2012 NBA Draft Lottery: Was The Lottery Fixed?

As we know by now, the  New Orleans Hornets won the annual draft lottery on Wednesday night, and with it, the right to draft what most people presume will be Kentucky freshman Anthony Davis.

The Hornets had just the fourth-best odds to win the first pick at 13.7%.

Since that time, there’s been a lot of talk that the league office somehow fixed the lottery as some sort of sweetener for new owner Tom Benson stepping in and purchasing the team. There are others seem to buy the theory that it was some sort of d0-over for Commissioner David Stern vetoing their trade of Chris Paul in December of 2011 under the vague premise of “basketball reasons.” Some people even think that the two go hand-in-hand.

First things first, before the lottery even got the opportunity to go the Hornets’ way, the league purchased the Hornets when previous owner George Shinn decided that he wanted to sell the team. It was a massive conflict of interest at the time and became more and more bizarre as time went on.

The league swore up and down that the Hornets front office staff that was already in place would still be in charge of basketball operations, make any major decisions (like trading the best player in franchise history) and handle the day-to-day business. The Landry trade was made without much fuss outside of Mark Cuban and Phil Jackson and the Hornets made the 2011 playoffs as the 7 seed in the western conference.

Nobody felt great about the arrangement, but nobody was saying too much either. The NBA just wanted to run the team until they found a buyer, which was a little more difficult than they originally imagined.

The problem was Chris Paul had grown unhappy in New Orleans and wanted out. It’s hard to get equal value for a superstar, but even harder when there’s a chance that the player will up and leave at the end of the season. The Hornets’ best basketball move was to move Paul before the season ever started, see if he liked the place that he ended up and maybe sign an extension there.

However, most teams are hesitant to trade for a player that won’t sign an extension when they’re traded and if they do like the deal, then what they’re willing to send back is much less than it would be if they were getting the player under contract for two or more years.

Former Hornets General Manager Dell Demps carried out trade discussions and eventually settled on a three-team trade involving New Orleans, the Houston Rockets and the Los Angeles Lakers. The trade was agreed on by all parties and most of the “experts” felt like the Hornets were getting the better end of the deal. You never want to trade a superstar, but if you have to do it, getting back the type of talent and reasonable contracts is the best way to do it.

Then Stern dropped the hammer on the deal. He called it off and went on about his business.

Clearly, he came under fire for his decision, and it’s still being talked about today as one of the shadiest moments in league history, and this is a league that saw a former official write a book about how he and others conspired to fix games that they just so happened to be working.

I say all that to ask this: Is this a team that you would bend over backwards trying to funnel a potential all-star to? Granted, Stern may have felt like he owed the Hornets one, but he can’t think that way as a commissioner, that’s how he got into the mess he did in the first place with the vetoed Paul trade.

It would have been the most transparent move in world history, right? Stern’s too smart for that. Maybe he did “help” Patrick Ewing find his way to the New York Knicks in 1985, but that was one of the league’s signature franchises, a world-famous team that resonates with people everywhere, but the New Orleans Hornets? It’s just too unlikely. What’s the upside?

For starters, the Hornets play in the middle of the NBA’s smallest media market, so what would the NBA gain by dropping their newest star there? Sure, there will be a few national television appearances for Davis and the Hornets, but have you ever met a New Orleans Hornets fan? I mean even once in your life? If there was a conspiracy, and I’m doubtful, Stern’s best interest would have been keeping him out of New Orleans, right?

People compare Davis to Tim Duncan when he entered the league and compared the Hornets to the Spurs, but the facts remains that as good as the Spurs have been in the Duncan era, they haven’t been great for the league’s bottom line. The Finals that they’ve played in have ranked among the least-watched championship series that the NBA has seen since they stopped showing games on tape delay in the late 70’s. As far as merchandising goes, unless you’re from San Antonio, you probably aren’t a Spurs fan, and you sure aren’t buying any Spurs gear. Unless you’re a bandwagon fan of the highest order, you’d have no reason to follow the Spurs, and even if you were a bandwagon fan, you probably would have gravitated towards the Lakers (5 titles since 2000) and who plays in the second biggest media market in the NBA. A market so big, it supports two teams.

So how do we know that the top pick wasn’t part of the team’s sale to Tom Benson?

