CHICAGO — “We’re going to get this ball rolling,” said Jamin Dershowitz, the NBA’s assistant general counsel, an unintentional pun that kicked off one of the league’s most elaborate—and perhaps a little absurd—postseason events. The NBA draft lottery has been around since 1985, back when David Stern, annoyed at a handful of teams openly losing to secure a better place in the draft order, pushed through a new system. It has evolved since then, from envelopes to ping pong balls, weighted odds to flatter ones, but for nearly four decades the lottery has been a big night on the NBA calendar.
Here’s how it works: Fourteen ping pong balls are slid into a plastic container and sent into motion by air pumped through the bottom. The balls—each one weighed, measured and certified by SmartPlay, a lottery integrity company and sealed in a zip tied case—are inserted one at a time by Peter Rosenbaum, a partner at Ernst & Young. There are 1,001 possible four-digit combinations, with the three teams with the worst record—Orlando, Houston and Detroit—getting 140 apiece. The drawing itself is carefully curated: each ball is vacuumed out at precise ten-second intervals, prompted by an NBA official standing on the opposite side of the room—with his back turned.
It's just after 5:30 CT when the doors to the drawing room, located this year inside the McCormack Place Convention Center are flung open. Each team sends in one representative. They range from high ranking executives (New Orleans’s David Griffin, Washington’s Tommy Sheppard) to behind the scenes staffers (Clay Allen, the Rockets General Counsel, John Kehriotis, one of Sacramento’s minority owners). For years the NBA has allowed a few members of the media—SI was one of them—in to observe. Electronic devices, from cell phones to digital recorders, are checked at the door. Byron Spruell, the president of league operations, emcees the event, which is overseen by members of NBA security.
