Every year there seems to be conspiracy theories around the NBA draft lottery. This year was no different following Dikembe Mutombo‘s tweet that accurately predicted that the Philadelphia 76ers would win the No. 1 pick.
Kelly Dwyer of Yahoo! Sports joined Notaro and Big Dee to discuss whether the fix was in.
Dwyer says no, sarcastically arguing that Ernst & Young, the firm in charge of handling the lottery, would obviously be “willing to risk it all” in order to get Philadelphia the top pick in a weaker draft class.
Odds “won out” this year, said Dwyer, but that doesn’t stop people from believing in a grand conspiracy.
Is it ridiculous to say that commissioner Adam Silver agreed to give the first pick to the 76ers in exchange for former GM Sam Hinkie’s resignation and an agreement to stop tanking? Philly is a large market and the team has been purposefully losing games since 2013. Wouldn’t the league want a successful franchise to revitalize the fan base?
Does the Sixers jersey advertisement deal with StubHub, the first of its kind, have anything to do with why they won the lottery?
Is this the reason the Nuggets have never moved up in a lottery? The league just doesn’t care about Denver as a market?
Right?
Hello?
While that might be a bit too farfetched, Deke’s tweet will live on in a long list of theories circulating around the lottery. The (potentially) frozen envelope that let the Knicks draft Patrick Ewing, the Magic winning two lotteries in a row (the second with less than a two percent chance) and the Cavaliers winning three out of four years after LeBron James left are all cause for some suspicion.
While there may be nothing more to these theories than a bunch of disgruntled fans, it doesn’t stop the league from trying to quell the paranoia.
Click the link below to listen to Dwyer’s full interview to hear how the NBA contacted him over his writing as well as names the Nuggets will be looking at with the number seven pick.
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