How to RIG the NBA Draft

How to RIG the NBA Draft

[Music] Welcome back to the show. Today we are talking about the NBA draft lottery. What is the NBA draft lottery? It’s how the NBA decides who gets what draft pick or the order of the draft. And it’s just like power ball for all the degenerate gamblers watching. It’s decided by a bunch of ping pong balls. Four ping-pong balls to be exact. There are 101 different combinations that can be drawn. Each combination is given to a team in the lottery. So each team has 50 to 100 combinations assigned to them. The lottery ball machine is made by the best company there is. It’s made by the Smart Play Company. It’s pretty state-of-the-art, says the NBA. The best money can buy. So, they mix up the balls for 20 seconds and then they draw a ball. Then they wait another 10 seconds, they draw another ball, and so on until they have four balls. And after four balls have been drawn, whatever team has that combination, that pick goes to. There’s a representative from every team watching all the balls get drawn. A lot of times it’s a player from the team, sometimes it’s an executive, sometimes it’s a relative of a coach or something. Doesn’t really matter. They don’t do anything. They just watch. And what’s interesting is there’s one person who releases the ball and then there’s one guy that’s keeping time and he’s not watching the ball. He’s just the timekeeper. And then there’s a hired gun from Ernest Young, the accounting firm, who actually stuffs the envelopes with the team logos on them. He’s just there to make sure no funny business goes down. So for a brief moment in time, the only people who know who got what draft pick is the team itself and the guy from the accountant firm. Also, this actually happening is not televised. So then there’s the NBA draft lottery ceremony, which is really weird. The actual lottery has already happened in a back room somewhere and that wasn’t even televised. So the NBA accountant comes out and he gives the envelopes with the team’s names on them to deputy commissioner Mark Tatum. Mark Tatum is basically a protege of Adam Silver. He’s probably going to be the next commissioner. Sort of an Obi-Wan Kenobi Luke Skywalker type thing. Everyone gets Star Wars references, right? He goes on stage and he reads the results of the lottery. This isn’t the NBA draft. This is just deciding who gets what pick. This is just a live reading of lottery ticket numbers done by ESPN. And high stakes gambling on television does pretty well. But what makes the draft lottery weird and frankly a lot better is there’s a representative of each team up on the deas behind a podium. They’re just up there so we can all stare at them. They don’t do anything up there. They don’t say anything. All they do is react to what pick they got. Because when they read the names of the teams off the card, they read from 14th to first. So for the first couple picks read off, all the representatives look really pissed because they’re learning they got the 14th or 13th pick in the draft. Meanwhile, all the other representatives start smiling real big. They’re cheesing because they know as each pick gets read off, they’re getting a little closer to the number one pick until the deputy commissioner reads off the number two pick and everyone knows who got the first pick. For example, in the 2023 NBA lottery, which was probably the most coveted first pick overall of all time with Victor Webbyama being in the draft class, we’ve got the son of the owner of the San Antonio Spurs. I forget his name. Here’s his reaction knowing that the Charlotte Hornets got the number two pick, acknowledging the foregone conclusion that Victor Wmanyama would be wearing a Spurs hat on draft night. So, what are the odds of getting the number one pick in the NBA draft? Well, that depends on how bad your team sucks. In this case, it’s good to suck in the NBA. First of all, there are 14 teams in the NBA draft lottery. They’re all the teams that didn’t make the playoffs that year. The 16 teams that did make the playoffs, they get picks 15 through 30 in order by record. For instance, the Thunder will have the 30th pick in the draft this year because they had the best record. The Heat will have the 15th pick in the draft because they have the worst record of all the teams that made the playoffs. The worse your team was during the season, the better odds you have at getting a high draft pick. Here’s the table of lottery odds. Kind of hard to fit on the screen. So, it’s kind of interesting. Every team in the lottery does have a chance at getting a 1 through four pick, but for a team like the Atlanta Hawks, it’s pretty unlikely. The odds of them getting the number one pick is less than 1%. More than likely, they’re getting the 14th pick in the draft. It’s a 96% chance. Not that they care because their pick belongs to the Spurs anyway. So, let’s look at the teams that are more likely to get the number one pick this year. We’ll start with the Utah Jazz. The Utah Jazz had the worst record in the NBA this year. So, the lowest pick they could possibly get is five. The Wizards had the second worst record in the league. So, the lowest pick that they can get is the sixth pick in the draft. The Hornets had the third worst. The lowest they can get is seven. But all three have the same odds of getting picks 1, 2, and three. So, it’s obviously good to be really good in the NBA, but it’s also kind of good to be absolutely horrible. I’ve already talked about this a few times, but we need to talk about my least favorite part of the NBA, trading picks. Oftent times, teams will have already traded their pick in the NBA draft. For instance, this year the Rockets have the Suns pick. They didn’t even get the pick from the Suns. They got it from the Nets. and the Nets traded it to the Rockets. But here is where it gets really confusing and honestly kind of annoying. Have you heard of protected pick? That’s when a team trades their pick, but they put a contingency on it. If the lottery happens