According to Steve Czaban of Fox Sports the 1985 NBA lottery was rigged so that the Nicks would pick first and thus select Patrick Ewing in order to save their ailing franchise. Czaban bases this on the fourth envelope placed in the hopper, he claims it was placed in differntly than the other six envelopes and in fact was "marked" or "dog eared" by striking it on the side of the hopper. You be the judge: [MEDIA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TgJE7C5wiU[/MEDIA]
It would appear he banged it against the hopper. It's also weird that when the guy picks the first envelope he is looking in the hopper, but for the rest he almost makes it a point not to. It would seem that they would all get "dog eared" when they spun the hopper though.
bill simmons from espn.com has been talking about this for years. i actually looked at it yesterday b/c he recently posted a link to it. simmons interviewed david stern at some point last year and jokingly (sort of) asked about it. it definitely seems that even through the poor quality of the video that the knicks envelope was creased and that the guy from ernst and whoever it was back then, banged the envelope on the side of the drum. i'm not really a sports conspiracy theory kinda guy but this one's got some legs. trust no one:shock:
It looked as if it would be hard for Stern to see which one it was that quick. However, he knows that in order for his league to be successful the big markets have to be successful.
Yea. The fourth envelope he throws in is thrown in different than the others ("knicks" the side?)..and the time refrenced shows a crease!
