ya, exactly, it's a two part question that never seems to be answered 1) why would the NBA risk their entire business over this 2) Why would the NBA pick the Mavericks over the half of dozen other teams that would have net them even more money if they rigged the odds that direction
Right, it would be more lucrative to have it be Chicago or Miami or Philadelphia, if you’re gonna rig it you’re not gonna rig it so the teams that have the best chance are the Mavs, Kings and Spurs.
ya exactly, you could have easily rigged it for 5+ more years of Embiid/76ers/Flagg hype in one of the biggest cities in the country.
This is where I say it wasn’t rigged for a specific outcome, but rather that scales were tipped. By having certain numbers come up first this year, you get teams like Philly (big market, East coast) Dallas (big market), Spurs (Wemby) instead of Utah, Charlotte, or the Wizards.
Why rig it? Because you don’t want the next crop of young stars wasted in markets that don’t give a shit, or on teams that are incompetent.
I would say that Charlotte and the Wizards deserve to be rigged against, can you imagine if they played in the West? Drought would be 50 years.
Anytime you can screw over Danny Ainge I’m in favor of it.
ah, so basically you only have to rig 2 of the balls to guarantee a "good" pay out for one of the bigger market teams
Same for games. I don’t think the league rigs games or series. But I think they tip the scales toward desired outcomes with who they assign to each game. Rigging specific outcomes is hard. Tipping scales a little, you might not always get the outcome you want, but it’s easier and helps the league.
“Why risk it? Why would teams be complicit?” Because money. The rising tides lifts all boats. We know damn well Vivek is ok with not being a true contender if it helps him save some money.
this is at least a more logical approach to rigging games, because you aren't talking about complete hijacks, you're talking about taking advantage of situations to nudge outcomes towards more profits. That is something I can at least see logic behind
I still think there’s too many variables. The players still have to commit fouls and make shots.
That’s why I say it’s a tipped scale, not a fixed outcome. A favorable whistle gives you more free throws. You still have to make the shots, you still have to play well and win, but you’ve got an advantage.
But again why tip those scales to Dallas as opposed to New York, Philly, LA, SF etc. the final four is about to be Denver/OKC, Minnesota, NY/Boston and Indiana that’s not the final four of a league that is trying to influence things for the big markets.
but this is where this explanation would actually cover this scenario. It's not that it was tipped towards Dallas, it'd be that it was tipped towards ALL of them
Well I’m more talking about the games but even in a draft the teams at the bottom of the lottery this year were San Antonio, Atlanta, Sacramento and Dallas, maybe Atlanta/Dallas is a big enough market that you want to influence it a little but I just don’t buy it.
I do too, but those are just situations where your 'nudge' didn't work and you chalk it up to next time. If you keep it to even just calling certain game with predisposed biases it can help nudge games certain directions. It's just not fool proof and you won't always get the outcome you'd want
We’ve seen tons of retired players talk about the way different teams are whistled. We know it’s a thing. Any team can win any game, but it’s going to be harder for some than others.
we can see it with our own eyes that teams are officiating differently. The Warriors haven't set a legal screen since my children were born for example. What does that fall in to though? I'm not entirely sure I consider it rigging
Unconscious bias. Which, to Greg's point, might be impacting the lottery. Most of the issues with the lottery can be resolved by abolishing it and just ranking the top picks by worst record, but that wouldn't generate the sort of internet content everyone craves.
completely agree, I think you should average out team records over the last 3 seasons and then just reverse order them. That way you if you're going to tank, you have to commit to the bit. One bad year from a team with an injury doesn't sky rocket them to #1 either
without saying it is rigged or isn't rigged, we had a ref come out and say 2002 was fixed and pretty much nobody cares.
To be fair it was just the games he reffed that were fixed and even those were only partially fixed.
he said (and yes it is totally reasonable to also start with your narrative and work backwards to claim it) that certain refs like Dick Bavetta were fixers. There's always been 1 or 2 refs I suspect are sus. It would make sense to have them and just be like "oh bad ref" if anything ever went down.
Sure we always think that there’s refs that are biased and there is inherent unconscious bias that refs have against players and coaches and teams. That said I don’t think any ref is making sure a certain team is winning or losing they’re just trying to make sure a team wins or loses by more or less
Essentially no different than MAGA Porter Jr's brother point shaving. It's less about the winner/loser of the game, more about hitting the payouts
Right the Refs (of that period) don’t care if the Lakers win they care if the Lakers cover. But that never came from the league.
I think the league cared less about the Lakers winning than they wanted the best rivalry/matchup in the postseason to go 7 games.
But at least with this conspiracy theory, there's monetary logic behind it. You can track something that we know is the driving factor of the NBA, money, and explain why it is in the leagues best interest to make the most watched series of the entire playoffs go 7 games.
You can't do this with Dallas. There's a monetary path to far more money with other teams that had better odds than them
Rigging the draft for Patrick Ewing like @fredsmith.bsky.social brought up has a monetary trail that makes it makes a shit ton of sense. Especially given the state of the NBA as a whole at that time, they were in a lull behind Bird/Magic
I am personally of the belief that there is some fire behind his smoke, but I don't take his accounts as accurate. I would be interested to hear someone else speak off record on what was actually happening
and it appeared that this was the refs themselves acting as individuals to rig games for their own benefits, so even with his comments, it's not really an NBA league wide push
Yeah the league wasn’t telling the referees to influence the games. The refs were making bets and then point shaving so those bets would pay off. At most they were only trying to influence the spreads not the actual outcomes.
which if it's a directive from anyone here it'd be Vegas, the NBA wouldn't give a shit about spread covers
in fairness, that dude is a fucking jack ass. I do think refs were betting and rigging games, but I wouldn't listen to a damn word Donahue says. He's full of shit and loves attention.