and the pick is actually good, they get their pick back. It’s tasty’s back seat. They don’t have to give it to the team they traded it to, which personally I hate. For instance, the Oklahoma City Thunder have the Philadelphia 76ers pick this year. So, if their pick falls within 1 through six, the Sixers get to keep it. So, when the Sixers realized they weren’t going to do anything this year and they were going to suck because their team was downright shameful and they couldn’t even win if they were trying to win, they decided to try to lose just to make sure they had the highest likelihood of getting a 1 through six pick so they wouldn’t have to trade their pick to Oklahoma City. That’s why they shut down Maxi, they shut down Embiid, and they shut down Paul George. They started guys like Gerson Yabiselli, Quinton Grimes, and guys you hadn’t even heard of. The same thing happened to the Mavs a few years ago. Coach Jason Kidd was instructed to sit Luca during the last game of the season to ensure that they wouldn’t make the playoffs just so they could keep their draft pick that year. And it worked because they didn’t make the playoffs and they got Derrick Lively in the draft. This is the most annoying part about the NBA. Potentially, you could go to a basketball game where both teams are actively trying to lose the game. And that is a sin against God. So the NBA draft lottery used to be wildly unsophisticated. As a matter of fact, until 1985, it was decided by a literal coin toss between the two worst teams in the league. Then they changed it to an actual lottery because word was teams were tanking for a Keem Elijahan in 1984, which I’m sure was true and they did. The new system was a glass sphere with a bunch of envelopes in it. And inside the envelope were all the teams logos who didn’t make the playoffs that year. As you can imagine, this was right for salty fans to call rigged. So when this was introduced in 1985, David Stern, the commissioner, pulls out three envelopes from the sphere. And what do you know? The Knicks get the number one pick. They eventually selected Patrick Ewing, who everyone wanted. Listen to the audience in the room when they hear the Pacers got the second pick. The second pick in the 1985 NBA draft goes to the Indiana Pac. People say the envelope with the Knicks logo on it was frozen. So when David Stern was feeling around in the sphere, he knew which one to pick. I don’t know if this is true. How could I tell if an envelope was frozen from watching an old clip? But my uncle told me about another theory, which is the dinged quarter theory. This feels way more plausible, and I can kind of believe it. Look at the way the guy puts this envelope into the sphere. He throws it against the side of the sphere and he doesn’t do that with any of the other envelopes. But here’s why it was rigged. The first envelope that David Stern pulls out has a dinged corner on it. And here’s what he says. The team whose logo is in this envelope will have the first pick in the NBA draft. Okay, that was the first envelope. Won’t the first envelope you pull out be the third pick? Won’t you just go in order of how you reveal the pick? Third, second, first instead. And there’s motive here. In 1984, the NBA needed some juice. was losing ground in the media landscape to the MLB and the NFL. So, putting Patrick Ewing, a player that everyone knew, who had just won the NCAA tournament and been the NCAA most outstanding player, putting that guy in the biggest city in the United States, the largest market, was worth rigging the system for. Got to do what you got to do. I guess there are a lot of NBA draft conspiracies. People think the Cleveland Cavaliers getting the first pick overall in 2003 was a conspiracy. It was rigged because LeBron James was in the draft. He was from Akran, Ohio, right outside of Cleveland. Having a local boy revitalize the franchise was good for ratings. The thing is though, the Caps did have the worst record in the league. Pretty likely it was going to happen. It doesn’t really seem like you have a case to say it was rigged. Very likely the draft lottery was rigged in 2008 though. The Chicago Bulls got the number one pig and Derrick Rose was in the draft. He grew up in Englewood, a neighborhood in Southside Chicago. He was the best player in the draft and the Bulls hadn’t been good since MJ left. Also, this is the NBA’s third biggest market. And the thing that gives this conspiracy a little bit of credibility is the Bulls weren’t that bad. They finished 33 and 49 the previous season. They had less than a 2% chance of getting the number one pick. Pretty fishy. A lot of people think that Anthony Davis and Zylon Williamson going to New Orleans was sort of rigged because historically the Pelicans have had a pretty bad franchise. They sell the least merch. They sell the least tickets, which may be the case, but in both those drafts the Pelicans were really bad. So good luck proving any Tom Fooly went down. I think more likely that the 2023 draft was a little bit rigged with Victor Wimbeyama. Granted, I know the Spurs did have the second worst record in the league, but here’s a picture of Victor Wimyama as a kid wearing a Tony Parker jersey. The Spurs were his favorite team. Two of his fellow countrymen were playing on the Spurs while he was coming up. And I’m sure the NBA was way more keen on him going to the Spurs over a team like the Rockets or the Wizards. But ultimately, if I hadn’t guessed, I’d assume none of these NBA conspiracy theories are actually true. Just because all these conspiracy theories involve multiple people being in on it. And if there’s one thing I know about people is they have a very difficult time keeping a secret. All right. Thank you for being here. Thank you for liking the last video. The last video did well because you liked it. The Patreon is live. Get a weekly podcast for $2 a month. That’s $4.50. Not too bad. There’s something else I forgot to say. Maybe leave a comment. I’ll reply because your mom’s eat a corn dog.

