Celtics Benefit from the NBA Draft Definitely Being Rigged
The Celtics have finally won the NBA draft lottery. The C’s have their first number one pick in the modern draft era, courtesy of the ever incompetent Brooklyn Nets giving them a 25% chance at the top pick. Yet, I can’t escape the feeling that it is somehow sullied, that the commissioner’s office has dirtied the Celtic’s big moment. I have always been suspicious of the NBA/NHL lotteries, I’m of the opinion that the only reason to have a lottery is to rig said lottery. It’s especially suspicious that the balls that are pulled, are done so in a back room with no cameras or witnesses.
The NBA draft has had a lot of strange moments such as the Cavs and the Magic getting back to back first overall picks despite both teams having a less than two percent chance at getting the number one pick their second year. The Cavs situation is extra suspicious given that just two years before the Cavs went back to back at number one, they stole that number one pick in 2011. That year the Cavs had just a 2.8 percent chance of getting the one spot via a pick they received in a trade with the Clippers.
All these picks and subsequent trades were instrumental in bringing LeBron back to Cleveland and as much as the NBA likes to remember LeBron’s return to the Cavs as the prodigal son returning to the home he always loved out of the goodness of his heart, the ‘King’ would never have returned to a city with the highest concentration of despair in the U.S. if it wasn’t for Kyrie and the bench they had built as well as the cap space they cleared by trading Anthony Wiggins and Anthony Bennett.
As for the Magic they drafted Shaq in 92 and it became clear that he was an era defining talent but the just three year old expansion Magic didn’t have anyone for Shaq to play with, and one of the NBA’s biggest personalities was going to be trapped in a fledgling small market team. Until they fell ass backwards into their second first overall pick in as many years and the Magic were in the playoffs the next year. These are far from the only suspicious acts perpetrated on draft day but they are the most sketchy.
Now admittedly all I have is circumstantial evidence, no smoking gun and have yet to establish a motive for giving the number one pick to the C’s. Well you ask for motive I give you Lavar Ball, the Patriarch of basketball’s most Baller (and delusional family). Lavar is a rating machine and a villain so outrageous he seems more like a wrestling manager from the 80’s than an athlete’s father.
The man is straight out of a Spike Lee 2K storyline. He leads Lonzo around like a show pony and has already declared that his son will be a Laker. Whether Lonzo succeeds or fails in Lalaland his father’s asinine antics guarantees that if the Lakers go with Lonzo all eyes and especially ESPN will be on the Lakers who have been irrelevant since Kobe Bryant took his last shot and haven’t been good since 2012. The NBA will do what’s best for their ratings first and foremost and right now that isn’t the number one pick being in LA but the biggest news story being in LA.
Written by Jason MacKinnon (@oohkillemjason)