The conference finals should be fantastic. We can all agree on that.
But what are fans in New York and Los Angeles looking forward to most? The Draft Lottery on Tuesday night as the lead-in to Game 1 of the Western Conference matchup between Golden State and Houston.
First, let me get one thing out of the way: I do not believe the lottery is fixed. But I do believe the 1985 lottery may have been fixed in order to land the New York Knicks the No. 1 pick, Patrick Ewing.
Harvey Araton of the New York Times, one of the best and most respected figures in basketball journalism, has a column this morning looking back on the events of 30 years ago, and like a lot of people who brings up conspiracy theories, he mentions the “frozen envelope.”
Not a word from Mr. Araton on the “Bent Envelope.”
Memo to Harvey and everyone else.
It was not frozen.
It was bent.
And picked out by then-commissioner David Stern after he grabbed a pile of three envelopes and flipped them over to grab the one at the bottom. The one with the bent corner.
You can see it for yourself here:
But that was 30 years ago, and we have all moved on. Tuesday night’s ping-pong ball drawing will be shown via tape delay on NBA.com after the envelopes have been opened, the league’s latest effort to squelch conspiracy theories through more and more transparency. So the fix will not be in, OK?
But the Ewing lottery?
I will go to my grave believing that one was most likely rigged. Hopefully that day is at least 30 years away.
But onward and upward, as David Stern has said to me many times in the past. And with that in mind, here is a lottery primer courtesy of the NBA.
The 2015 NBA Draft Lottery will be held at the New York Hilton Midtown on Tuesday, May 19. ESPN will televise the lottery beginning at approximately 8:05 p.m. ET. The order of selection for the top 14 picks will be unveiled starting at approximately 8:30 p.m. ET.
After the lottery, a behind-the-scenes video of the actual drawing off stage will be posted on NBA.com and NBA Media Central. Click here to watch the 2014 NBA Draft Lottery drawing.
NBA Draft 2015 presented by State Farm will be held at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Thursday, June 25 at 7 p.m. ET.
HOW THE LOTTERY WORKS
The actual lottery procedure will take place in a separate room just before ESPN’s national broadcast. Select media members, NBA officials and representatives of the participating teams and the accounting firm of Ernst & Young will be in attendance for the drawing.
Fourteen ping-pong balls numbered 1 through 14 will be placed in a lottery machine. There are 1,001 possible combinations when four balls are drawn out of 14, without regard to their order of selection. Before the lottery, 1,000 of those 1,001 combinations will be assigned to the 14 participating lottery teams.
All 14 balls are placed in the lottery machine and they are mixed for 20 seconds; then the first ball is removed. The remaining balls are mixed in the lottery machine for another 10 seconds, and then second ball is drawn. There is a 10-second mix, and then the third ball is drawn. There is a 10-second mix, and then the fourth ball is drawn. The team assigned that combination will receive the No. 1 pick. The same process is repeated with the same ping-pong balls and lottery machine for the second pick and then again for the third pick.
If the same team comes up more than once, the result is discarded and another 4-ball combination is selected. If the one unassigned combination is drawn, the balls are drawn to the top again.
The length of time the balls are mixed is monitored by a timekeeper who faces away from the machine and signals the machine operator after the appropriate amount of time has elapsed.
Minnesota, which finished the season with the NBA’s worst record (16-66), will be assigned the first 250 combinations. Oklahoma City, the best team in the lottery at 45-37, will have five combinations out of 1,000.
For more on how the lottery drawing works, click here.
PROBABILITIES
The teams entered in the lottery are as follows. The first three picks in the draft will be determined by the lottery and the remainder of the “lottery teams” will select in positions 4 through 14 in inverse order of their consolidated standings at the end of the regular season.
TOP PROSPECTS
Karl-Anthony Towns, Kentucky (6-11, forward/center) — Towns combines elite size and athleticism with a soft shooting touch. He was named SEC Freshman of the Year and Second Team All-America by The Associated Press. Towns averaged 14.2 points and 6.8 rebounds during the NCAA Tournament.