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The NBA draft lottery is how the league determines the order of the draft for the 14 teams that didn’t make the playoffs. Rather than going by worst record alone, the lottery introduces a game of chance—decided by ping pong balls, just like the Powerball. Each team is given a number of combinations out of a possible 1,001. Four balls are drawn to form a combination, and whichever team holds that combination wins the pick. The process is overseen by team reps, league officials, and an independent accountant from Ernst & Young to ensure fairness. Once the results are in, they’re handed to NBA deputy commissioner Mark Tatum, who announces them live on TV from 14th to 1st pick, with team reps on stage for reaction shots.

The lower a team finishes in the standings, the higher their odds of winning the lottery. For instance, the team with the worst record—like the Utah Jazz this year—can’t fall below the 5th pick. But every team in the lottery technically has a chance to jump into the top four. However, for a team like the Hawks, whose pick has a less than 1% chance of jumping to No. 1, they’re almost certain to land at 14. That said, that pick actually belongs to the Spurs due to previous trades, highlighting another complex aspect of the lottery: traded and protected picks.

Many teams trade picks in advance, sometimes with protections that allow them to retain the pick if it lands within a certain range. For example, the 76ers’ pick this year is top-six protected. Because of that, when their season fell apart, they shut down key players like Embiid and Maxey to improve their odds of keeping the pick—a tactic many fans find frustrating. This “tanking” strategy isn’t new. The Mavericks did something similar a few years ago to keep a protected pick, a move that eventually landed them Dereck Lively. These late-season tank jobs can result in games where neither team wants to win—an embarrassment for the league and its fans.

Historically, the NBA draft lottery has always flirted with controversy. Before 1985, the top pick was decided by a coin toss. In 1985, the NBA introduced the lottery with envelopes in a spinning drum, and fans immediately suspected foul play when the Knicks landed the No. 1 pick and drafted Patrick Ewing. Conspiracy theories claim the Knicks’ envelope was either frozen or had a bent corner so commissioner David Stern would know which to pull. Many believe the NBA rigged it to help revive its marketability by sending a star to New York.

Theories didn’t stop there. In 2003, the Cavaliers won the right to draft LeBron James, a hometown hero from Akron, fueling suspicions despite them having the worst record. The 2008 lottery was even sketchier—Chicago won the top pick with less than 2% odds and selected hometown star Derrick Rose. Some believe the Anthony Davis and Zion Williamson drafts were rigged to prop up the struggling New Orleans Pelicans. And in 2023, Victor Wembanyama—possibly the most hyped prospect ever—went to his childhood favorite team, the Spurs, who also had former French players like Tony Parker and Boris Diaw. While the Spurs had the second-worst record, many still suspect the NBA nudged fate to create a dream storyline.

The NBA draft lottery is a mix of strategy, chance, and drama—sometimes legitimate, sometimes suspect. It’s an event where the league balances competitive fairness with entertainment, but the presence of conspiracies and tanking strategies reminds us it’s also a business trying to keep fans engaged, even if that means playing fast and loose with integrity.