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An NBA Draft Lottery conspiracy for every team

2013-05-21T14:25:18Z

An NBA Draft Lottery conspiracy for every team

An NBA Draft Lottery conspiracy theory for every team

2013-05-21T13:55:13Z

With the Lakers and Knicks both out of the playoffs, NBA conspiracy theorists have been getting a bit bored. It's difficult to come up with a plausible motive for David Stern to potentially set up a Grizzlies vs. Pacers NBA Finals series. But have no fear: the Super Bowl of sports conspiracy theories, the NBA Draft Lottery, arrives at 8:30 p.m. ET Tuesday.

To save you the trouble of tracking down conspiracy theorists to see what they have learned about how the ping pong balls will drop, we've put together a compendium of theories that results in a lottery win for each team. Enjoy.

More: SB Nation's complete coverage of the NBA Draft lottery

Orlando Magic: Cleveland lost LeBron James in 2010 and won the lottery in 2011. The Hornets lost Chris Paul in 2011 and won the lottery in 2012. The Magic lost Dwight Howard in 2012. You do the math. Not content at stacking the deck against superteams in the collective bargaining agreement, David Stern has placed his finger on the scale to help teams rebuild quickly.

Charlotte Horncats: Stern continues to owe Michael Jordan for retiring from a promising baseball career and preventing Shawn Kemp, Karl Malone and Patrick Ewing from becoming NBA champions. The league could never have recovered from any of those guys becoming the face of basketball. (And yes, Horncats is a thing.)

Cleveland Cavaliers: Multiple lottery victories were included in the blood oath signed by Stern and Cavs owner Dan Gilbert that led to Gilbert dropping tampering charges against the Heat. Had Gilbert continued his crusade, the Heat's 2011 Southeast Division title would have been vacated, and LeBron may have been Chris Webber'd out of history. Nerlens Noel is a small price to pay to prevent that.

Phoenix Suns: "Why is Robert Sarver carrying around that designer handbag? And why is there a glitchy film cut before the ball hopper is started? My God, did Sarver sneak loaded ping pong balls in via his wife's handbag? His wife must have told him to bring her back the No. 1 pick in a designer handbag ... interesting ..."

New Orleans Pelicans: Louisiana's hastily rewritten lemon law apparently covers horrible lottery picks. Pelicans owner Tom Benson is threatening to file for a refund for the team if the NBA doesn't make up for the lousy Austin Rivers selection pronto. Just months from retirement, David Stern really doesn't need this mess.

Sacramento Kings: This one is too easy. Sacramento keeps its team, David Stern needs to look smart. So he grants the Kings the No. 1 pick to build even more excitement for a 2013-14 season that will likely land the team back in the lottery for the bajillionth straight season.

Detroit Pistons: David Stern has major stock in General Motors. A rising tide raises all boats. Wake up, sheeple.

Washington Wizards: Nice Presidential scandals you've got there, Republican Party. Would be a shame if something happened to them. Something like blazing liberal David Stern distracting the Beltway media circuit with a shiny new Nerlens Noel. The vast left-wing sports conspiracy strikes again. So transparent.

Minnesota Timberwolves: Cleveland lost LeBron in 2010 and won the lottery in 2011. The Hornets lost Chris Paul in 2011 and won the lottery in 2012. The Wolves lost Michael Beasley in 2012. You do the math. Also, Glen Taylor was long a loyal owner and Board of Governors chairman for Stern. He's looking to offload the team. Nerlens Noel boosts the value of the team by the equivalent of one suburban strip mall.

Portland Trail Blazers: David Stern is looking for a gently used yacht to take out on the open ocean in retirement. Paul Allen drives a hard bargain. In this case, a franchise center with no injury concerns whatsoever.

Philadelphia 76ers: To try to convince the drugged-up, naive masses, David Stern brings officials from the accounting firm Ernst & Young to the lottery to verify the legitimacy of the lottery. Ernst & Young, huh? That firm is lousy with Sam Hinkie's old MIT buddies. Looks like the verisimilitude of this event has been ... [puts on sunglasses] ... deep-sixed. [yeeeeeaaaaaahhhhh]

Toronto Raptors: Tim Leiweke left Illuminati party planners AEG to run the Raptors. No one can explain why. No one. But we find it very peculiar that Leiweke would choose the only NBA team outside of the United States of America. Either he's running from the law or he's assembling a business empire that plans a hostile takeover of freedom and liberty. Something smells funny.

