Why can't the lottery be transparent?
Is that the whole thing has been on, "Well, I am a Timberwolves fan, and my team never moves up, so we want to make sure it is not rigged." Guys, guys, guys, even if they made it transparent, would you not still than say, "well, what about all of those other times". It will never be enough. I say, some teams have had bad luck. But, you drafted Kevin Garnett 5, would you rather have had Joe Smith at 1? Anything can happen, and yes, I know Minnesota hates the lottery, but just because you hate it does not mean it is rigged. It does not happen all of the time, but hindsight shows us that the first pick does not always turn out to be the best player in the draft.
Yes, there will always be that patch of doubt tearing at your soul, but you should REALLY get over it. The NBA does not have a conspiracy against the Timberwolves, and seeing that the last time a team with the worst record in the league scored the first pick was 2004, I do not know why Timberwolves fans felt they were going to walk away with the first pick. What should happen is that your team improves, and maybe next year, they will have the 4th or 5th highest possibility and move up. Will you hate the lottery than?
Every year, we hear accusations that the lottery is rigged. As a MN fan, I find it absolutely mind-boggling that every year, despite the odds being in our favor, we've NEVER gone above our slotted position, and we've dropped position 7 or 8 times. The only time in recent memory that I can think of the worst team winning the lottery was Orlando in 2004 when they got Howard.
I'm not trying to accuse the NBA of rigging the lottery, even though it may be my gut feeling as a Wolves fan. Here's my question. If there's such widespread accusations of the lottery being rigged, why not actually do the lottery in front of everyone, rather than having it being done in a back room, where only one person knows the results? I feel like that would erase so much skepticism and restore some credibility to the process.