By Mike Finger | San Antonio Express-News (SAEN), 2025-05-20 16:45:14
由生成式人工智能翻译，译文内容可能不准确或不完整，以原文为准。
2025年5月12日，在芝加哥举行的NBA篮球选秀乐透抽签仪式上，一名男子观看NBA选秀乐透抽签顺序。（美联社图片/Nam Y. Huh）
起初，意识到他们无处不在，可能会让你感到震惊。在杂货店里，在健身房里，住在你的街对面，甚至可能就在你的家庭里。
你想要相信，没有一个理性的人会如此不可救药。没有人真的被迷惑到相信这种阴谋论的胡说八道。这绝不可能发生在任何你认识的人身上。
然后有一天，他们中的一个会把你拉到一边。这个人可能你最不怀疑。你会听到一个问题，让你怀疑你认识的每个人是否都失去了理智。
“嘿，”这个受过教育、看似很正常的人会说，“NBA乐透抽签是内定的，对吧？”
不知出于什么原因，人们就是想相信这一点。即使这需要极高的保密性、精密的计划，以及错综复杂的后勤运作，而NBA的负责人根本没有表现出他们有能力做到这一点。
人们就是想相信这一点，即使每次乐透抽签都由一家独立的会计师事务所监督，每个球队的代表都在场，还有来自全国各地的媒体观察员。圣安东尼奥《快报》的汤姆·奥斯本（Tom Orsborn）参加了过去三次抽签，这些抽签都有录像，任何有互联网连接的人都可以在宣布结果后一小时内观看高清视频。
但是，即使操纵一系列经过仔细称重和测量的乒乓球被吸入真空管的顺序看起来是不可能的，人们仍然想相信结果是被操纵的，尽管有真正压倒性的证据，而我们甚至还没有提到：
毕竟，如果NBA真的在操纵选秀乐透抽签，那它做得也太糟糕了。
想想看：如果联盟可以选择蒂姆·邓肯(Tim Duncan)的任何归宿，为什么要送他去圣安东尼奥？如果所有那些收视率创历史新低的，由联盟最小的市场之一参与的总决赛，是在波士顿打的，联盟会多赚多少电视转播费？你可能还记得，凯尔特人队是1997年赢得邓肯的最热门球队。
然后，在犯了一个让底线倒退了几十年的财政错误后，联盟决定在26年后用维克多·文班亚马(Victor Wembanyama)再来一次？
这看起来不像是一种非常有利可图的阴谋运作方式。过去四分之一世纪以来，据称精心策划的乐透抽签，也没有多少是这样的。
芝加哥公牛队，在迈克尔·乔丹(Michael Jordan)职业生涯结束时是世界上最受欢迎的品牌之一，如果在2002年公牛队在数学上最有机会赢得姚明的状元签时，让他们保持全球影响力，难道不是更有意义吗？
纽约尼克斯队，这支在联盟最大市场中长期受苦、长期无关紧要的球队，自从1985年得到帕特里克·尤因(Patrick Ewing)以来，难道不应该赢得至少一次他们参与的18次乐透抽签吗？纽约难道不应该最终得到像勒布朗·詹姆斯(LeBron James)，或者像凯文·杜兰特(Kevin Durant)，或者像锡安·威廉姆森(Zion Williamson)这样现成的明星吗？
如果威廉姆森和安东尼·戴维斯(Anthony Davis)都没有在新奥尔良开始他们的职业生涯，那么全联盟的电视收视率、商品销售额和赞助收入难道不会大大提高吗？
阴谋论者当然希望我们相信像鹈鹕这样的组织参与了整个阴谋。他们指出，新奥尔良在2019年赢得威廉姆森的乐透抽签，据说是为了奖励他们将戴维斯送到湖人队，就像达拉斯独行侠队赢得本月的库珀·弗拉格(Cooper Flagg)争夺战，被认为是为了一笔糟糕的交易，将卢卡·东契奇(Luka Doncic)送到洛杉矶的报酬一样。
但是，拜托，现在。如果NBA愿意付出这么多努力来保护湖人队，那么让他们赢得过去十几年里他们参加的七次乐透抽签中的一次，难道不是更有效率、更不麻烦吗？为什么不让他们在2015年选中卡尔-安东尼·唐斯(Karl-Anthony Towns)？为什么不给他们一个足够高的选秀权，让他们在2018年选择东契奇或特雷·杨(Trae Young)？
为什么要迫使独行侠总经理尼科·哈里森(Nico Harrison)看起来像个大傻瓜，然后才暴露他是一个无所不能的天才？
而且联盟办公室里的人难道不会给他一个比“防守赢得总冠军”更合理的借口来解释这个荒谬的闹剧吗？
这简直让人难以置信，竟然会有人相信这样一个荒谬、构思拙劣、毫无意义的阴谋的存在。
但他们确实存在。如果这其中有什么安慰的话？
我想这还不是他们可能相信的最疯狂的事情。
点击查看原文：An NBA Draft lottery conspiracy? It's too crazy to believe
An NBA Draft lottery conspiracy? It’s too crazy to believe
A man looks at the NBA basketball draft lottery order at the lottery in Chicago, Monday, May 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
It can be jarring at first, realizing they’re everywhere. In the grocery store. At the gym. Living right across the street. Maybe even in your own family.
