'s work. That's why they introduced a lot more balls. Now what.

Why do they need to simplify it to make YOU understand it?

Posted by Vmart:

Posted by martin:

Posted by Vmart:

Posted by martin:

Posted by Vmart:

Posted by Andrew:

VMart you do realize that its not 14 balls - 1 for each team right? To get the different percentages you would need 1000 total ping pong balls. Lets pause for commecial break for an hour while someone sifts through all 1000 balls and removes the ones from the team that just got picked.

That is fine put thousand ping pongs if you have to. All you have to do instead since there are 14 teams is allot one ball to the 14th team best record and 14 balls to the worst team. atleast the Knicks would have had 8 ping pongs. Now televise it.

All I know is if they are not doing it in public then they are running a scam.

I think this solidifies why the public is not is on this. You don't even understand lottery percentages and how the system works.

You are right Martin I don't understand, but I do know you have to be in it to win it. I just gave you a percentage based system, the worst team gets 14 ball and reduce it by one ball until the last team which gets 1 ball. The worst team still has the best chance of winning.

OK, the NBA determined that 14 balls are not enough to make the %'s work. That's why they introduced a lot more balls. Now what.

Why do they need to simplify it to make YOU understand it?

I understand the system fine but why the secrecy. Let everyone in on the process without this back room unnecessarily dropping excess ping pong balls when less would suffice. I'm sure the process only takes 30 minutes to complete. As for my system it works better, you won't have teams tanking as much if you know its only one ping pong ball difference from the next one. Its easier to put on TV where everyone can see. You have to remember the process is for the three top picks after that its based on record. Now you are just drawing three ping pong balls. The NBA is mucking up the system to manipulate. with secrecy and unnecessary ping pong balls.

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-40-105/In-the-Room-With-the-Ping-Pong-Balls.html

In the Room With the Ping Pong Balls

May 19, 2009 11:20 PM

Not Here
The first thing you notice, when you get into the secret conference room, on the third floor of the NBA offices in Secaucus New Jersey, is that three people are missing.

Who is it who got the honor of representing the Timberwolves here tonight? Who from the Suns will be making certain that nothing untoward happens with the drawing of the ping pong balls? Who will pump his fist in the air on behalf of the Los Angeles Clippers?

The answer, on all three counts, was: Nobody.

Nobody!

It seems absurd, but: Is this a sign of the economy? Are teams saving on travel?

The way the system works is that every team is invited to send two official representatives. One witnesses the proceedings and is locked in this room so as to not spill the beans and ruin the broadcast. The other, who has no idea what happened, is on the stage.

Can you imagine if 14 teams took the same approach as those three? It would make the whole drawing almost meaningless.

Not Rigged
A sizable contingent of those not invited into the secret room harbor the suspicion that maybe, just maybe, this event is rigged. Those of us who get to go into that room have a certain obligation to see if it is.

It isn't.

In honesty, I have no real way to assess that.

But I can tell you this:

* There is a machine that is used in all kinds of lotteries besides this one. It belongs to a company that uses it the rest of the year for other things like state lotteries.
* The balls that go in there have the proper numbers on there and appear to be round. They whiz around and around like crazy in that machine, with all kinds of people watching. The lever is pulled at the pre-approved moment.
* While NBA fans love talking about the fact that the draft lottery may be rigged, the people in this room, who have careers and fortunes that hinge on this moment, and some of whom may be fired do not express the slightest suspicion that this may not be on the up and up. Honestly, I talked to half the team representatives, and to a man they find it amusing that people think this is not legit. Jeff Weltman, of the Bucks, expressed amazement that people think it's anything but random, pointing out that he has heard people suggest that executives who represent a team that does poorly in the lottery are sometimes treated like they are to blame.
* If you were going to rig the lottery, no way in hell you'd rig it for the Clippers. They're famous for being bad, and cost-conscious. The owner has had legal entanglements involving two third-rails of public life: sex and discrimination. They have players like Zach Randolph that the NBA presumably would rather not publicize. And most importantly: They have players under contract at power forward/center (Zach Randolph, Marcus Camby, Chris Kaman) and point guard, the two positions represented by the best players in this draft. And nobody in the draft room! With apologies to Clipper fans, there could hardly be a less exciting outcome.
* The Clippers didn't just win the first pick. They won the second pick too! The first four ball combination was 5, 3, 6, 10. Bingo. Clippers get the top pick. The second combination was 5, 6, 3, 4. Also the Clippers! The balls were placed back in the machine for a do-over, which went to the Grizzlies. I don't know what the chances are of this happening (the Clippers had about a 17% chance each of getting the first and second picks) but it has to be about as likely as a power outage, which as I'll explain would have been a lot more fun.

