NBA draft lottery’s real problem revealed after Duke Blue Devils basketball phenom Cooper Flagg lands on Mavs

The NBA draft lottery delivered jaw-dropping results on Monday night. Duke Blue Devils basketball phenom Cooper Flagg found out his future destination, and to some NBA fans, it’s the most obnoxious one possible in the hypothetical scenario that the draft lottery is rigged:

The Dallas Mavericks, who just conveniently traded franchise star Luka Doncic in a seemingly wildly one-sided deal with the Los Angeles Lakers.

While some scoff at the idea that the results were legitimate, and others scoff at those scoffs, PhillyVoice’s Adam Aaronson provided clarity on the situation.

Aaronson explained the process by which the results are real, but explained that the real problem with not seeding the draft on records is that the losing teams will do anything to avoid a low playoff seed and have a shot at the top pick.

“The lottery is not rigged. I promise this is the case no matter how easy it is to fall into the conspiracy theories making the rounds in regards to Dallas landing Cooper Flagg. The NBA conducts the lottery drawing in front of representatives from each NBA team for the specific purpose of guaranteeing integrity. That drawing is recorded and posted online immediately after the results are revealed,” Aaronson wrote, providing a link to the drawing.

“However, the NBA does have a real problem with its new lottery format, where the odds have been flattened to such a degree that these massive jumps are becoming routine. The NBA claimed to be solving the tanking issue with this change, but all it has done is provide more incentive to bad teams to tank as opposed to just the absolute worst ones. It has made the league's competitive imbalance issue far more significant, because it is becoming much harder for teams to rebuild through the draft.

“And, in addition to opening the door for more teams to consider tanking, the worst teams will far more often find themselves in painfully long, multi-year tanks that could be over with had the team drafted a superstar-caliber player earlier on. It is a total mess and was never going to work the way the NBA claimed it would.”

The worst part about Aaronson’s point is that the Mavericks were guilty of this not long ago. After landing Kyrie Irving at the 2023 trade deadline, Dallas lost out on a play-in game spot in unfathomable fashion. By the following June, they were in the Finals.

Rinse and repeat in 2025 and 2026?

Nico Harrison may have finessed, or failed upward, into the Mavs becoming a record yo-yo by exploiting the NBA draft lottery’s flaws as the Washington Wizards, Charlotte Hornets, and Portland Trail Blazers of the world continue to miss out on franchise talent.