The NBA Draft Lottery Is a Broken System
Most people are absolutely delighted to watch Blake Griffin flabbergast the league with his seemingly endless supply of dunks, alley-oops and ESPN Sports Center leading highlights.
Don't count anyone with affiliation to the Sacramento Kings among those, however.
Short of the Boston Celtics in 1997, who missed out on drafting Tim Duncan despite having the best chance at doing so, no franchise has as legitimate a gripe with the NBA's Draft Lottery system as the Sacramento Kings do.
On May 19, 2009, fourteen NBA executives clamored for the #1 draft choice, with the prize being what was largely considered a can't miss NBA All-Star caliber talent in Blake Griffin.
Of those 14 teams, the Sacramento Kings held the greatest likelihood of attaining the #1 pick, with a 25% chance due to their league worst 17-65 record the previous season.
As fate would have it, the Los Angeles Clippers despite only having a 17% opportunity, won the Draft Lottery and history was altered because of it.
If this were another sport, there wouldn't be a lottery process. The worst team gets the best player. Blake Griffin would be donning a Sacramento Kings jersey, and things would be very different for both franchises.
This isn't a sour grapes, grass is always greener article. This is a hypothetical, how history was changed by the bounce of a ping pong ball article.
Fast forward to the 2010-11 season. The Sacramento Kings have one of the anemic records in the league (10-32), have the league's worst attendance (13,261 per game), and are desperate to get a new arena built. Blake Griffin would single-handedly make a major impact on all of those troublesome issues.
You can't rewrite history, but it can't be undersold what type of incredible impact Griffin would've made in Sacramento. This city has been clamoring for something to get excited about with the Kings.
Sacramento wants to wrap their collective arms around this franchise, and support it as best they can. But there's just nothing to get inspired about. Blake Griffin would've made an enormous influence economically.
Lets not forget, the Kings did eventually draft Tyreke Evans who would go on to become the 2009-10 NBA Rookie of the Year. Evans is a nice player, maybe he'll make an All-Star game or two in his career.
But Blake Griffin is a franchise player, a twelve year foundation for an organization, a name you can rightfully put on a marquee and fill your respective arena 41 times a year.
The obvious question is why does the NBA utilize the Draft Lottery system? One word: tanking.
The NBA season is arduously long. Excessively long. It runs from the first week of October until the second week of June. 10 preseason games, 82 regular season games, and then potentially 28 more playoff contests.
So what you have is teams 'shut down' their premiere players, with injuries ranging from stubbed toe to sprained pinky finger, to enhance their chances at a better draft position.
It's my opinion that this happens in every sport, where teams that don't have a realistic opportunity at the playoffs raise their middle finger to their fans and tank games.
But the NBA, a league so incredibly conscious of rehabilitating their image, does the Lottery system as to not reward the team with the worst record.
Thank the Tim Donaghy referee scandal, the Ron Artest melee in the stands, the Kermit Washington haymaker to Rudy Tomjanovich. No pun intended, but all the black eyes the NBA has taken over the years have led to the Lottery.
While some NBA teams, like the Kings, have come up on the short end of the stick in the Draft Lottery, others have reaped incredible benefits.
In 1992, the Orlando Magic emerged victorious and drafted Shaquille O'Neal. The following season, the Magic incredibly won the Lottery again, despite having the worst odds to do so (1 in 66 chance).
They drafted Chris Webber but dealt him for Penny Hardaway and made the NBA Finals in the 94-95 season. Then again the Magic won the Lottery in 2004, this time for the rights to yet another franchise player in Dwight Howard.
The Draft Lottery adds excitement and intrigue to fans of all fourteen teams that didn't qualify for the playoffs the year before. They turn it into an hour long television show, counting down from 14 to 1. That's great that it's benevolent to everyone, but it's not fair.
The worst team deserves the best player. Regardless of how big a market it is, whether or not there's a superstar to be drafted, the bottom line is the worst team should be entitled to the best player.
How does the NBA expect the bottom feeders of the league to compete with the major markets of the league? If that basic ideology isn't agreed upon, what's the point of the draft in the first place?
