We've seen teams make big jumps before in the latest itereation of the draft lottery odds structure - namely the Hawks just last year jumped up with nearly as low odds as this. The Hawks of course did so in a year with one of the least interesting draft classes in ages. This year obviously isn't like taht, with the presence of Cooper Flagg. But more than Cooper Flagg - the real noise is the Mavericks of all teams pulling this off.
The Mavericks have been laughing stocks of the league for three months now, from the second that Nico Harrison traded Luka Doncic at midnight on a Saturday to the Lakers. It was an inexplicable trade, one that over the weeks seem to be just a trade made of out pure spite fueling a rash, hasty decision by an executive over his head. It was so braindead, it brought out a whole bunch of other conspiracy theories - such as it was a way to intentionally tank fan interest so the Adelson family could move the team to Las Vegas. Again, that isn't true, but that even somehow seemed more plausible than Nico spite trading Luka.
It continued to make less and less sense as the Mavs had Anthony Davis get hurt, as Kyrie tore his ACL, as Nico Harrison embarrassed himself time after time every time he opened his mouth - from his repeated "defense wins championships", to his bizarre rational that this was about making a 3-4 year window better. All of his explanations were junk. The trade was a mess. Dallas was rioting. And here we are, three months later, and the Mavs get Cooper Flagg to build around and build back to relevance. And while that shouldn't make Nico Harrison's decision any less stupid, but it makes the chance he survives a lot more realistic.
It was so ridiculous that the team that became a laughinsgstock, that was ruining basketball's reputation in a major market, just gets to now reset with Flagg. It's a lot more important he makes Dallas relevant again and saves a franchise spiraling into failure, than it is Flagg make a market like Charlotte, or Utah, more relevant. And I should note here, what I definitely do not believe is that the league somehow convinced Nico to trade Luka to the Lakers. No, I think Nico made that dreadful decision all by himself. But I do think there is like a 25% the league decided to give him a get out of jail free card.
There is just too many cases of this now. The Pelicans trade Anthony Davis to the Lakers - they get the #1 pick in the Zion Williamson draft that summer. How did the Pelicans get Anthony Davis? Oh, taht's because they got the #1 pick his draft year, which happened to be after they traded Chris Paul away to the Clippers. The Ewing thing has been covered enough - but how about the Bulls jumping up in the draft teh year hometown hero Derrick Rose is the #1 pick, or the Rockets getting it the year University of Houston legend Hakeem is the presumptive #1 pick. It goes on and on a bit - the generational prospects never end up the league's weirder outposts. Other than LeBron James ending up in Cleveland... where of course he is from that area.
Well, maybe you can count the Cavs winning the lottery in Kyrie's draft year as a superstar prospect going to an outpost, and of course that was the year after the Cavs lost LeBron. It just happens way too often to make sense. There are just too many cases of generational prospects ending up in big markets, or as "make goods" for downtrodden teams (but again, fuck off Charlotte and Utah - no handouts for you ever).
In the end, I'm probably wrong, but the NBA has a bigger problem because many are thinking like me. Hell, active players were tweeting out disgust, stopping just short from calling things rigged. This isn;t good for the league. Worst case, they rig the draft lottery. Best case, they've created a lottery odds system that just flatout doesn't work. The NBA can exist because stars will keep them relevant, but at the end of the day, they have a giant problem on their hands - one that Cooper Flagg making Dallas a good market again won't paper over enough.