Why would Stern agree to such a thing? Either Benson wants in, or he doesn’t. He built the Saints from the worst franchise in NFL history to Super Bowl champs, he can definitely do the same with the Hornets, right? Sure, Davis will help sell tickets, jerseys and things like that, but I have a hard time believing that any kind of competitor would be willing to take a shortcut to greatness.

Besides, why would Stern potentially cheapen his league’s already shaky reputation for something like this? Someone would have bought the Hornets and not required the same special treatment, I’m sure. If Stern was worried about the league being stuck with the Hornets, then they should have never bought the team in the first place.

You reap what you sow.

As for the school of thought that Stern owed the Hornets one, or had to make up for the Paul trade, let me say this: Stern doesn’t have to do anything. He’s the Commissioner of the NBA. He makes all the calls. Even if he did feel bad about botching the Paul trade, it’s done and there’s no going back. You can’t compound the problem and make it worse by fixing a lottery so that they get a good player. New Orleans is no better off today than they were in December, they just traded the best point guard in the game for a late lottery pick, an up-and-coming shooting guard (Eric Gordon) and now will add Davis to the mix.

Nobody’s owed anything, everybody has to struggle the same as every other team. The botched Paul trade proved that as one of the league’s two star franchises (The Lakers) got slapped in the face like every other team seems to from time to time. Stern basically proved that if it can happen to the Lakers, it can happen to you.

Quite honestly, the only conspiracy theory that would have made me raise my eye just a little would be had Paul stayed in New Orleans by some miracle, played the season out and never requested a trade at any point. Had the Hornets missed the playoffs and then won the first overall pick, that would have been almost too weird to process.

Think about it, Paul hasn’t been happy for at least the past two years and really since the Hornets fell from the 2 seed in the 2008 playoffs to an also-ran every season after that. Why would he suddenly decide to stay in New Orleans, unless he knew that help was coming? Why wouldn’t he just opt out as soon as he could?

Wouldn’t that have been good for the league also? Paul stays with the team that drafted him, Davis goes to the Hornets as CP3’s running mate and defensive anchor and New Orleans becomes the next super team and probably the league’s most likable one as well. The market wouldn’t matter because the Hornets would be awesome and people would tune in to see them regardless (just like they have with Oklahoma City).

Also, the team becomes extremely easy to sell in that scenario. Chris Paul and Anthony Davis in New Orleans? You’d have millionaires lining up to buy that team. That’s a much better scenario than having the owner of the Saints pay for the team AND demand the top overall pick, right?

Oh crap, did I just start another conspiracy theory?

But nobody wants to talk about that, just about how the league screwed up again. The Hornets needed help, just like every other team in the lottery needed help. Sure, Charlotte has less talent overall, but they do play in the east, where one player can take them from a bottom-feeder to a fringe playoff team overnight. We now know that it won’t be Anthony Davis, but if they can move their lottery pick for an available stud (Rudy Gay?) then they’ll be right back in the thick of things.

The only thing worse than the NBA fixing the draft lottery is seeing so many people go out of their way to dream up reasons that the Hornets’ win was anything less than valid.

Besides New Orleans, the biggest winner on Wednesday night was David Stern. Sure, there were a few chumps who think that he must have fixed the lottery to help the Hornets and aren’t shy about saying as much, but the funny thing about having an opinion about the draft lottery is that you had to have watched, or at least read something about it at one point or another. That’s been David Stern all season.

First was the lock-out that took forever to resolve, then the Paul trade, and now this lottery situation, but for some reason, NBA ratings haven’t been this high since Michael Jordan was a Chicago Bull.

Say what you will about Stern (and some of you have) but you can’t turn away from what’s going on in the NBA, whether you love it or hate it. Stern has become a sort of troll genius in the past two years and whether you like it or not, you have to respect it.

Nobody markets his product like David Stern. He probably didn’t fix the draft lottery, but in a way it’s almost more fun to imagine if he had, especially if he didn’t.

The league can be as frustrating as it’s commissioner sometimes, but it’s never boring. Where else do millions of people tune in to find out who’s going to pick some lanky college freshman on a random Wednesday night in the summer? You can only find that in professional basketball. Stern got us all again.