Next Tuesday the NBA draft lottery goes down, and with it, the hopes and dreams of nearly half the league’s fan bases. Some people think the draft is an open and honest random drawing. Some people think it’s a total fix, rigged by the league and it’s business interests.
The truth is, it’s the karma, stupid. Every franchise has skeletons in their closets, just as every franchise has been wronged in some way. Skeletons + grievances + ping pong balls = cosmic justice. Let’s look at this year’s lottery wannabes’ recent history, recent karma, and the likelihood of them moving on up or not; the number in parentheses is how many balls that franchise has.