Dallas Mavericks: This is David Stern's final draft lottery. He no doubt wants to leave a hint for future investigators. A calling card, if you will. No better way to nod at the conspiracy theorists than to hand victory to the city where modern conspiracy theory was born, especially considering that city has truly abysmal odds of winning straight-up.

Utah Jazz: The presence of three small market teams in the NBA's final four is actually a David Stern conspiracy after all! He wants to show that his lockout reforms worked as planned, and people are gullible enough to believe that nonsense. This will allow his successor Adam Silver to enact even more regressive salary rollbacks in 2017, all in the name of competitive balance and parity. Getting a small market fringe playoff team like Utah a top pick will certainly help the cause next season. The small market conspiracy continues unabated!

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NBA Draft Lottery 2013: Cavaliers win No. 1 pick

2013-05-21T13:03:35Z

The Orlando Magic have the best chance at winning the draft lottery, but the Cleveland Cavaliers managed to win the No. 1 pick for the second time in three years.

NBA teams will learn where they'll be picking in the 2013 NBA Draft on Tuesday. The ping pong balls will decide their fate at the NBA Draft Lottery, which begins at 8:30 p.m. ET and airs on ESPN.

The Orlando Magic have the best shot of landing the No. 1 overall pick with a 25 percent chance, but the teams with lesser odds have could get lucky bounces of the balls as well. In order, the Magic are trailed in chances of winning the lottery by the Charlotte Bobcats (19.9 percent), Cleveland Cavaliers (15.6 percent), Phoenix Suns (11.9 percent) and New Orleans Pelicans (8.8 percent), but all 14 lottery teams are in the mix.

More: Complete NBA Draft coverage

The lottery hasn't been won by the team with the worst record -- and thus the best chances -- since 2004, when the Magic used their pick to select Dwight Howard.

While the 2013 draft doesn't have the likes of a Howard, there's still something to be said for having a choice of whom to pick. Kentucky big man Nerlens Noel is widely considered the first overall pick despite his continued recovery from a torn ACL, and he is joined by Kansas shooting guard Ben McLemore and Georgetown swingman Otto Porter atop the draft class.

Indiana's Victor Oladipo, UNLV's Anthony Bennett, Michigan's Trey Burke and UCLA's Shabazz Muhammad are among the second-tier players eligible in the draft.

Each of the 14 lottery teams will be assigned four-number combinations based on their record with 1,000 possible. Teams with the most likely odds to win the first overall pick will have more potential combinations assigned to that pick. For example, the Magic and their 25 percent shot at winning will own 250 of the lottery combinations for the first pick.

The first through third picks will be selected by the lottery system, and the remaining 11 lottery teams will follow in order of their records and any previously-decided tiebreakers.

Time: Tuesday, May 21, 8:30 p.m. ET

TV: ESPN

Odds to winning

Team (record)	Number of combinations	Percent
Orlando (20-62)	250	25
Charlotte (21-61)	199	19.9
Cleveland (24-58)	156	15.6
Phoenix (25-57)	119	11.9
New Orleans (27-55)	88	8.8
Sacramento (28-54)	63	6.3
Detroit (29-53)	36	3.6
Washington (29-53)	35	3.5
Minnesota (31-51)	17	1.7
Portland (33-49)	11	1.1
Philadelphia (34-48)	8	0.8
Toronto (34-48)	7	0.7
Mavericks (41-41)	6	0.6
Utah (43-39)	5	0.5

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NBA Mock Draft: Our annual Socratic paradox

2013-05-20T15:00:06Z

On Tuesday at roughly 9 p.m. ET, the Socratic paradox will rear its ugly head back into the NBA. No one will know anything, everyone will know that no one knows anything, but no one will admit it.

The 2013 NBA Draft order will be set at the conclusion of Tuesday's lottery. Ping pong balls determine who will receive the top three picks in the derby, and that will set about the order for the following 11 choices. In practice, eight or nine teams have real chances of seeing their projected slot shaken up, good or bad.

