Houston Rockets vs. New York Knicks game preview

It’s time for our annual “If the NBA Lottery is rigged, who is winning it?” preview. With tonight’s opponents being the NBA-worst New York Knicks, it seems like a good time for it.

Now, I’ve written this preview for a few years now and it seems safe to say that the lottery isn’t rigged. With the procedure the NBA uses and how every step is observable by the teams, it feels impossible to fix the results. The data supports it too: the last time a Los Angeles or New York team won the lottery was ten years ago when the Clippers won it. Since then, Cleveland’s won it three times, Philadelphia (a large market, for sure) twice, and a handful of smaller markets have won it as one-offs.

But facts are…