JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
A 1 in 55 chance - those were about the odds that the Dallas Mavericks had in last night's NBA draft lottery to win the top overall pick.
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BRIAN WINDHORST: Bro.
MALIKA ANDREWS: Brian has said...
WINDHORST: That is...
ANDREWS: ...Bro more than I've ever heard him say it tonight.
WINDHORST: That is the craziest set of circumstances. I cannot believe it went out like that.
SUMMERS: Well, Dallas did win the pick, leaving a whole lot of people, like ESPN's Brian Windhorst, absolutely shocked. The Mavericks are now set up real nice for this summer's draft, but some fans are wondering, was it good luck, or was it something else altogether? NPR sports correspondent Becky Sullivan is here to tell us all about it. Hi there.
BECKY SULLIVAN, BYLINE: (Laughter) Hi, Juana.
SUMMERS: All right, Becky. I mean, there are a whole lot of NBA fans out there...
SULLIVAN: Sure.
SUMMERS: ...Online, and they're crying rigged over the past 24 hours.
SULLIVAN: Sure.
SUMMERS: So please help us understand why did the Mavs winning the top pick prompt that response?
SULLIVAN: Well, I think you alluded to it with the odds. You know, the way the NBA draft lottery works is that every team who didn't make the playoffs has a shot at winning the top overall pick, but your chances go down the better a team you are. So, like, the worst teams have the biggest chance, and the team that barely missed the playoffs, they have the smallest odds. Well, that was the Mavs. And they only had a 1.8 chance, as you heard, of winning that top pick. And yet, their number came up. How lucky for them.
SUMMERS: How lucky indeed. Then there's the context that we just have to get into here, and that is the Luka trade.
SULLIVAN: Exactly. Yeah. So sort of big picture, before the season started, it would have been a surprise that the Mavs were even in contention for the lottery because they were one of the best teams in the league last year. They went to the NBA finals, and that was thanks, of course, to the play of their superstar Luka Doncic. This past February, the Mavs stunned the sports world by trading Luka, who was only 25 at the time, to the Los Angeles Lakers. In return, they got Anthony Davis, who is also a great player, but he's older. He has a lengthy injury history. And so this trade was widely viewed as a gigantic mistake for Dallas. Fans were calling for their GM to be fired.
Yet here the Mavs are now, just a few months later, sitting pretty with the top overall pick in their hands because of this lottery. It's expected that they'll take the Duke freshman phenom Cooper Flagg, who is regarded as basically one of the best draft prospects of the past decade or so, so just an incredible stroke of luck for the Mavs who seemed to have fumbled away their generational player.
SUMMERS: I mean, look, Becky, I have to ask you this question. Perhaps it's unanswerable...
SULLIVAN: (Laughter).
SUMMERS: ...But is the NBA rigged?
SULLIVAN: I mean, I think, no, right?
SUMMERS: (Laughter).
SULLIVAN: I think people like to think so...
SUMMERS: Right.
SULLIVAN: ...Because there is, like, a little bit of a history now of these sort of, like, narratively pitch-perfect draft lottery picks. So just, like, for one example, you had the Chicago Bulls getting the draw in 2008 with a 1.7% chance, when this hometown player Derrick Rose was up for grabs. I mean, there's, like, a few other examples like that. But the lottery is conducted with representatives for all those teams and members of the media present. There's also somebody from an independent accounting firm - Ernst & Young - there to oversee the whole thing. So I don't think it's rigged.
But I think basketball, as a sport, is a little prone to these accusations because there is a history of some scandals involving individual refs or individual players betting on games they were involved in. But I think big picture, like a lot of things in our society these days, the sports fan sort of social media world has become a hotbed of conspiratorial thinking. A boom in sports gambling has not helped - not limited to the NBA, of course. It's across all sports.
SUMMERS: You know, I love a good conspiracy. Meanwhile, Becky, we cannot forget the NBA playoffs are going on too.
SULLIVAN: True. Yeah. So that's an important counterpoint to the rigged narrative, I must say, Juana, because we've got small market teams thriving here, and that's the opposite of what you'd imagine. If you believed the conspiracy-minded folks, you've got the Pacers looking great. You have the Timberwolves looking great. Both of those teams are up 3 games to 1 in their respective series. Neither of them have ever won a title. And the Thunder - Oklahoma City Thunder looking great too. So that kind of parity is great for the league, great for fans, and nothing to be conspiratorial about.
SUMMERS: Lots to be excited about, though. That is NPR's Becky Sullivan. Thank you.
SULLIVAN: You're so welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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