Once the order is set and teams know where they are picking, the rumors begin in earnest. Oh, the rumors. So many rumors! It's important for the draft connoisseur to pay close attention to each and every one of them, as they help tell the story of the annual draft. You cannot fully appreciate Hasheem Thabeet going No. 2 to Memphis in 2009 without having experienced The Great Hasheem Thabeet Draft Workout Standoff of 2009. (The same applies to The Great Ricky Rubio Pretends Minnesota Does Not Exist Standoff of 2009.) Draft season is basically a massive helping of origin story for all of these future NBA players. You don't want to miss any detail in the canon.

But there's a breed of rumors that is totally useless. "[Team] favors [players] and hates [player]." No. That's almost never right. You know why? There is absolutely no incentive for teams to hand out accurate information on their positions on any prospects. Given the typical trade activity level during draft season, it is a distinct advantage to have no other team knowing what you're thinking. Why on Earth would a GM tell a reporter that he thinks, say, Shabazz Muhammad isn't a lottery talent? So that Shabazz slips down the board! The GM's job is not to give free advice to the rest of the league. It's to get his team better players.

Of course, plenty of rumors are useful. Potential trades are a subset: if Team A offers a deal to Team B, and Team B doesn't want it, it could be useful to leak out the offer (or a reasonably inflated proxy) to show that other teams are interested in one or more of your assets. It's also sometimes useful for teams to leak out their own legit trade offers to show that they are trying to improve the club. "Check me out, I'm working the phones hard out here!"

But for every useful rumor, there are 10 bad ones. And that all begins in earnest on Tuesday night. So ... yeah. Gird thyself.

Our final pre-lottery mock assumes the lottery makes no changes to the draft order, which totally won't happen, because it never does. With the understanding that, like Socrates said, I only know that I know nothing, let's mock.

1. Orlando Magic: Nerlens Noel

An actual recent rumor I believe: the Magic were apparently devastated that Marcus Smart decided to stay in school. Yep. That's the 2013 NBA Draft in a nutshell.

2. Charlotte Bobcats: Alex Len

If the Bobcats really want to build a future contender and really don't care how intensely they alienate fans next season, they need to draft an injured prospect like Noel or Len. (Noel is expected to be out into December. Len should be back in November, but he'll be way behind in adjusting to the NBA.) Getting a high-potential player who won't contribute much as a rookie means a probable very high pick in the epic 2014 draft. It guarantees a depressing 2013-14 season, but ... how bad do you want it?

3. Cleveland Cavaliers: Victor Oladipo

Prediction: Oladipo, a solid right-way type, will be the rumored target of almost every good team trying desperately to move up into the lottery.

4. Phoenix Suns: Ben McLemore

Had Smart entered the draft, he'd have been the most hotly debated prospect on the board. (People who don't like Smart because of his shooting stroke really don't like him.) Thanks to a recruiting scandal, McLemore might take the cake. Because, you know, whether a prospect's college recruitment ends up looking shady totally impacts what type of pro he'll be. And while I'm not terribly sure how the Suns intend to proceed under Ryan McDonough, I do know that McLemore's ceiling is really high.

5. New Orleans Pelicans: Otto Porter

Prediction: I am not going to get used to "Pelicans" before the draft. Porter is my favorite prospect, so expect me to find a way for him to fall to the Kings by my final pre-draft mock. It happens every year. (It only rarely works out. See: Cousins, DeMarcus.)

6. Sacramento Kings: C.J. McCollum

Okay, I buy it. McCollum is a top-10 player in this draft. Whoever runs the Kings' front office by late June will still desperately need some more shooting on this team, though defense all over the roster might be a bigger priority in the wider picture. (Also, prediction: if the Kings win the lottery a year after New Orleans won the lottery, I won't even try to reject the conspiracy theories.)

7. Detroit Pistons: Trey Burke

I don't think Jose Calderon will stick around given that a new coach will be in place, Brandon Knight is being turned into a two-guard and Rodney Stuckey is always two seconds from a trade. So, yeah, Burke.

8. Washington Wizards: Anthony Bennett

Any offensive-minded big man to mix with Washington's current defensive-minded frontcourt.