An Aside: Lou, Jeff, and Contingencies
The NBA's president, Joel Litvin, explained that in a "disaster scenario," for instance if the machine malfunctioned or there was a power outage, they would instead put the 14 lottery balls into an official NBA basketball that had been cut open, then someone would fish around with their hand and pull out the balls. (This seems so unscientific, but in reality it's pretty much exactly how the real lottery used to happen with the envelopes in the big tumbler thing.)

I found myself praying for a power outage, just to see that. Can you imagine? And presumably it would be in the pitch black. As an event, this would kill the actual lottery drawing. Glitzy performance lottery ... meet gritty dark lottery. Not to mention, it would be followed by 14 (or, umm 11) team executives locked in a room together with reporters and snacks.

NBA Vice President of Events and Attractions Lou DiSabatino, and a manager in his department named Jeffrey Rossi, tell me that they practiced the hollowed out ball drawing earlier in the day. This has to happen some time, I suggest. They don't share my enthusiasm.

Lou, incidentally, is the guy who pulls the lever to release the air, which sweeps up a ball into the tube to determine who wins the lottery. Another "disaster scenario" would be for Lou to hold the lever open too long, causing balls to shoot all over the room like popcorn on the stove top with the lid off. Before the event begins, Litvin explains that should this happen the balls will be gathered up and stuck back in the machine. I'm thinking that if this happened in a James Bond movie, somebody would have a specially weighted #14 ball to replace the real one.

Lou will not make this mistake. Everything is very practiced and precise. The first ball is drawn twenty seconds after the balls start whirring in the machine. The remaining balls are drawn at ten second intervals. Rossi does the timing. But here's the fancy part: Rossi clutches a stopwatch, four yards away with his back turned to DiSabatino. When the requisite number of seconds have ticked off, he raises a hand, and then Lou pulls the lever.

Why is his back turned?

I asked, and it's to prevent any possibility that the two would collude, and time up the release of a ball to achieve a certain result.

Awesome.

Did I mention they rehearsed this? Talk about Life's Rich Pageant.

Quiet
After the drawing was completed, I guess the ideal thing would have been for one guy to jump up and down with joy while everybody else stared daggers at him and forced smiles. (I'm under the impression this is more or less what happened two years ago, when Portland won.) Perhaps everyone would enjoy a drink, for different reasons. And then we'd go home.

But instead, everyone more or less sat there, murmuring to each other or not talking at all. Rows of Aeron chairs, and ties, and suits, and quiet.

The handful of reporters in the room tapped away at laptops, but honestly, what was there to write about?

My notepad had things on it like: "Sam Presti, learning the Thunder have the third pick, takes notes and nods in a ho-hum motion."

We're not allowed to leave for more than an hour. The food is way better downstairs. It seems really odd not to be texting Kevin Arnovitz of ClipperBlog to tell him his team won the lottery, but I have surrendered my phone and the whole point of being in the room is not to tell anybody.

