As a forlorn Wolves fan, I say obviously. 
In more seriousness, it is frustrating that the Wolves have never improved their position via the lottery. I personally prefer the NHL lottery in which the lottery winner moves up by at most 4 spots.
I thought the purpose of the creation of the lottery was to ensure that the Knicks got Ewing. 
I don’t know what David Kahn was complaining about. At #2, the T-Wolves will be in a great position to draft another point guard.
I still have my suspicions about Cleveland getting Lebron, but I’d rather have the current system than any other system I can think of. At least you don’t have too many teams out of the playoffs resting their starters with a serious cause of nightclub-itis.
Assuming a 0.25 chance of the last place team to win the #1 pick, and 18 years of lotteries, the chances of winning exactly 2 lotteries are roughly 9.6%. The chances of winning two lotteries at the most is 13.5%. The number of wins with the highest probability in the distribution is 4, with a 21.3% chance of occurring.
All numbers obtained via this binomial distribution calculator. I lack the stats chops to go through the NBA Draft results and see if the distribution is wonky, and if so, how wonky. I’d be interested to see if the results were significantly away from the mean.
I tend to agree with Barkis is Willing,
What prevents the NBA from just televising the ping pong ball draw? It would seem to help eliminate at least some of the CT speculation.
It might not make for very interesting television. What you would see (in some form) is three combinations of four ping pong balls being drawn, and someone announcing which team those combinations were assigned to. And hasn’t experienced taught us that nothing eliminates CT speculation?
That’s just what they WANT you to think.
I think the randomness of the draw makes it less appealing.
It might be interesting if they gave to top pick to, say, the 4th worst team. And the second pick to the 8th worst team, and maybe the 3rd to the 12th. Gives the worse teams something to play for, but harder to game the system for.
I believe Bill Simmons recommended that the weighting actually be exactly the opposite of what it is now, the best team that did not make the playoffs would get the most ping pong balls and so on. That would insure teams keep trying to win, or at least insure that the general populace believes the teams are trying to win. Of course that might lead to some interesting stuff happening at the number eight playoff spot, so it would also have issues.
But the current system does not seem inherently unfair. It may not be perfect, but it seems to work pretty well.
It’s just luck, or David Stern stacking the deck if you believe in the conspiracy theorists
I can see it now: Lebron leaves Cleveland for Miami and now Cleveland gets the first pick. They draft some young superstar that takes the Cavs into the playoffs, meeting the former #1pick in the Eastern Conference Finals. Either Lebron destroys his old hometown’s hopes again or the Cavs beat him and exorcise their demons.
Of course I don’t believe that, but you know some people are
Suppose the worst two teams were playing the last game of the season. The team that lost was guaranteed the #1 pick. What incentive is there to win that game?
IMO, There should never be an incentive for a team to lose.
This possibility doesn’t seem to bother the NFL, though. They don’t even need to play each other - just have two 1-14 teams playing for #1 in the draft - both teams are still “playing to lose”.
IMHO, I have thought for the longest time that the NBA lottery was put in place precisely so the NBA can tilt the odds (or blatantly cheat) for one team or another, based on league needs. As opposed to a “worst team is automatically #1” approach, there’s nothing transparent about the NBA lottery, and the fans are merely left with the assurances that it is fair. Call me cynical, but I can’t think of a reason for the NBA lottery other than obfuscation.
Have a struggling NYC franchise that needs a big man? Patrick Ewing’s available. Want to reward the ex-player, now-owner ranked by many as the best ever? Let’s give the #1 to MJ and see what he does with it. Shaq needs help to make a playoff run? Let’s give Orlando their 2nd #1 in a row so that the leagues latest superstar can get some serious TV time in May and June. Need Lebron to go to his “hometown” of Cleveland to help combat image problems resulting from overpaid players who merely rotate between jobs? The NBA can arrange that.
That’s my conspiracy theory and I’m sticking to it. 
True, but I think most fans would agree that one player can impact a basketball team (20% of the starting lineup) more than one player can impact a football team (<5% of the starting lineups).
On the flip side of that, assuming we even have an NFL season in 2011, the tanking that’s going to happen to get Andrew Luck will be something to behold. I agree with you mensa for the most part on the relative value of NBA players v. NFL players to their team, but a franchise QB is something else entirely. Especially one as universally regarded as “can’t miss” like Luck. Now watch him pull a Ryan Leaf and crater spectacularly.
FWIW, I want the NFL to have a draft lottery too, and for the NBA to go back to allotting all of the non-playoffs draft spots with ping-pong balls. Losing should be painful.
Why don’t they have a player from each of the worst two teams play each other in Ping Pong for the first overall pick? Best two out of three. That would be interesting television.
Then teams would start carrying ping-pong ringers on their “inactive” list until the end of the season, probably a 5’ Asian guy.
The thought of the bottom teams in the NBA scrambling to sign world-class ping-pong players at the end of the year fills me with glee.
You guys are hilarious, or, “Why I Love The Dope”.
Doesn’t seem to be a problem for the NFL.
It smells of fixed to me. The NBA has no problem picking winners . They find ways to help the teams they want to win,.
Back when Ewing was picked against odds and many times since, it has looked like the picks can be directed to where the league wants. Cleveland feels all screwed over because they lost their superstar. Now they get the first pick?
The reffing has been fixed before. The NBA reeks.
Regarding the NFL, under the just voided CBA I don’t think all the GMs even would want the number one pick - I bet a lot of them would want to pick something more like 5-10 because the top picks get so much money and are far more likely to completely bust than a top NBA pick.