Stephen A. Smith needs to shut up!

[dnabb8436]

I've hated him forever... before he even went national

Thank god ESPN cancelled his show :salut:

 

[b70x7n]

that sport sucks, as do the people that commentate on it.

:salut::salut::salut:

 

[kadillac_style]

Well I am definitely the minority. I like Stephen A.

 

[#11 Roy Williams]

What isn't suspected of being f*****' rigged these days?

It's a bit fishy that 2 teams with pretty bad chances got 1 and 2, but maybe that is just how the dice role.

 

[swany]

#1 - It is nearly impossible to rig the draft this day in age.

#2 - Check out this video from the 1985 draft. Even I am skeptical about this one. A couple of things to watch:

The dude that throws the envelopes into the drum...watch when he throws in the Knicks envelope. He bangs it into the side, causing a crease in the corner. Doesn't do that for the others.

Then watch when Stern picks out the envelopes. It appears that he digs until he grabs the one with the bent corner

 

[oregonweim]

What isn't suspected of being f*****' rigged these days?

It's a bit fishy that 2 teams with pretty bad chances got 1 and 2, but maybe that is just how the dice role.

Whomever it was (the worst record) only has a 25% chance of getting pick #1.... meaning 75% chance of NOT getting the first pick.

 

[SonicsFan]

Whomever it was (the worst record) only has a 25% chance of getting pick #1.... meaning 75% chance of NOT getting the first pick.

Also (for Roy Williams), they have a representative from each team and a few national media members in the room watching them bounce the ping pong balls

 

[b70x7n]

Screamin' A. Smiff!

 

[DNoz29]

No they need to go the other way and equal chance for all lottery teams. The tanking by Boston, they got what they deserved. Anything that makes teams stay competitive is a good thing.

And maybe Steve Smith should visit the Pacific Time Zone a bit from the sounds of it.

I heard if he goes any further west than Detroit, he starts to make sense and stops yelling.

And we all don't want that...

I dislike him, to say the least. Just another East Coast honk.

 

[jimmywolfrey]

No they need to go the other way and equal chance for all lottery teams. The tanking by Boston, they got what they deserved. Anything that makes teams stay competitive is a good thing.

And maybe Steve Smith should visit the Pacific Time Zone a bit from the sounds of it.

The tanking by Boston..

they did go 7-7 in March.

Their season went down the tube when paul pierce got hurt in December. People just think they tanked because of a couple games they could have played some semi injured people like Al Jefferson and Pierce. They were decimated by injuries to core guys in the middle of the season. After the 18 game losing streak there was no reason to play guys hurt really.

Paul Pierce didn't play in Febuary and the tanking questions started to come up. He was hurt but he definitely could have played if the Celtics were in a playoff chase.

Without Pierce, Wally, TA, Jefferson and DWest they were just terrible. No tanking needed. With Jefferson they still were a bottom feeder. With Dwest and Jefferson they still werent good. With TA, Jefferson, Dwest they were exciting but still lost (18 games in a row). With Pierce and Wally they are a playoff type team. The Celtics were 4-31 without Pierce. They were simply not a good team without him.

I am not saying it is right to avoid playing guys so that they have more of a chance to lose but the guys on the court played their hearts out.

The lottery system is to avoid tanking. It works because as you can see that that the teams that every year supposedly 'tank', do not get much of an advantage in the lottery. Now it also hurts the very bad teams that do not tank (memphis) and also teams that get decimated by injuries (celtics) because they do not get even more than half of a chance really to get the the top pick.

The reason that the NBA simply can not have a draft set up like the NFL is the amount of games involved. The NFL have 16 games and for about 10-12 of the games the teams involved still have aspirations of the post season. The NBA has 82 game seasons and teams could be tanking many many more games. The NFL draft there isn't really ever a player that can just simply change your franchise. One player hardly ever makes that kind of impact. In the NFL it takes more guys to generate that drafted player to stardom. In the NBA, one player can dominate a game pretty easily. The NBA draft is often top heavy where the NFL draft is hardly ever if ever.

Also, it does seem like teams are always wanted to trade down from the top of the draft anyway in the NFL to pick up more picks.

If the lottery draft is truly random it does more good than bad in the NBA because tanking in the NBA would ruin 100s of games potentially. Having the lottery may only ruin a few at the end of the year like the Bucks vs Celtics game in april.