Not only was the 2012 NBA Draft Lottery fixed, and OBVIOUSLY SO, but most of the rest of the owners pretty much were resigned to the fact that it happened!
Why else would the top three picks, including Anthony Davis (Freshman Phenom, One-And-Done U), go to:
#1 pick: The team owned by the NBA and about to be sold to Saints owner Tom Benson
#2 pick: The team supposedly ran by basketball (false-)God (and harbinger of the Corporate Era of (Rigged) Sports) Michael Jordan
#3 pick: The last team Jordan played for
So, why would it surprise anyone that Wojnarowski would write this today?
""It's such a joke that the league made the new owners be at the lottery for the show," one high-ranking team executive told Yahoo! Sports. "The league still owns the Hornets. Ask their front office if new owners can make a trade right now. They can't. This is a joke."
The reaction of several league executives was part disgust, part resignation on Wednesday night. So many had predicted this happening, so many suspected that somehow, someway, the Hornets would walk away with Davis. That's the worst part for the NBA; these aren't the railings from the guy sitting at the corner tavern, but the belief of those working within the machinery that something undue happened here, that they suspect it happens all the time under Stern."
Happens all the time? Like in 1985, when the league openly rigged the first Draft Lottery to make "basketball [is] back in New York!" with Patrick Ewing?
Or how about these statements, the last (supposedly) by an NBA team president:
"In New Orleans this season, everyone followed orders. The Hornets feared crossing Stern could cost them not only jobs with the Hornets, but futures in the NBA. They ate that trade for Chris Paul to the Lakers, and dutifully sold the commissioner's story that it was never agreed upon, never completed. The Hornets played Darryl Watkins, Jerome Dyson and Lance Thomas 41-plus minutes in the final game of the season in an 84-77 loss to Houston. They played them until the Hornets bottomed out with six points in the fourth quarter of the loss that left them at 21-45 for the season.
"I bet I could get my owner to tank if I knew the chance of getting the No. 1 pick was 100 percent," an NBA team president said in an email."
And that was just the rig-job the NBA did OFF the court.
It's now clear to me that the NBA wants the Anti-Heroes From Miami in the Finals again. In a 115-111 overtime victory to put the Heat two games away from achieving just that over the Boston Celtics:
- The foul count was 33-18 against Boston.
- Miami had 47 free-throw attempts, to Boston's 29
- Miami needed them all: For the game, they only shot 66% from the line while Boston shot nearly 90%!
- Miami only scored five more points from the line (31-26) for the game. They won by four in overtime.
Rajon Rondo drives the lane and clearly, even in the long shot, gets hacked down in the back of the shoulder in the act of shooting.
Maybe it was the four technicals that Boston got called for in Game One that was why there wasn't much complaining.
You can clearly see the foul, even in the long shot (:08-:11), but an even worse one on the replay, as Rondo gets a shot from Dwayne Wade right in the face.
There can be no dispute in these playoffs. Dwayne Wade has taken dirty play to a new level, especially as what now (with the Lakers and Bulls gone) is his status as the most protected player in the NBA.
Pull the other one, $tern. I'm not fooled.
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