Is the NBA Lottery rigged?

1985. Patrick Ewing was the top prospect in the country. Enter NBA Commish David Stern. With a frozen envelope. In Madison Square Garden.

Seventeen years later, the story still lives. Did Stern, in a desperate attempt to resurrect the Knicks, rig the 1985 draft lottery?

The questions that swirled around the draft that made Ewing a Knick are back as 7-foot-6 center Yao Ming makes his way to America.

Apparently, the folks in charge of Yao's team in China, the Shanghai Sharks, are under the impression that they'll have some say concerning the team that drafts Yao.

Wonder where they got that idea?

Their criteria: a big market, large Asian American population, ability to compete for a championship in the next few years. Apparently, everyone loves the Lakers in China.

Fans in Cleveland and Memphis might as well forget about Yao now. As for Chicago and Golden State. . . in the words of Jim Mora. Playoffs? Playoffs?

That leaves the Knicks and the Wizards. Either scenario is a dream one for the NBA. Yao is exactly what the Knicks need to turn around their fortune. Instead of piecing together Marcus Camby with three band-aids and a popsicle stick every season, the team could have a legitimate, durable shot blocker in the middle.

The Wizards' scenario may even be sweeter. Yao Ming and Michael Jordan? I can already see the proliferation of Wizards lunch boxes. Michael "Air" Jordan and Yao "the Air up there" Ming.

Of course, Stern will have none of it. To him all of this conspiracy talk is just hot air. He says the Chinese must accept the luck of the draw. Wink, wink.

"We know what they obviously would like," Stern said. "I've had occasion to meet with the general manager of the Shanghai Sharks [Yao's team], and my question was 'Can you spell Arvydas Sabonis?' "

"It's going to be a good thing to have [Yao] in the NBA. I know they're very focused on how their team will do in the World Championships this summer in Indianapolis and in the Beijing Olympics."

The big market teams get all of the TV ratings, get all of the calls in close games and have all the beautiful girls. So why can't they get the No. 1 pick in the draft?

The Knicks have a 4.3 percent chance of winning the No. 1 pick. That's plausible enough, isn't it? The Knicks have asked former GM Dave DeBusschere, who represented the team at the '85 draft, to be present when the ping pong balls bounce May 19. Does he think something fishy happened 17 years ago?

"I've heard that so many times," DeBusschere said. "I'll tell you, I'm not a good-enough actor. If anything happened, I didn't know."

Stern keeps a sense of humor about the stories, still rampant in NBA circles, that an NBA employee froze the Knicks' envelope so Stern would know which one to pick.

"Now it's ping-pong balls," Stern kidded. "You can't bend the corner [of an envelope] or freeze-dry the cardboard."

But you could throw in a couple more ping pong balls for good measure. . .

The stakes are likely to increase next Thursday when Yao comes to America to work out. He and Duke's Jason Williams will almost certainly go either 1-2 or 2-1 in the draft.

Privately, some NBA teams grumble about the whole lottery system. While they don't believe it's fixed, they do believe it's unfair.

The NBA started the lottery to keep teams from tanking games late in the season just to get the worst record in the league. Is there any way that the Warriors would have won their season finale if they knew it would cost them the No. 1 pick in the draft? Probably not, but then again it's the Warriors. The boneheaded move still cost them about 25 ping pong balls.

The problem is that the worst team rarely ever wins the lottery. In fact, it's been 12 years, to be exact, since the NBA's worst has nabbed the No. 1 pick. Bad teams might as well be playing Powerball.

The Knicks' winning the lottery would actually be less strange than either the Bulls or Warriors taking home the honors.

Last year the Bulls had the worst record in the league and ended up with the No. 4 pick. The Warriors had the second-worst record and ended up with the No. 5 pick.

In 2000, the Clippers ended with the worst record and the No. 3 pick. The Bulls had the second-worst record and drafted No. 4. The Nets, who got the No. 1 pick, had the seventh-worst record in the NBA.

In 1999, the Grizzlies were the worst team in the NBA, but could manage only the No. 2 pick. The Clippers won only nine games, but had to wait until pick No. 4 to take Lamar Odom.

In 1998, the Nuggets took home the worst record honors but nabbed only the No. 3 pick. In 1997, the Spurs leapt ahead of the Grizzlies and the Celtics to grab the No. 1 pick and Tim Duncan. In 1993, the Magic grabbed the No. 1 pick with a 41-41 record, best among lottery teams.

You have to go back to the 1990 draft, when the Nets took Derrick Coleman, to find the worst team in the league drafting No. 1.

With those odds, no wonder the Bulls and Warriors were trying to rack up the wins the last few weeks of the season. Several GM's I talked to believe the whole process is ridiculous.

"The draft is thin enough these days that slipping from No. 1 to No. 4 could add a few years to your rebuilding project," one GM told Insider. "Where would the Celtics be if they had gotten Tim Duncan? Or the Grizzlies with Elton Brand? Or the Mavs with Chris Webber? If the Bulls or Warriors slip out the lottery this year, and history says at least one of them will, that's the difference between Jason Williams and Drew Gooden. That's a big difference."

"Even if there is some late-season tanking, the lottery is nothing more than another cheap marketing ploy by the league," another GM said. "It adds some drama, makes for some good TV moments, and allows David Stern to parade around in front of a national audience for a few minutes -- but it hurts the game. The worst teams should have the best picks and they rarely do. And all of this conspiracy theory talk grows rampant because the league, at times, does care more about ratings and popularity than they do about the game."

Talk about sore losers.

So why doesn't the league open up the process, blind fold David Stern and make him pin the tail of Jerry Krause? That would just be too easy, wouldn't it.