13 years after David Stern became incensed by Jim Rome asking if the NBA Draft is rigged, NBA fans are still wondering if the draft is rigged.
The Dallas Mavericks were rewarded for their recent ineptitude Monday night. After controversially sending Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers in February, the Mavericks managed to be just bad enough to acquire a 1.8% chance at winning the draft lottery. And that 1.8% chance was just good enough to land Dallas the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, where they’re expected to select generational prospect Cooper Flagg.
Instead of trusting that things with a 1.8% chance of happening will happen 1.8% of the time, many fans are convinced the league promised Dallas the top pick in exchange for gifting Dončić to Los Angeles. And among those conspiracy theorists appears to be Jim Rome.
The time then-commissioner David Stern came at me for having the audacity to ask him if the draft was rigged when Patrick Ewing went to the Knicks. Hilarious. #1.8PercentChance
— Jim Rome (@jimrome) May 13, 2025
“The time then-commissioner David Stern came at me for having the audacity to ask him if the draft was rigged when Patrick Ewing went to the Knicks. Hilarious. #1.8PercentChance,” Rome wrote on social media.
Rome actually had the audacity to ask the question after the New Orleans Pelicans, then the Hornets, won the lottery, and ultimately Anthony Davis in 2012. The lottery was held just one month after the NBA sold the New Orleans NBA franchise to Tom Benson, who also owned the New Orleans Saints. The result prompted conspiracies about whether the NBA promised the top pick in that year’s draft as part of the sale.
Shortly before the draft, Rome had David Stern on his radio show and asked the then-NBA commissioner whether the lottery was fixed for New Orleans. What followed, was one of the strangest interviews in sports radio history.
“Shame on you for asking,” Stern said before dropping his most controversial line of the interview. “Have you stopped beating your wife yet?” Stern asked to imply he thought Rome’s question was a loaded one.
Current commissioner Adam Silver has made some bizarre statements, but none quite like asking Rome if he stopped beating his wife yet as a way of evading a question about a rigged lottery.
Stern went on to accuse Rome of asking about NBA Draft conspiracy theories for “cheap thrills,” adding “it’s a cheap trick.”
But Rome aptly maintained it was a fair question considering there is a large base of fans who truly believe the lottery is rigged, and have believed it ever since the New York Knicks landed Patrick Ewing in the 1985 NBA Draft. Uninterested in giving the topic any real attention, Stern stuck to his plan of trying to insult Rome.
The idea that Ernst & Young, the NBA commissioner, owners and select reporters are all working in secrecy to fix the draft lottery is absurd. And how about the Washington Wizards? Their ownership is just going to sit there and let the NBA essentially label them inconsequential by gifting the No. 1 pick to Dallas? It’s a ridiculous theory. But Stern not addressing the question fairly 13 years ago was equally ridiculous and it did little to sway any conspiracy theorists.
Despite his efforts to quash the theory and paint the question as ridiculous through a very combative response, fans are still asking the same question 13 years later. And they’re asking it with heightened concerns.
