The Simmons column is out. I’m still laughing.
In the span of two hours, I’d gone from dreaming about Greg Oden or Kevin Durant saving the Celtics to Patrick the Bartender earnestly wondering whether the Chinese Brad Lohaus would be available at No. 5. If he’s still there. Eventually, those four words will be funny. Just not right now. Comedy equals tragedy plus time.
— Alan
There was one blatant case where Boston had the lead going into the 4th, and then sat the starters. They ended up losing the game. If that’s not throwing a game, I don’t know what is.
I find it interesting that the 3 teams most talked about as possibly trying to lose all got bumped. There has been a lot of talk that Portland and Seattle ending up one two is proof the draft lottery wasn’t rigged, but I wonder if they were merely the beneficiaries of a “negative” rigging. Let’s say you’re Stern and you strongly suggest that Memphis, Boston, and Milwaukee all intentionally tanked their seasons. Maybe you can’t prove it but making sure they don’t get one of the top two picks would be an interesting way to tell everyone that you aren’t going to stand for that kind of crap.
They sat all/most starters for all/most of the entire 4th? That’s pretty blatant.
It wasn’t rigged, negative or otherwise. If you’re going to rig this draft to punish tanking, you give the Hawks pick #4 (which then goes to the Suns, a run-and-gun team that would likely get over the top and be an exciting finals team), or give the Bulls a sweet pick (whatever the Knicks would have gotten) to create a powerhouse in the East that can actually beat a West team in the finals. Or the Sixers, who actively didn’t tank. You don’t dump the two huge stars in the media-backwater northwest where TV will ignore them (barring serious schedule work).
You mean Stern isn’t delirious Oden and Durant will be playing at 10:30 pm EST?
Actually, if you want to go conspiracy theory - Stern doesn’t want the Sonics to move out of Seattle so he throws them a bone. He wants to punish the tanking teams so he freezes out Boston et al.
The Portland pick? Hmmm…maybe Stern thinks he cant keep the Sonics in Seattle, He’s okay with Durant moving to Oklahoma or Kansas City (the news today has the current owner talking to someone in Kansas City). The Portland pick makes sense as Paul Allen lives in Seattle and would like to move the Blazers to Seattle. Now Oden is keeping the Seattle fanbase sort of happy. Only Portland gets screwed here.
BTW - I think it was random.