0% Chance To Be Happy... Unless You Are a Dallas Maverick Fan

So that didn't take long. Shortly after writing my last post, I went and turned on ESPN. I saw the introduction of the 14 lottery teams, and went to grab a drink. By the time I got back, all of my pipe dreams were thrown on the ground, stomped on, and kicked across the room. Thanks to the Bulls having no luck at all, I knew my favorite NBA team, The Chicago Bulls, would be trapped in basketball Hell for another decade or so.

It is not technically honest to say they had no luck. They did move up one spot to 12 and did not fall one spot to 14. That is about the best you can hope for as a Bulls fan theses days. So my draft lottery was over. But I was still curious about who would win the right to draft Cooper Flagg. As I saw teams being placed on the board, I noticed the Dallas Mavericks were not making there way onto the screen. A team with a 1.8% chance, who only had that extra .1% chance because they won a coin flip with the Bulls (I'm not kidding, they broke a tie in the standings with a freaking coin flip) was working their way up to the board. And then, in one of the most amazing shows of luck ever, the Mavericks won the lottery!

But was it really luck? As soon as they announced the Mavs as the "surprise" winner, I grabbed my phone and starting texting, before I could finish, 5 people texted me all with the exact same message I was typing, "There is no way this wasn't fixed". Now most of us were kidding... kind of. After all, the NBA is the league that had a referee who went to jail for betting on NBA games.

I'm pretty sure everyone outside of Dallas has at least entertained the thought that there was some funny business involved in Dallas winning the top pick. Let's see why.

Can we fix it! Yes we can!

First, the Luca Doncic trade to the Lakers is by far the strangest trade in the history of sports. No one really knows why it went down the way it did. Let's start with the assumption that the new owner and possibly the GM of the Mavs despised Luca. They were worried he's out of shape and only tries on the offensive end of the court. They did not want to pay him $70 million a year just to watch him eat himself out of the NBA. Fine. They want to get rid of a 26 year old multi-time all-NBA player who had just led his team to the NBA Finals last year. In this situation, literally every other professional sports team in the history of time, would have shopped this commodity in order to get a king's ransom in exchange for this superstar. But not Dallas. They trade Luca to LeBron's Lakers for pennies on the dollar. They did get an All-Star in return in Anthony Davis, but he is 7 years older and injury prone. They also got Max Christie and ONE first round pick. There is the problem. In the past few years, we have seen teams give up multiple first round picks including 5 for Rudy Gobert (for some bizarre reason). There is not a single objective observer who did not believe the Mavs were completely ripped off. I'm sure the NBA loved the idea of Luca and LeBron teaming up for the ratings run... I mean playoff run. Since the NBA clearly benefited, is it that far fetched to think the league office leaned on the Mavs and said "Come on, send him to L.A. We will make sure you get Cooper Flagg".

Sadly this is not the first time a long shot "lucked" into the pick under some strange circumstances. After LeBron left Cleveland to take his talents to South beach, the Cavs overcame 2.8% odds to land the #1 pick (Kyrie Irving). Then when LeBron returned, the Cavs had a 1.7% chance of landing a pick so they could create a nice safety net for King LeBron by trading it for Kevin Love. And how about the last time LA landed an all-NBA players... Anthony Davis himself. After New Orleans traded him to LA, they miraculously won the lottery for Zion Williamson. And I don't even want to get started on the frozen envelope that resulted in Patrick Ewing landing in New York.

Do I really think it was a fix? Probably not. But here's the problem. The NBA creates this scrutiny by not being transparent. For some reason, they insist on pulling the lottery balls in a back room. Why not do it on live TV? They know people would watch. So they are losing viewers and creating controversy for no discernible reason. Perhaps some kind of public ledger that can't be manipulated could solve this problem... hmmm.

So here's today's question, how do you think blockchain could provide a solution to the NBA's problem? How could a blockchain shut down the conspiracy theorists and convince everyone that the draft lottery was on the up and up?

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