We’re all looking for the guys that did this.

Well those odds you gave seem pretty good for that to happen once in a while.

I don’t think people on this sub would believe you if you tossed a coin 100 times and it landed heads from tosses 53-59. Half this sub probably doesn’t understand that what I just described is 7 consecutive coin tosses and not 6.

In the above scenario, people would hone in on the 53-59 tosses and say that there’s a <1% chance of that happening and choose not to believe it, while ignoring that there are 94 opportunities for that <1% probability occurrence happening. And cumulatively, it’s more likely than not you do flip 7 heads in a row in that 100 flip sequence than not. Include flipping 7 tails in a row and the likelihood doubles for any one sequence.

Long story short, people here have a very bad grasp of probability outcomes and assessing what is actually unlikely or not, especially when there are countless “unlikely” outcomes possible.

EDIT: to add, this is also why no one was predicting Dallas would receive the number 1 pick before the draft for a group of people that are so sure the lottery was rigged. When you start with the answer and work backwards, it’s easy to subscribe to conspiracies– much harder when you actually try to predict what will happen.

When you list the percentages it actually seems pretty reasonable.

People consistently fail to appreciate the lottery odds. The single most likely landing spot - by a LOT - for the team with the worst record is the 5th spot.

The single most likely landing spot for the team with the second worst record is ALSO the 5th slot, followed by the 6th spot. Since Washington and Utah couldn’t both end up with the 5 slot, it’s perfectly reasonable that one was 5 and the other was 6.

There’s like no shot both the Wiz AND the Jazz not only don’t get the top pick but fall all the way to literally the worst possible outcome.

Using your odds P(A AND B) = P(A)P(B), so (0.2)(0.49) = 9.8%

Is a 10% chance no odds? If I picked a number 1-10 and asked you to guess it, do you have no shot?

I belive they meant it was rigged because Dallas sent one of the more popular players on the world to LA (biggest market) for basically nothing (broken down player and bread crumbs). To compensate for doing so Adam rigged the lottery in favor of Dallas

if the lottery was really rigged the knicks would have drafted at #1 sometime in the last 20 years

where Jeremy Sochan was his 2nd best young piece at the time

which is why the spurs got the #4 pick and then the #2 pick after that

You would have sent the greatest prospect of all time to the organization that later traded their superstar for peanuts?

They said once. Frozen envelope!

They have, they use 14 literal lottery balls. They draw 4 to get a combination, there is 1,000 combos. Each team gets a different number of combos based on their odds. Draw 1-2-3-4 picks and done.

The problem is I can’t prove to you that they actually do this because it’s behind closed doors with like 10 people lmao.

I have been informed that they do in fact show the lottery balls. So yes. That’s how they do it.

I don’t know how they killed Epstein, ergo Epstein must have actually killed himself.

Zach Lowe said they watched the whole process and there was just no way to rig it

If David Copperfield can stay under water for 10 minutes, this is cake.. is it cake?

They can’t meet in groups (or the league pahse now) but there is no restriction on the knockout phase

Not anymore. In the old format yes

Are people just realizing what a lottery is ?

Yeah just give the worst team the #1 pick like the NFL does.

The lottery doesn’t reduce tanking.

The fact that a lottery works like a lottery is proof that the lottery is bad?

Lottery needs to exist lol.

No I think the conspiracy would be it was repayment for the Mavs sending Luka to LA.

All for Dallas??? It was to get Luka to the Lakers.

A big 4 accounting firm audits it. It would have massive consequences outside of the league too.

I don’t think the draft was rigged but “this couldn’t happen because it would generate controversy, which the league doesn’t want” could also be used to dismiss any number of things that we know for a fact actually have happened, so idk if this is a good point really.

I genuinely don’t think the NBA is worried about destroying its own integrity. I think the NBA has reached “too big to fail” territory and they’re probably right. How many people stopped watching after the Donaghy scandal? Next to no one. It’s a product that has people hooked and for every person that doesn’t watch another game, there’s ten more new fans getting into it.

When you have as much money as the NBA does, actions no longer have consequences. Ethics and integrity are only for common people. I don’t think there’s any risk for the NBA, only reward.

He’s reporting what two owners said.

Two owners believing the NBA lottery is rigged is a fairly big deal. Pablo made no indictment one way or the other. That’s not his job. The implications of two owners saying that speaks to a much larger issue, if you actually watched the interview instead of reading the title and commenting, you would understand that.

I’d enjoy a PTFO episode basically saying “yeah, turns out this would be impossible to rig” just to shut down the conspiracy theories

Simple. They just filmed it a few thousand times until they finally got the intended result. And everyones in on it!! Aliens.

I find it more likely that certain drafts in the past were rigged. It wasnt always this transparent & overseen.

That’s the thing with data, you can’t just look at the outliers. You’re ignoring all the other lotteries where the first overall went to a completely mundane, uninteresting team. If you only look at the data that supports your argument, you can prove anything.

All this is a moot point, you can watch the lottery drawing live on youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCxgXS7EBI0

The “ridiculous” odds were 1 in 50. It would be weird if things that were 1 in 50 to happen DIDNT happen from time to time.

Exactly. An NBA owner publicly saying this is rigged would crater the value of the league, and their team. This is why there’s nothing to talk about while the Dow is over 50,000! When the NBA found out refs were making money on games, they pinned it on one ref, and moved on. If 2 owners said the draft is rigged, the league would do the same, and circle their wagons!

This is exactly what makes any conspiracy theory about a rigged lottery fall apart

Mavs don’t sniff the lottery if Kyrie doesn’t get injured, so unless you also think that Adam Silver is responsible for Kyrie’s ACL exploding than it couldn’t have been rigged

They’ve had blunders in business plenty of times

The nba draft is just another customer

Not saying it’s rigged but big4 have made plenty mistakes

why do you guys always bring up how reputable the “fined millions for fraud and literally encouraging cheating” firm are

EY would not put themselves in a position as auditors for a scandal of this magnitude.

yea EY would never do anything unethical!

https://www.npr.org/2022/06/28/1108044858/accounting-giant-ernst-young-admits-its-employees-cheated-on-ethics-exams

Do auditors have any credibility in things of this nature post the housing crisis? 

The billions of dollars belong to the owners. Who have very little incentive to rig the lottery for other owners.

The list of assigned numbers is published before the lottery. No way to do that.

Each lottery team has a pre-printed sheet with their winning number combinations they review as the numbers come up. You literally can’t do this.

I mean…at that level of wealth, they probably are aware of (if not actively involved in) some legitimately crazy stuff (i.e. Jeffrey Epstein’s parties…or Puffy’s!). So I can see how they would be way too generous in assigning credibility to wacky nonsense; because they know of a few things that would sound nuts to the average person that are actually true.

Zach Lowe was in the room for the lottery balls being picked this past year. Reporters can get in. Every team could definitely have a rep in the room if they wanted to.

I’m not sure where I saw this (I think Lowe Post), every team HAS THE CHOICE to send a rep to oversee the draft. The lottery team reps are just the ones who are on camera and are obligated to be there.

And like you said, contract law allows any FO or owner to sue if they can find evidence of wrongdoing. They would’ve gone to court had they found anything credible.

I’m not acting like Dallas is a small market, it’s huge, why wasn’t it fixed for even bigger market where the NBA benefits heavily from them being great?

Lakers literally had insanely high percentages to get no 1 pick multiple years, why didn’t they get it? Why didn’t the Knicks get it when they were winning 15 games?

Why specifically Dallas? Other teams have lost stars before, they didn’t get no 1 picks..

Yes that is exactly the point. Basically the same thing happened but nobody cared because there wasn’t an elite prospect