05-14-2025, 02:37 PM
I think it's easy to look at specific examples and think that the lottery is rigged, but that's picking data to fit a narrative. For example, New Orleans getting gifted the #1 pick in Zion's year after dealing AD to the Lakers seems very convenient and leans towards a conspiracy of that year being rigged. But does it really?
New Orleans had a 6% chance of getting the #1 pick (same as Dallas and Memphis fwiw), so the odds were definitely stacked against them. The Lakers had a 2% of the #1 pick, and obviously didn't win. But what if they had? Then all of sudden the NBA is "gifting" LA the number one pick that just happens to coincide with LeBron joining the premier franchise, etc, etc. If that had actually happened it would have been another sign of things being rigged.
So now we have two different scenarios, both of which have a good story that can serve as evidence of rigging, and the combined odds of either of those happening is now 8%. Are there any other teams that year (or any year) that could have similar stories, thus increasing the odds that a "rigged" type of story happen? Pretty sure there's a number of events/situations every season that could be classified in a category of being rigged had that team won the lottery.
Point being that the odds of a specific team that can have a good "reason" for getting "gifted" a #1 pick are very low, but the combined odds of any number of teams with a "story" getting the #1 pick are much higher. That happens every year, so I agree that the odds of the specific scenarios that have played out with the #1 picks recently are very low, but there's a multitude of similar low odd scenarios that could have also happened. Any specific one of those unlikely scenarios actually happening is unlikely, but the odds of one of them happening is much higher.
New Orleans had a 6% chance of getting the #1 pick (same as Dallas and Memphis fwiw), so the odds were definitely stacked against them. The Lakers had a 2% of the #1 pick, and obviously didn't win. But what if they had? Then all of sudden the NBA is "gifting" LA the number one pick that just happens to coincide with LeBron joining the premier franchise, etc, etc. If that had actually happened it would have been another sign of things being rigged.
So now we have two different scenarios, both of which have a good story that can serve as evidence of rigging, and the combined odds of either of those happening is now 8%. Are there any other teams that year (or any year) that could have similar stories, thus increasing the odds that a "rigged" type of story happen? Pretty sure there's a number of events/situations every season that could be classified in a category of being rigged had that team won the lottery.
Point being that the odds of a specific team that can have a good "reason" for getting "gifted" a #1 pick are very low, but the combined odds of any number of teams with a "story" getting the #1 pick are much higher. That happens every year, so I agree that the odds of the specific scenarios that have played out with the #1 picks recently are very low, but there's a multitude of similar low odd scenarios that could have also happened. Any specific one of those unlikely scenarios actually happening is unlikely, but the odds of one of them happening is much higher.
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