"After canceling the 2004-05 season, the NHL was faced with a choice: slot teams in the order they finished the '03-04 season, or improvise a weighted lottery system that gives each team a shot at landing the No. 1 pick.

The NHL elected to use a lottery and cooked up a creative solution. The amount of lottery balls a team had was based on two criteria: the number of times a team made the playoffs the last three seasons and the number of times a team had drafted No. 1 in the previous three drafts. Using that model, four teams each had three of the 48 balls in the bin. Ten teams had two balls and 16 had one.

Should the NBA adopt a similar system, it would be weighted like this:

Three balls: Minnesota, Golden State, New Jersey, Toronto, Sacramento."

Wellesley High senior point guard Cooper Ainge decided on Monday night to accept a preferred walk-on role for Brigham Young University, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.

Ainge is the son of former BYU standout and current Boston Celtics President Danny Ainge. The younger Ainge is expected to play -- possibly redshirt -- one year with the Cougars before embarking on an LDS Church mission.

"Brigham Young University today announced that Brandon Davies has been readmitted to the university and has enrolled for classes for fall semester 2011. With his readmission to the university, Davies has been reinstated on the BYU men's basketball team."

Congrats to the Kings' 2011 lottery selection. Also of note, Dirk Nowitzki won "Best NBA Player" and the Giants' Brian Wilson wore a spandex tuxedo to the event.

"This is the story of a celebration. An entire upstate New York community gets together to show their pride. A Division 1 basketball team from the other side of the country takes part in a celebratory game in honor of a hometown hero.

This is the story of how determination, hard work and a strong faith can help make dreams come true. It’s a return to old-fashioned principles, family values and the idea that it takes an entire community to raise a child.

This is a story about a region where people really care. Where hometown pride is prevalent and folks stand together for what is truly good and honest. Where residents never cease to show their generosity and never forget how to have fun in the process.

It’s a classic story about 'Hometown USA', a native son, and a trip back home."

Above is the Yahoo! Sports link to this story from a few months back. Here is ESPN's coverage. I bring this up because, should the Kings select Fredette on Thursday night, I expect a legendary STR thread full of clever photoshopping and witty comments;)

Post by "Eutychus," one of the "staff writers" at SBN blog "Bright Side of the Sun."

In an effort to provide STR with more background on Fredette, here is a classy special from Fredette's hometown newspaper in preparation for his special homecoming back on December 8, 2010. The Cougars played Vermont and defeated the Catamounts in the Glen Falls Civic Center. (Fredette had 26 and 5.)

"A fly over league is a term that needs to be defined.

This seems to be the best definition. The NBA may become a league of just major cities with three teams in New York – Manhattan’s Knicks, Brooklyn’s Nets and a small market team moving to Newark. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has already told NBA Commissioner David Stern that Newark is open for NBA business as soon as the Nets franchise moves over to Brooklyn. New Jersey Devils owner Jeffrey Vanderbeek wants an NBA team in his Newark building. Three teams in the Los Angeles area, two teams in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The Sacramento Kings owners, the Maloof brothers, have toyed with the idea of moving their franchise to Anaheim to give Los Angeles three teams, the Lakers and Clippers along with the proposed Anaheim Royals. Sacramento officials are scrambling to find hundreds of millions of dollars to build the Maloofs a new arena despite proposed layoffs of municipal workers along with the shut downs of public parks and scaling back of educational opportunities from kindergarten through 12th grade."

Of note for the No. 7 Pick: 5 - Knight; 12 - Fredette; 13 - Walker; 15 - Singleton; 20 - T. Thompson; 21 - Burks; 34 - Kanter; 39 - Marcus Morris; and 41 - Leonard.

1. Enes Kanter - "...there's no way he'll last until the sixth pick, [the Wizards will] have to move up to get him, and the most likely spot would be two [Minnesota]."

2. Brandon Knight - "solidified his top-10 status in the workouts and wowed several teams in the interview sessions."

3. Tristan Thompson - "Measured 6-foot-8 3/4, and is rising quickly up Draft charts, despite his relative inexperience."

4. Jimmer Fredette - "...was confident without being cocky, a better athlete than people think and possesses ridiculous range."

"The NBA proposed to the players’ union last month a version of the "franchise tag" that it wants to include in the next collective bargaining agreement, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The tag, however, would be very different from the NFL’s version, which allows a team to essentially block one of its free agents from entering the market by binding him to his incumbent team with a one-year contract that carries a high salary based on various parameters.

The system the league has presented would not work this way, according to sources. Instead, a team would be allowed to designate one player for preferential contractual treatment, including more overall money, more guaranteed money and at least one extra year on his contract. A player would have to agree to such a designation. It is designed to work as an incentive to get a player to remain with his team rather than as a roadblock to free agency, the sources said." - Zach Lowe, Sports Illustrated

Noteworthy "off-court" incentive to NBA teams (probably in the late-lottery at this point) considering Fredette...