NBA Rumors: League Executives Outraged About Potentially Rigged Draft Lottery

There is no shortage of conspiracy theories surrounding NBA commissioner David Stern.

The 1985 draft lottery and a frozen/creased New York Knicks envelope, Michael Jordan’s decision to play baseball and a gambling suspension, the 2002 Western Conference finals and a suspicious crew of referees—the list goes on and on. 

Stern may have added another to his expanding legend during the 2012 draft lottery.

Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports has found that many executives around the league are upset that the NBA-owned New Orleans Hornets were able to defy the odds and win the draft lottery on Wednesday night:

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"It's such a joke that the league made the new owners be at the lottery for the show," one high-ranking team executive told Yahoo! Sports. "The league still owns the Hornets. Ask their front office if new owners can make a trade right now. They can't. This is a joke."

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It becomes even easier to believe that the lottery was rigged if you go back to December of 2011, the now infamous day that Stern shot down the Los Angeles Lakers' three-way deal to acquire Chris Paul from the league-owned Hornets.

When the Clippers stepped in with a Godfather offer and landed CP3 just four days later, it was clear that the Commish was looking to maximize value for an organization that was on the open market.

Now, considering that it was just over a month ago that Stern negotiated a $338 million sale of the franchise to New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson, and the team had just a 13.7 percent chance of having its pick come up No. 1, it’s not too far-fetched a theory.

Of course, there will likely never be proof of this, but it isn’t completely crazy to draw the conclusion that the sale came with a wink and a nudge that the league would throw in the No. 1 overall pick.

It could explain why the Hornets—who are largely still in the NBA’s hands this offseason—decided to tank down the stretch, despite being overly competitive all season long. 

Over its last five games, NOLA only managed two wins. One came against the egregiously and openly tanking Golden State Warriors, and the other was against a collapsing Houston Rockets squad in an overtime contest.

While it’s not out of the question that the Hornets actually just lucked out and fairly drew the No. 1 pick (they did have better than a 10-to-1 chance of legally obtaining it via the ping-pong balls), there is no way to truly know.

With Stern, it seems nothing is ever out of the question.