It’s a Conspiracy!
29 May
The NBA Draft Lottery is tomorrow night, which of course means that all the lunatics are coming out of the woodwork claiming that the draft is rigged. New Orleans is going to win because of this. Charlotte’s gonna win because of that. Dan Gilbert is evil and has rigged the draft. Ugh.
It’s stupid. And not only is it stupid because there’s no possible way that it’s actually rigged, but it’s stupid because I love a good conspiracy and, I’m sorry to say, a rigged draft lottery is a pretty damn lame conspiracy. You can also literally make up a conspiracy for every lottery team in less than 10 minutes. Case in point, let me do just that:
Charlotte Bobcats: Michael Jordan, being the best player to ever grace the sport, is using his clout with Stern and the league to rig the lottery and help ensure that Charlotte ends the embarrassment that was this past season.
Washington Wizards: President Obama, while still a very vocal Bulls fan, doesn’t have time to make it out to Chicago for Bulls games. That said, he can make it to Wizards games, and would prefer to have a better team to watch, so he’s paid Stern off to rig the lottery. He also personally traded McGee and Swaggy P.
Cleveland Cavaliers: Dan Gilbert is obviously an evil super-villain, so he’s used his influence as leader of the diehard ownership group from the lockout to convince Stern to give Cleveland their second first overall pick in as many years. I mean, he single-handedly killed the CP3 trade, so he obviously can throw around his weight behind the scenes.
New Orleans Hornets: After being on the market for over a year, Stern was finally able to sell off the Hornets by guaranteeing a number one draft pick to go next to Eric Gordon, who is also not allowed to leave New Orleans for “Basketball Reasons”.
Sacramento Kings: Back to Dan Gilbert, the Cavaliers still have a future first-rounder from the Kings from the JJ Hickson – Omri Cassppi deal. Failing to convince Stern to let the Cavaliers have a second first pick in two years, he convinced Stern to give it to the Kings so they make the playoffs and Cleveland can grab another first rounder in 2013. Again, because he’s a super-villain.
Portland Trailblazers: Stern really likes Portlandia and doesn’t want to miss out on the comedy that is having a star player with a unibrow featured on the show.
Brooklyn Nets: After the team failed to secure Dwight Howard, Stern’s going to want a superstar to prop up the league’s newest team in the largest media market in the world, so he’s going to rig the lottery for Brooklyn. He also doesn’t want to piss of Jay-Z because he was a big fan of “Can I Get A?” from the Rush Hour soundtrack.
Golden State Warriors: The Warriors were obviously tanking so hard by not playing the injured Stephen Curry or Andrew Bogut because they wanted to hold onto their protected draft pick because they had convinced Stern to rig the lottery their direction. Why is that? Because they want to ensure a solid core once the team moves to the larger market of San Francisco.
Utah Jazz: Mitt Romney’s a big Jazz fan with deep pockets. Just sayin’.
Toronto Raptors: The Raptors are Stern’s only international franchise, and he’s worried that without a superstar player to fire up the fan base, the team might be in jeopardy of moving back to the states, making the NBA no longer an international league.
Detroit Pistons: The city of Detroit has promised to finally erect that statue of Robocop if Stern rigs the lottery their way. Stern, being a big fan of the wanton violence and cutting satire of the classic film, has obliged.
Milwaukee Bucks: Stern really wants to see Drew Gooden back in the post-season. He misses that guy.
Phoenix Suns: Given the backlash over the Miami Heat, Stern knows it would be horrible PR to let Steve Nash walk away from Phoenix to go to South Beach. As such, he’s rigged the lottery so Phoenix can get Anthony Davis and hold onto Nash for another two years.
Houston Rockets: Stern feels bad about letting Dan Gilbert kill the original CP3 trade which would have brought Gasol to Houston. As such, he’s rigging the lottery to give Houston Anthony Davis as a consolation prize.
Okay, that took 20 minutes, but still, it was easy. Now shut up and get back to talking about what really matters, how the officials are totally rigging the Eastern Conference Finals for Miami.



