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Game Thread NBA Draft Lottery - May 12, 2025

Added to Calendar: 05-12-25

I honestly wouldnt care all that much. Flagg could go anywhere and its going to be good for the NBA. It's not rigged. It's just a stupid system.

Dallas falling completely apart while fans riot and yell "Fire Nico!" on national TV is a bad look for the league. Something needed to be done. The league needs to protect its image and the value of its franchises. That's enough rationale to throw them a bone.
 
Maybe this is why you tell Mitchell and Gobert to cowboy up and continue to build around them? Instead, we’re going to be at the bottom of the league for a generation. With increased alternatives for people to spend their money, I’m unsure if fans have the patience to waste decades waiting for this franchise to piece together another decent team.
Especially considering it's pretty obvious the league will make sure someone else gets ahead when the jazz seem to have a chance at anything like this. Without late lottery or late first-round luck we won't get anywhere. That's frankly all we've ever had. Stockton and Malone both were #13 picks. Mitchell was too. Gobert was 27. Those were all cases of luck over providence. Until we get another luck over providence pick we'll be at the bottom of the barrel. The league showed today that we won't be allowed at the top. Maybe if we have a shot in a draft without such a clear-cut generational talent we'll be allowed #2 or something. But otherwise it's all the luck of how we draft. We can't afford to be the team that drafts so poorly as we have in the past if we want to be able to compete. No more picks like Trey or Kanter or DedEx. We have to hit it out of the park. But realistically it's to the league's overall advantage for anyone but the Jazz to win it all. We don't bring them more money, almost literally every other team with a deep playoff run will bring in more money for the league. I think they realized that for real after our back to back finals runs. So that's it, for the league to make the most money possible we are always going to draw the short straw.
 
The last 3 years have been the worse Jazz basketball I've ever seen in 30 years. The Jefferson/Corbin era was rough but this takes the cake by far. We started tanking 2 years later for whatever reason. We re-signed players because our owner liked them. Are we really going to sit Kessler, Sexton, Lauri, and Clarkson again for most of the season?

.... and then to do what? Pay Kessler 30 million a year for a team that's dead last in defense every year? There is no way you sign Kessler for 30 million when we're going to be bottom 5 again
 
Just put it this way: If you were in charge of a $10 billion global media product like the NBA, what would you do? How would you allow league-altering draft prospects to be handed out?
I know! Push all "generational" prospects to San Antonio, Cleveland, New Orleans and Orlando! That would certainly maximize the revenue.
 
Dallas falling completely apart while fans riot and yell "Fire Nico!" on national TV is a bad look for the league. Something needed to be done. The league needs to protect its image and the value of its franchises. That's enough rationale to throw them a bone.
The Mavs could have just shut Luka down after Kyrie tore his ACL and had Luka/Cooper...
 
Put it this way: You want to rig the lottery so you invite dozens of independent journalists from all possible media outlets to personally witness the lottery taking place.

And I'm willing to bet very few of you even have the faintest idea how the lottery actually works, and envision some frozen envelopes.

The system was programmed before it ran in front of the journalists and everyone else. Any system can be pre-programmed.
 
I vehemently disagree on the wheel, but at least it’s transparent which is more than I can say about this shady ****ing garbage.

How dice in a back room without cameras is supposed to be reassuring, I have no ****ing clue.

They need to fix this system. I’ve proposed mine a bunch but it literally solves every problem with what we saw tonight and this season.
Yeah why is there no camera in the room?
 
Especially considering it's pretty obvious the league will make sure someone else gets ahead when the jazz seem to have a chance at anything like this. Without late lottery or late first-round luck we won't get anywhere. That's frankly all we've ever had. Stockton and Malone both were #13 picks. Mitchell was too. Gobert was 27. Those were all cases of luck over providence. Until we get another luck over providence pick we'll be at the bottom of the barrel. The league showed today that we won't be allowed at the top. Maybe if we have a shot in a draft without such a clear-cut generational talent we'll be allowed #2 or something. But otherwise it's all the luck of how we draft. We can't afford to be the team that drafts so poorly as we have in the past if we want to be able to compete. No more picks like Trey or Kanter or DedEx. We have to hit it out of the park. But realistically it's to the league's overall advantage for anyone but the Jazz to win it all. We don't bring them more money, almost literally every other team with a deep playoff run will bring in more money for the league. I think they realized that for real after our back to back finals runs. So that's it, for the league to make the most money possible we are always going to draw the short straw.
Good post.

Or that crappy center over Bane/Mcdaniels or more recently, Cody Williams. I get it that those guys weren’t top picks but holy crap. Even on the worst team last year Williams looked terrible. Now he’s gotta make significant improvements just to avoid being out of the league once his rookie deal is up. You just can’t miss like that when you’re a team like Utah that knows its operating at a major deficit in free agency.
 
I know! Push all "generational" prospects to San Antonio, Cleveland, New Orleans and Orlando! That would certainly maximize the revenue.

Cleveland and New Orleans were situations where the local team was in meltdown and needed immediate help.
San Antonio was allegedly a preferred destination by Wembanyama's camp.
The Orlando pick probably wasn't rigged.
 
NBA owners would know about it and not stand for it.

NBA owners don't need to be in the know at all. Just a few people in the league can handle it. As long as the league is healthy and a rising tide raises all boats, the owners will go along with it, whether or not they have suspicions. They know what business they're in. And sure, there's some plausible deniability.
 
Maybe just some anger in the moment, but flattening the odds didnt solve tanking and now we just get more random BS like this.
Doesn't matter if it's working as intended or not, this current system needs to go. Not just the public backlash. For Silver to legalize sports betting, this is the last thing he wants. I mean for Cleveland or NOLA to win it multiple times over a short span is one thing. But for Dallas to win it this year, after all the media coverage and conspiracy theories surrounding the Luka trade, is a complete different story. Why would you ever put your bet on something if you think it's rigged? This is gonna cost then so much money.

The notoriety of this year's lottery will be remembered, even by the non NBA fans or non sports fans.
 
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