You want to believe no reasonable person could be that far gone. That nobody’s really deluded enough to buy into such conspiratorial nonsense. That it never could happen to someone you know.
Then one day, one of them will pull you aside. It might be the person you’d least suspect. And you’ll be asked a question that will make you wonder if everyone you’ve ever known has lost their minds.
“Hey,” this educated, seemingly well-adjusted person will say, “the NBA lottery is fixed, right?”
For some reason, people want to believe this. People want to believe it even though it would require a level of secrecy, meticulous planning, and intricate logistical machinations the people in charge of the NBA have given no indication they’re remotely capable of pulling off.
People want to believe it even though every lottery drawing is overseen by an independent accounting firm, with representatives of every team in attendance, along with media observers from around the country. Tom Orsborn of the Express-News has been in the room for each of the last three drawings, which are videotaped and available to be watched in high-definition by anyone with an internet connection within an hour of the announcement.
But as impossible as it looks to manipulate the order in which a series of carefully weighed and measured ping pong balls get sucked into a vacuum tube, people still want to believe the outcome is rigged, even despite the truly overwhelming evidence that we haven’t even mentioned yet:
After all, if the NBA is fixing the draft lottery, it’s doing an absolutely terrible job at it.
Think about this: if the league could have chosen any destination for Tim Duncan, why would it have sent him to San Antonio? How many more millions of TV dollars would the league had collected if all of those historically low-rated Finals featuring one of the league’s smallest markets had been played in Boston instead? The Celtics, you might remember, were the odds-on favorites to win Duncan in 1997.
And then, having made one financial mistake that killed the bottom line for decades, the league decided to do it all over again 26 years later with Victor Wembanyama?
This does not seem like a very lucrative way to run a conspiracy. Nor does much else about the last quarter-century of allegedly orchestrated lottery drawings.
Wouldn’t it have made more sense to have the Chicago Bulls, one of the most popular brand names in the world by the end of Michael Jordan’s career, keep it going globally by winning the rights to Yao Ming when the Bulls had the best mathematical chance in 2002?
Shouldn’t the Knicks, a long-suffering, long-irrelevant franchise in the league’s largest market, have won at least one of the 18 lotteries they’ve been in since landing Patrick Ewing in 1985? Shouldn’t New York have ended up with ready-made celebrities like LeBron James, or like Kevin Durant, or like Zion Williamson?
Wouldn’t league-wide TV ratings, merchandise sales and sponsorship income have been vastly improved if both Williamson and Anthony Davis hadn’t started in New Orleans?
The conspiracy theorists, of course, want us to believe that organizations like the Pelicans are in on the whole scheme. They point to the fact that New Orleans won the Williamson lottery in 2019 supposedly as a reward for shipping Davis to the Lakers, just like the Mavericks won this month’s Cooper Flagg sweepstakes as an alleged payment for making a terrible deal that sent Luka Doncic to Los Angeles.
But come on, now. If the NBA was willing to jump through that many hoops to protect the Lakers, wouldn’t it have been much more efficient, and much less messy, just to let them win one of the seven lotteries they’ve been in over the past dozen years? Why not let them take Karl-Anthony Towns in 2015? Why not give them a pick high enough to choose either Doncic or Trae Young in 2018?
Why force Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison to look like a giant sucker before revealing him to be some sort of omnipotent genius?
And wouldn’t someone in the league office had given him a more plausible excuse for this ridiculous charade than “defense wins championships?”
It boggles the mind how anybody could buy into the existence of a plot that ludicrous, that poorly conceived and that pointless.
But they’re out there. And if there’s any solace in that?
I suppose it’s not the craziest thing they could believe in.
By Mike Finger, via San Antonio Express-News