Posted by martin:

Posted by Vmart:

Posted by martin:

Posted by Vmart:

Posted by martin:

Posted by Vmart:

Posted by Andrew:

VMart you do realize that its not 14 balls - 1 for each team right? To get the different percentages you would need 1000 total ping pong balls. Lets pause for commecial break for an hour while someone sifts through all 1000 balls and removes the ones from the team that just got picked.

That is fine put thousand ping pongs if you have to. All you have to do instead since there are 14 teams is allot one ball to the 14th team best record and 14 balls to the worst team. atleast the Knicks would have had 8 ping pongs. Now televise it.

All I know is if they are not doing it in public then they are running a scam.

I think this solidifies why the public is not is on this. You don't even understand lottery percentages and how the system works.

You are right Martin I don't understand, but I do know you have to be in it to win it. I just gave you a percentage based system, the worst team gets 14 ball and reduce it by one ball until the last team which gets 1 ball. The worst team still has the best chance of winning.

OK, the NBA determined that 14 balls are not enough to make the %'s work. That's why they introduced a lot more balls. Now what.

Why do they need to simplify it to make YOU understand it?

I understand the system fine but why the secrecy. Let everyone in on the process without this back room unnecessarily dropping excess ping pong balls when less would suffice. I'm sure the process only takes 30 minutes to complete. As for my system it works better, you won't have teams tanking as much if you know its only one ping pong ball difference from the next one. Its easier to put on TV where everyone can see. You have to remember the process is for the three top picks after that its based on record. Now you are just drawing three ping pong balls. The NBA is mucking up the system to manipulate. with secrecy and unnecessary ping pong balls.

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-40-105/In-the-Room-With-the-Ping-Pong-Balls.html

In the Room With the Ping Pong Balls

May 19, 2009 11:20 PM

Not Here
The first thing you notice, when you get into the secret conference room, on the third floor of the NBA offices in Secaucus New Jersey, is that three people are missing.

Who is it who got the honor of representing the Timberwolves here tonight? Who from the Suns will be making certain that nothing untoward happens with the drawing of the ping pong balls? Who will pump his fist in the air on behalf of the Los Angeles Clippers?

The answer, on all three counts, was: Nobody.

Nobody!

It seems absurd, but: Is this a sign of the economy? Are teams saving on travel?

The way the system works is that every team is invited to send two official representatives. One witnesses the proceedings and is locked in this room so as to not spill the beans and ruin the broadcast. The other, who has no idea what happened, is on the stage.

Can you imagine if 14 teams took the same approach as those three? It would make the whole drawing almost meaningless.

Not Rigged
A sizable contingent of those not invited into the secret room harbor the suspicion that maybe, just maybe, this event is rigged. Those of us who get to go into that room have a certain obligation to see if it is.

It isn't.

In honesty, I have no real way to assess that.

But I can tell you this:

* There is a machine that is used in all kinds of lotteries besides this one. It belongs to a company that uses it the rest of the year for other things like state lotteries.
* The balls that go in there have the proper numbers on there and appear to be round. They whiz around and around like crazy in that machine, with all kinds of people watching. The lever is pulled at the pre-approved moment.
* While NBA fans love talking about the fact that the draft lottery may be rigged, the people in this room, who have careers and fortunes that hinge on this moment, and some of whom may be fired do not express the slightest suspicion that this may not be on the up and up. Honestly, I talked to half the team representatives, and to a man they find it amusing that people think this is not legit. Jeff Weltman, of the Bucks, expressed amazement that people think it's anything but random, pointing out that he has heard people suggest that executives who represent a team that does poorly in the lottery are sometimes treated like they are to blame.
* If you were going to rig the lottery, no way in hell you'd rig it for the Clippers. They're famous for being bad, and cost-conscious. The owner has had legal entanglements involving two third-rails of public life: sex and discrimination. They have players like Zach Randolph that the NBA presumably would rather not publicize. And most importantly: They have players under contract at power forward/center (Zach Randolph, Marcus Camby, Chris Kaman) and point guard, the two positions represented by the best players in this draft. And nobody in the draft room! With apologies to Clipper fans, there could hardly be a less exciting outcome.
* The Clippers didn't just win the first pick. They won the second pick too! The first four ball combination was 5, 3, 6, 10. Bingo. Clippers get the top pick. The second combination was 5, 6, 3, 4. Also the Clippers! The balls were placed back in the machine for a do-over, which went to the Grizzlies. I don't know what the chances are of this happening (the Clippers had about a 17% chance each of getting the first and second picks) but it has to be about as likely as a power outage, which as I'll explain would have been a lot more fun.