9. Minnesota Timberwolves: Shabazz Muhammad

If Rick Adelman continues his career, he's the perfect coach to turn Shabazz into a legit NBA starter. And it would also prevent Minnesota from signing O.J. Mayo, which is best for the world.

10. Portland Trail Blazers: Cody Zeller

The greatest Zeller of all!

11. Philadelphia 76ers: Kelly Olynyk

Man, the annals of NBA jokedom could really use Cody Zeller supplanting Spencer Hawes and Andrew Bynum in Philly. Dammit.

12. Oklahoma City Thunder (via Toronto by way of Houston): Rudy Gobert

Gobert is like a vortex of sense for OKC: the Thunder love to pick international players, they need bigs and they could probably use some relatively immediate help while the title looks to be so within grasp. Gobert isn't a stash pick, so ...

13. Dallas Mavericks: Dennis Schroeder

Not because Schroeder is German like Dirk. Because he's awesome. And Mark Cuban can't pass up awesome.

14. Utah Jazz: Michael Carter-Williams

Here's a rumor via Common Sense (not the rapper now known as Common): because the Jazz have this pick, the No. 21 pick from the Warriors and a desperate need for a point guard, it is guaranteed that there will be wild rumors about the Jazz trying to move into the top seven or higher to get Burke by packaging the two picks. Every team with multiple firsts outside the top half of the lottery is always rumored to be moving up.

More from SB Nation:

• Flannery: Saying goodbye to the Knicks

• Can Nerlens Noel play in the middle? | More combine coverage

How to order Sacramento Kings season tickets

2013-05-20T14:34:34Z

Season tickets for the 2013-14 season of the Sacramento Kings (woo!) go on sale Tuesday at 9 a.m. That's when deposits will begin to be accepted on Kings.com. You sign in with your existing account or create a new one, indicate you want season tickets and pony up $200. That deposit is non-refundable. You don't pick your full-season cost on Tuesday: pricing plans will be released in mid-June. The lowest level is expected to be (per Kings staff) $15 per ticket. You pay for 43 games (41 regular season, two preseason). So for two tickets at the lowest price point you're looking at $1,300. You'll pay $200 on Tuesday, then a 20 percent down payment by late June (your $200 deposit counts toward that). Then you can pay the rest according to a payment plan that extends up to six months. You'll pick your seat in late June, too -- that's when your total price will be determined.

Here's the Kings' official FAQs on season tickets. Staff is also on hand at Sleep Train Arena to answer questions: Kings.com has a prominent "chat now" link.

For many folks, season tickets isn't something they can commit to due to their busy schedule or cost. Since the dawn of man, folks have split season tickets. It can be more manageable to buy half of a season ticket package than a full one: 21 or so dates at the arena vs. 43. Some folks split it further (three or four ways) depending on their needs. We know a lot of folks at StR fall into this category, so while this often happens in real world relationships (work, neighbors, friends, family) we figured we may be able to find some matches here.

So if you are interested in splitting season tickets for the 2013-14 season, post in this thread and try to find a match. The actual details of making the split should be handled via email or phone. section214 has split season tickets for decades; he can provide some tips and best practices. So a sample comment below might be ..

***

Looking to split season tickets two ways
Upper level, $30 ticket range, two tickets.

I'm also interested in a half-season package at that price range!
My email address is username at gmail dot com.

***

In the recent past the Kings have offered half- and quarter-season packages themselves, but that's been a product of lots of available seats. There's no guarantee those will be available this season. In fact, based on the level of renewals the team is reporting and the huge interest in the club's new era, I'd guess those won't be available.

Also, for those who live far away from Sacramento but want to help StRians get to the gym: we'll be announcing a donation program later in the week. Stay tuned.

The affordability of an elite NBA defense

2013-05-20T13:58:14Z

There are a number of interesting notes about the NBA's four conference finals participants including ...

Three represent traditional small markets, or at least cities considered to be in the small market coalition. (San Antonio is top 10 in the United States in population, but its media market is ranked much lower.)
The teams finished Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 7 in team defense over the regular season. They were Nos. 2, 7, 17 and 20 in offense.
Three of the teams were outside the top 10 in payroll this season. (I'll let you guess which one was the exception.) The teams ranked Nos. 4, 12, 22 and 25 in payroll, per HoopsHype.

