EMERGENCY BLOG: Care to Explain Yourselves, NBA?

As the overused meme would say, "That escalated quickly." If you tuned in to the 2025 NBA draft lottery, you noticed a stench coming through your television, radio, mobile device or any device that carries NBA action. It is a stench that resembles the world-famous Farmers Market in Seattle. Yep, this year's NBA draft lottery was fishy.

Looking at the first three picks, these squads are playoff capable with healthy players or an acquisition away from being a force in the postseason, while the next three picks are teams that are terrible and are in need of a franchise altering player. This year, that player is Duke forward Cooper Flagg, while Rutgers' combo of Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey would round up the next two picks. The 4 to 6 selections: Charlotte, Utah and Washington, need these prospects as a building block or cornerstone for their down ridden franchises. The #2 and #3 picks, San Antonio and Philadelphia, could have made the playoffs if circumstances were right.

This leads to the team that won the lottery, the Dallas Mavericks, an organization who has been chastised by the NBA nation for a certain trade that everyone is still talking about. (Side note: Please stop talking about it.) General manager Nico Harrison was thrown into a lion's den because of the trade and deemed public enemy #1 by the masses in the Metroplex. The Mavs meekly made the Play-In Tournament, only to lose. They were hoping to get a decent pick in the first round, but to have the #1 overall pick changes everything in a heartbeat.

So, after the lottery concluded, people went to social media, any message board or called anyone to say the same thing, "The draft lottery is RIGGED!"

See what I mean .. .

The NBA draft lottery has always had scrutiny tied to it. Whether they try to fine tune it to make every team have a shot, it will come at a cost for certain franchises that believe they should have the #1 overall pick. I said this two years ago when the Spurs won the lottery to select Wemby, the lottery will always be suspect for a league that clearly caters to the players. I get it, it's a business at the end of the day. However, when the worst teams are slotted at the #4-6 picks, people will point to this and say, "Why are they in the position they could have been if they had the first three picks?" Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Anyways, Adam Silver is getting what he wanted, a league without tanking and the process to prevent it, but at what cost?

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