Dear Adam Silver: Don’t ruin the Detroit Pistons night again

How other NBA teams seem to get lottery luck, unlike the Detroit Pistons

There seems to be a strange coincidental undercurrent in the NBA Draft Lottery

Anthony Davis is leaving a weak franchise in New Orleans? Here, have a Zion Williamson! The Timberwolves are about to go on sale? Here is another No. 1 pick, go have an Anthony Edwards! LeBron left you Cleveland? Here is  Kyrie Irving for you!

Other coincidences were the Bulls flying up on a 1.7 percent chance to get Derrick Rose, and the Cavs seemingly winning every draft lottery in a row from 2011-2014.

Those were the times in which many think the lottery was rigged actually but with no proof, there have been multiple times with legitimate proof.

Most famously is the dented and frozen envelope that gave Patrick Ewing to the Knicks in 1985, but, more recently, was when LaVar Ball said that Magic Johnson “guaranteed” him that the Lakers would have a top 3 pick. In addition to this, Dikembe Mutombo tweeted out a celebration of the 76ers winning the draft lottery many hours before the lottery was to air.

Officially this is a satirical article, but if the lottery can be rigged, here’s my case to the lottery gods, and Adam Silver to help out the Detroit Pistons.

What are the Detroit Pistons’ lottery odds?

Looking at the lottery standings, going into June 22nd, the order is as follows, #1 Houston and #3 Orlando each have a 14 percent chance at the top overall pick (along with #2 Detroit), #4 Oklahoma City and #5 Cleveland each have a 11.5 percent chance, #6 Minnesota has a 9 percent chance (pick goes to GSW unless top 3), #7 Toronto has a 7.5 percent chance, #8 Chicago (pick goes to ORL unless top 4), #9 Sacramento, and #10 New Orleans each have a 4.5 percent chance.

And then there are the long shots: #11 Charlotte has a 1.8 percent chance, #12 San Antonio 1.7 percent, #13 Indiana 1 percent, and #14 Golden State has 0.5 percent chance.

As I’m sure you all know by now, the Pistons have the following odds for each draft position: pick 1: 14%, pick 2: 13.4%, pick 3: 12.7%, pick 4: 11.9%, pick 5: 27.8%, and pick 6: 20.1%.

Every jaded Piston fan, like myself, surely did the same thing that I did and just looked straight at the 20.1 percent for pick 6 and said to themselves, “Yup, who is available at pick 6” knowing that we will inevitably be screwed and fall to pick 6.

At least Detroit can not fall back to its usual No. 7 draft position, as they can not fall back worse than sixth.

But enough with the odds, and percentages, let’s assume the lottery can be rigged and that we need to provide Commissioner Silver an explanation for why we, the Detroit Pistons, deserve the top pick in this years’ draft and get a potential franchise player and generational talent in Cade Cunningham.

The main suitors that will try and take Cade away from us  will probably be the Houston Rockets.

In recent memory, the team that loses their franchise player has very conveniently won the lottery the year of/after every time, and with the Rockets trading James Harden, the league would love to keep Houston relevant and gift them Cunningham.

Houston was absolutely horrific this season and I believe they sealed their fate by choosing to take Victor Oladipo over Caris LeVert. They first traded Harden to the Nets for Caris LeVert, Dante Exum, Rodions Kurucs, four first round picks (2022, 2024, 2026 from Brooklyn and 2022 from Milwaukee), and four pick swaps (all with Brooklyn in 2021, 2023, 2025, and 2027).

After that, they further traded Oladipo to Miami for Kelly Olynyk, Avery Bradley, and the right to swap picks in 2022.

So let me summarize this for you: James Harden, one of the best players of our generation and two-time MVP was traded for cap space, pick swaps that won’t be needed most likely, and four picks likely in the 25-30 range. That pitiful of a haul should lead to the Rockets not being able to win the draft lottery if you ask me.

(It could have worse for Houston, the 76ers offered Ben Simmons as part of a Harden trade)

The second most likely winners are the Cleveland Cavaliers, Oklahoma City Thunder, and Orlando Magic, and for these three, there are a couple of reasons why not they get the lucky envelope.

The Cavaliers are in the top of the lottery every time and they keep screwing everything up. If they didn’t have LeBron James, it could be argued that they would be one of the most irrelevant franchises of all-time.

The Oklahoma City Thunder have seemingly every single first-round pick in the next few drafts so they will win at least one of the next few seasons, c’mon, let us have this one.

For the Magic, they have just started their rebuild, have a solid young core as it is, and will be in the lottery for the next year or two, then be a legit contender, if you ask me.

The next batch of teams include some teams that would make me throw the remote at my television if they won the lottery.

Those teams would be the Pelicans, Raptors, and Timberwolves.

The Pelicans did give the boot to ex-Piston coach and GM Stan Van Gundy who hurt this franchise for years to come with his horrific front office skills.  But they have a roster loaded with talented, young players, yet continue to miss the playoffs and under-perform year after year.

The Timberwolves are in a similar situation to the Pelicans in terms of too many cooks in the kitchen. If they were to get a top three pick eve, they would have to pick yet another ball dominant guard or center Evan Mobley with Karl-Anthony Towns on the roster.

Finally, the Raptors won a title two years ago and them winning the lottery is too much happiness for me, it’s as simple as that. In that same general lottery odds area are the Bulls and the Kings, who I can’t fathom would draft a point guard in Cade Cunningham due to Zach LaVine and De’Aaron Fox respectively.

Now for the case for why the Pistons deserve the lottery.