CHICAGO — Mavericks assistant general manager Michael Finley showed little emotion as executives for 14 non-playoff teams, a gaggle of reporters and a handful of NBA officials huddled Tuesday night outside a discreet, security laden room where the league’s future hung in the pre-draft lottery balance.
Feeling nervous?
“What can I do?” he responded.
Bring any good luck charms? The Orlando Magic’s chief communications officer, Joel Glass, carried a plastic black case with the franchise’s past lottery-winning ping pong balls.
Finley shrugged and pulled at the collar of his blazer.
“Just me.”
Luckily, the Mavericks didn’t need anything more.
The Dallas Morning News was one of several outlets granted access to the NBA’s secluded, spoiler-free lottery drawing room Tuesday in the McCormick Place convention center.
About 50 people gathered in the windowless first-floor room to learn who would land the rights to consensus No. 1 pick Victor Wembanyama — and in the Mavericks’ case, whether they would keep their top-10 protected pick from going to the Knicks — about an hour before the rest of the world learned the results on ESPN.
A few minutes before San Antonio’s managing partner, Peter Holt, erupted in jubilation as the winner, the reverse-order reveal on stage included Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison looking stoic despite his satisfaction that the Mavericks would remain at No. 10.
But behind-the-scenes details of the most anticipated lottery drawing since LeBron James’ 2003 draft class included dramatic twists, a few missteps and much anxiety, albeit disguised.
“It seems boring from the outside looking in, but when I was playing, I was curious what happened in the back room,” Finley said. “It’s not as boring as Bingo on a Sunday.”
A week before the lottery, the NBA sent instructions to those selected to enter the secretive drawing room, including a few notes in bold and underlined letters:
•It is imperative that you are on time.
•There are no electronic devices allowed in the Drawing Room.
•You are only able to bring a pen/pencil and notebook into the Drawing Room.
That’s why all attendees arrived outside the room just after 5:30 p.m. and waited about 15 minutes to individually sign away and seal in envelopes their phones, laptops, smart watches, recorders and anything else that could facilitate contact with the outside world.
Through the metal detectors inside, the league arranged 14 chairs for team representatives. The top six lottery participants sat at the front table, the next four on the first riser — including Finley at the far left — and the final four on a second riser.
At the front of the room: Two spotlights shined on a glass, air-fueled drum created by lottery facilitator Smartplay and a briefcase of ping-pong balls, labeled 1 through 14.
To the right: an easel with a pad of paper to manually track the numbers called out.
To the left: eight posters with all possible lottery number combinations.
The NBA determines each of the top four draft slots by selecting four ping pong balls apiece. With 14 balls in the mix, that makes a maximum of 1,001 combinations — 1,000 of which the league assigns to teams based on their allotted percentage chance at winning the No. 1 overall pick.
The worst three teams by record — Detroit, San Antonio and Houston — earned the highest odds (14%) for No. 1, so the NBA assigned each of them 140 four-number ball combinations. The Mavericks’ 10th-worst record netted them a 3% chance at No. 1, so they held 30 combinations.
Each team representative received an eight-page packet with all combinations before an official from the NBA’s legal department announced each ball as he placed it in the glass drum.
Upon signal from an NBA events timekeeper — who turned his back from the drawing to not compromise the integrity — air flushed into the drum to mix the ping pong balls for 20 seconds. When the timekeeper raised his hand, the legal official drew the first ball.
14.
He then mixed the remaining 13 balls for 10 seconds before selecting another.
5.
Another 10 seconds of mixing the remaining 12.
8.
Another 10 seconds of mixing the remaining 11.
2.
A few seconds of silence ensued before a league official found the winner who held the 14-5-8-2 combination:
“San Antonio.”
Welcome to the Spurs, Victor Wembanyama.
San Antonio general manager Brian Wright barely blinked until Houston Rockets general counsel Clay Allen turned to shake his hand.
After drawing the combination for the first pick, officials had to announce three more to determine the top four slots before seeding the remaining 11 teams in reverse record order.
Well, consider San Antonio extra lucky on Tuesday, because officials had to repeat the same steps, at the same pace, another six times.
The second combination drawn — 7-3-5-4 — netted the Charlotte Hornets the No. 2 pick despite entering with just the fourth-best odds.
Then the Portland Trail Blazers jumped from fifth to the No. 3 pick when the 11-3-9-6 combination came out next.
But the combination for the fourth overall pick — 13-14-1-11 — was another one for San Antonio.
Scan past this sentence, Mavericks fans, if it will hurt to know they came oh-so-close to lottery history: Had the third ball been six instead of one, Dallas would’ve landed pick No. 4.
Officials reshuffled and drew 3-4-9-7 — for Charlotte again.
They reshuffled and drew 2-12-7-3 — for San Antonio again.
That time, Wright broke form and laughed. Finley leaned back in his chair and shook his head.
Finally: 7-14-4-1 for Houston to receive the No. 4 pick.
Throughout the drawings, Finley projected a calm presence. He jotted down the numbers as they were called while propping up his chin with his left hand.
He kept hoping for smaller numbers. Because the NBA assigns the combinations in numeric order — 1-2-3-4 for record-worst Detroit, for instance — Finley knew low numbers would favor the teams already ahead of the Mavericks, if they couldn’t be for Dallas itself.
Had one of the bottom four lottery teams — No. 11 Chicago, No. 12 Oklahoma City, No. 13 Toronto and No. 14 New Orleans — jumped ahead of Dallas, the Mavericks couldn’t have finished better than No. 11. Then, the Knicks would have owned their pick and squashed their hopes of likely using the top-10 selection as a trade chip.
After the Houston reading, Finley leaned back again, smiled and chatted briefly with Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith.
“Considering the worst that could’ve happened didn’t happen,” Finley said, “we’re good.”
Because the official lottery drawing unfolded about an hour before ESPN broadcast the announcement, Harrison had time to venture out of the convention center while Finley “was doing the heavy lifting.” He walked across the skybridge from the convention center to the Nike Suite in the Marriott Marquis hotel, where he called his wife and daughters for good luck.
His youngest, Noelle, suggested he turn his socks inside out and walk outside to find a penny.
“Well I don’t know if there’s just pennies outside,” Harrison replied. “How about you grab a penny and you turn your socks inside out?”
Finley sipped on a seltzer from the drawing room catering table while officials wheeled out a giant TV screen just before 7 p.m. and projected the announcement through surround-sound speakers.
Finley said he knew Harrison felt nerves before taking the stage, particularly as a former Nike executive still not accustomed to the public nature of NBA general manager responsibilities. The ESPN cameras didn’t capture Harrison’s slight smile when the Knicks’ logo didn’t show up at No. 11, but he remained upbeat after the broadcast, too.
About 15 minutes after the program ended and the league released the drawing room participants, Harrison found Finley, gave him a hug and asked about his experience in lottery quarantine.
For 15 years in the league, after entering in 1995 as a first-round draft pick, Finley had complete control over his play and clear influence on the result of his teams’ games. The draft lottery, in comparison, left him feeling vulnerable because he couldn’t just hit a free throw or run a specific coverage to boost his squad’s chances of winning.
While Finley did appreciate the opportunity to ditch his phone for 90 minutes — and quipped that his kids should be forced to do the same — he gave Harrison a relieved smile and declared:
“I didn’t lose the game.”