An Aside: Lou, Jeff, and Contingencies
The NBA's president, Joel Litvin, explained that in a "disaster scenario," for instance if the machine malfunctioned or there was a power outage, they would instead put the 14 lottery balls into an official NBA basketball that had been cut open, then someone would fish around with their hand and pull out the balls. (This seems so unscientific, but in reality it's pretty much exactly how the real lottery used to happen with the envelopes in the big tumbler thing.)

I found myself praying for a power outage, just to see that. Can you imagine? And presumably it would be in the pitch black. As an event, this would kill the actual lottery drawing. Glitzy performance lottery ... meet gritty dark lottery. Not to mention, it would be followed by 14 (or, umm 11) team executives locked in a room together with reporters and snacks.

NBA Vice President of Events and Attractions Lou DiSabatino, and a manager in his department named Jeffrey Rossi, tell me that they practiced the hollowed out ball drawing earlier in the day. This has to happen some time, I suggest. They don't share my enthusiasm.

Lou, incidentally, is the guy who pulls the lever to release the air, which sweeps up a ball into the tube to determine who wins the lottery. Another "disaster scenario" would be for Lou to hold the lever open too long, causing balls to shoot all over the room like popcorn on the stove top with the lid off. Before the event begins, Litvin explains that should this happen the balls will be gathered up and stuck back in the machine. I'm thinking that if this happened in a James Bond movie, somebody would have a specially weighted #14 ball to replace the real one.

Lou will not make this mistake. Everything is very practiced and precise. The first ball is drawn twenty seconds after the balls start whirring in the machine. The remaining balls are drawn at ten second intervals. Rossi does the timing. But here's the fancy part: Rossi clutches a stopwatch, four yards away with his back turned to DiSabatino. When the requisite number of seconds have ticked off, he raises a hand, and then Lou pulls the lever.

Why is his back turned?

I asked, and it's to prevent any possibility that the two would collude, and time up the release of a ball to achieve a certain result.

Awesome.

Did I mention they rehearsed this? Talk about Life's Rich Pageant.

Quiet
After the drawing was completed, I guess the ideal thing would have been for one guy to jump up and down with joy while everybody else stared daggers at him and forced smiles. (I'm under the impression this is more or less what happened two years ago, when Portland won.) Perhaps everyone would enjoy a drink, for different reasons. And then we'd go home.

But instead, everyone more or less sat there, murmuring to each other or not talking at all. Rows of Aeron chairs, and ties, and suits, and quiet.

The handful of reporters in the room tapped away at laptops, but honestly, what was there to write about?

My notepad had things on it like: "Sam Presti, learning the Thunder have the third pick, takes notes and nods in a ho-hum motion."

We're not allowed to leave for more than an hour. The food is way better downstairs. It seems really odd not to be texting Kevin Arnovitz of ClipperBlog to tell him his team won the lottery, but I have surrendered my phone and the whole point of being in the room is not to tell anybody.

Wow I didn't know so much bull crap goes into such a simple process. They should use my system and a hat. its a lot cheaper and you can put it on TV.

Posted by Vmart:


Wow I didn't know so much bull crap goes into such a simple process. They should use my system and a hat. its a lot cheaper and you can put it on TV.

haha. Your system would take all of 2 minutes. And then what? 28 minutes of commercials? Who watches that?