This is all interrelated, and not as any sort of dictate about the lockout and its revival of the small market. It tells a story about how you can build an affordable champion. And by affordable I mean "above the league's $49 million payroll floor."

Defense is cheaper than offense in the NBA. (The exception is at center, where even defense-skewed players are pricey.) Scoring is the top determinant for individual salary; if you have a couple of 22-point scorers, you're going to be outlaying a lot of money for offense. Some of the top defenders, though, make a pittance. Consider Tony Allen, the Grizzlies' ace perimeter defender. He's made All-Defense three straight years, including the first team in the past two seasons. He's wrapping up a three-year, $9.5 million contract. The Grizzlies' old top scorer, Rudy Gay, who was traded in January, made $16.4 million just this season to score 20 points a game.

A quick look at NBA numbers bears this out. The correlation between a team's 2012-13 payroll rank and its 2012-13 offensive rank is 0.2. The correlation between payroll rank and defensive rank is -0.06. Here's a chart showing payroll and defensive ranks.

Not exactly tightly organized around a strong positive correlation.

Two notes: notice the relative lack of defensive excellence among the most expensive teams (look at you, Lakers, Nets and Knicks) and notice that the cheapest teams are typically also the worst at defense, with the Pacers and Grizzlies being exceptions. I would suggest that the worst teams in the NBA are bad on both ends and have low payrolls.

It's worth noting that during this exercise data suggested that the factor most tightly correlated with payroll is one that's not performance-based at all: it's age, which, duh, obviously. But that's a major argument for rebuilding that often isn't explicitly made: you can have a couple of years with very low expenses if you rebuild, and then the climb back to respectability can remain relatively cheap, as the young Pacers have shown.

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• Can Nerlens Noel play in the middle?

Spurs vs. Grizzlies: San Antonio needs OT, but takes 2-0 series lead

2013-05-19T16:02:17Z

The Spurs appeared to be cruising in Game 2, but the Grizzlies rallied back to force OT. No sweat. Tim Duncan scored six of his team's eight points in OT and Tony Parker added two more for the win.

Just four teams remain in the NBA playoffs, with the Western Conference represented by two if its nastiest squads -- the slowpoke grit-and-grinders on the Memphis Grizzlies, and the year-in, year-out successful San Antonio Spurs.

There's only one game on Sunday -- the days of three matchups an evening, with one relegated to NBATV, are over as fewer and fewer teams remain alive -- with the Western Conference Finals getting underway. Here's a quick look at the game:

Memphis Grizzlies at San Antonio Spurs

3:30 p.m. ET

ABC

Nobody's getting easy buckets in this one. The Grizzlies feed off the failure of opposing offenses, most recently limiting the offensive brilliance of Kevin Durant in a five-game win over the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Spurs never gave the Warriors an easy look, but Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson managed to give their team a pair of wins by spotting up 26 feet from the hoop and drilling insane shots with extreme nonchalance.

It's an underdog story. One team has won four NBA titles. The other has Zach Randolph being round and smirking.

But it's a matchup that favors the Grizzlies. Two years ago, they upset the Spurs, only the second No. 8 seed to knock off a No. 1 seed in a best-of-seven series. It's tough to get a read on the season series -- back then, the Grizzlies had Rudy Gay -- but a hard-hat mindset can do damage against Tim Duncan's picture-perfect bank shots and Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili winding into the lane for points.

Now, the two squads square off with a spot in the NBA Finals waiting for the winner. Neither has had to face a complete team yet in the playoffs. The Spurs brushed past a hapless Lakers team in an opening-round sweep, then won despite brilliance from deep by the Warriors. Memphis beat a Clippers team that was somewhat amiss, with Blake Griffin battling some type of injury, then threw everything they had at Durant and got the series win over the Thunder.

The Spurs will have their hands full down low. A once-sloggy squad now looks to win small, with Tim Duncan the primary big man, while the Grizzlies go with Randolph and Marc Gasol, each more than capable of bodying bigger guys and finessing the brains out of smaller defenders. They rebounded more of their misses than all but one team in the league, and San Antonio will have to find ways to earn defensive stops even after the Grizzlies miss their initial shot.

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