Jahlil Okafor, Duke (6-11, center) — Okafor is a traditional low-post center with advanced offensive skills for his size. He was named ACC Player of the Year and Freshman of the Year, while leading Duke to a national championship. He is the first freshman in ACC history to win Player of the Year honors.
Emmanuel Mudiay, China (6-5, guard) — Mudiay originally committed to play his freshman season at SMU under Larry Brown before signing a professional contract in China with the Guangdong Southern Tigers. He is a big, athletic combo guard who excels at getting to the basket.
D’Angelo Russell, Ohio State (6-5, guard) — Russell has drawn comparisons to James Harden with his smooth and versatile offensive game. He was a consensus First Team All-American as a freshman as well as the Big Ten Freshman of the Year.
Justise Winslow, Duke (6-6, forward) — Winslow is a powerful and athletic wing who plays with a high motor. He teamed with Okafor to help Duke win a national title and was the third-highest freshman scorer in the ACC (12.6 ppg).
EVOLUTION OF THE DRAFT LOTTERY
June 1984: At an NBA Board of Governors meeting in Salt Lake City, the league voted to adopt a lottery system among the non-playoff teams (seven in total) to determine the order of selection in the first round of the NBA Draft beginning in 1985.
April 1986: The Board of Governors decided that the lottery would determine the order of selection for the first three picks only. The remaining non-playoff teams would select in inverse order of their regular-season records. Therefore, the team with the worst record would be assured of picking no worse than fourth, the team with the second-worst record no worse than fifth and so on.
October 1989: The Board of Governors adopted a weighted system beginning with the 1990 NBA Draft Lottery, which included 11 teams due to expansion. The team with the worst regular-season record received 11 chances at the top pick (out of a total of 66), the second-worst team got 10 chances and the team with the best record among the non-playoff clubs got one chance.
November 1993: The Board of Governors approved a modification of the lottery system that, effective with the 1994 NBA Draft Lottery, increased the chances of the teams with the worst records winning one of the top three picks in the draft while decreasing the chances of the teams with the best records. The new system increased the chances of the team with the worst record drawing the first pick from 16.7 percent to 25 percent, while decreasing the chances of the team with the best record among lottery teams from 1.5 percent to 0.5 percent. The teams with the best and worst records continue to have the same odds in the current draft lottery.
October 1995: The Board of Governors increased the number of teams participating in the lottery from 11 to 13 to account for the addition of expansion teams Toronto and Vancouver.
May 2004: The lottery increased to 14 teams with the addition of the Bobcats (now Hornets).
LOTTERY NOTES
· Each team will have one on-stage representative for the 2015 NBA Draft Lottery. Sadly, there will be no Mallory Edens 2.0.
· Since the present lottery format was instituted in 1994, the team with the best odds has won three of 21 lotteries: Philadelphia in 1996 (drafted Allen Iverson No. 1), Cleveland in 2003 (LeBron James) and Orlando in 2004 (Dwight Howard).
· In the last 18 drawings, teams with the ninth-best chance of getting the top pick have won the lottery as often as teams with the best chance (twice apiece). The 2007-08 Bulls (who drafted Derrick Rose No. 1 in 2008) and the 2013-14 Cavaliers (Andrew Wiggins in 2014) both won the lottery after starting in the ninth slot.
· The Cavaliers have won two consecutive lotteries and three of the last four, but they are not entered in this year’s drawing after making the playoffs.
· Every team has appeared in the draft lottery (based on their own performance) at least once since 2007 except the Spurs. San Antonio hasn’t been in the lottery since 1997, when it got the No. 1 pick and drafted Tim Duncan.
· The winningest lottery teams of all time have finished 48-34: the Warriors in 2007-08 and the Suns in 2013-14.
Chris Sheridan is publisher and editor in chief of SheridanHoops.com. Follow him on Twitter.