Nick Wright has heard the theories that the NBA Draft Lottery was rigged to reward the Dallas Mavericks for trading Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers. He does not agree with those theories. Moreover, Wright also has a low opinion of the intelligence of those who do.
Dallas winning Monday night’s Draft Lottery triggered frustration and conspiracy theories stemming from February’s still stunning trade that sent Dončić, Dallas’ franchise player and one of the league’s biggest stars, to Los Angeles. The shock came from the trade coming out of nowhere, to a point where ESPN’s Shams Charania, who broke the trade, wasn’t sure about its validity. So, for a lot of people still wondering how that happened, Monday’s Draft Lottery felt like the completion of the trade, that presumptive No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg was effectively a “player to be named later” from the NBA for helping the Lakers.
But Wright isn’t buying it. He started Tuesday’s edition of What’s Wright? with Nick Wright by criticizing those who believe in and push the conspiracy theory.
“Do you think the NBA Draft Lottery is rigged? Because if you think it is, you’re kinda dumb,” he said. “Now, you might be like, ‘I’m not dumb. Explain the odds of these things. And the answer to that question is, go to your local community college, you can probably get courses for $70 a credit hour, and take Introduction to Probability and Statistics. And what you’ll learn is, the thing about things that have a 1.8% chance of occurring is that they occur 1.8% of the time.
“Also, the idea that Ernst & Young is gonna be like, ‘Listen, we’ve been around for about 100 years. We have a super profitable business. We also have a side business where we rig the NBA Draft Lottery for reasons that aren’t totally clear.’ Like, the latest conspiracy is, if you trade with the Lakers, you get the No. 1 pick. But that, of course, is idiotic. Because people were like, ‘They traded Anthony Davis. They got Zion.’ The NBA didn’t want Zion to go to New Orleans. It was a disaster for everyone the moment it happened.”
“Go to your local community college and take Introduction to Probability & Statistics… you’ll learn that things with a 1.8% chance of occurring happen 1.8% of the time.”@getnickwright shares some helpful advice for anyone who thinks the NBA Draft lottery is rigged pic.twitter.com/YoDw2hIrFI
— What’s Wright? with Nick Wright (@WhatsWrightShow) May 13, 2025
Wright continued to criticize the theory by pointing out that the Mavericks not only reached the play-in tournament but also won a game and were one more win away from being excluded from the lottery.
“The NBA called in, sent in, ‘Listen, trade Luka to the Lakers and we’ll get you Cooper Flagg,’” Wright said. “And the part of that story that folks are ignoring is the Dallas Mavericks won a play-in game, tried to make the playoffs and were playing the Memphis Grizzlies in a game that, had they won, they don’t even have any ping pong balls.”
And while that is true, a counter-argument is that Wright’s point also makes the Mavericks winning so improbable.
He added, “There’s like more teams that you would have called it rigged than not.”
Specifically, Wright cited that if the San Antonio Spurs had won, the conspiracy would be that Victor Wembanyama, the game’s most prominent young star, would now have a co-star. If the Philadelphia 76ers won, Flagg would then be seen as a star prospect helping bolster a big-market team with a star player in Joel Embiid.
And while Wright was unwavering in his view that the 2025 Lottery was fixed, he didn’t slam the door shut on the idea of previous NBA Draft Lottery conspiracy theories. Specifically, he cited the first lottery, which ended with the New York Knicks getting the No. 1 pick and with it, the rights to draft future Hall of Fame center Patrick Ewing.
“Do I think 40 years ago, when the process was the commissioner, sticking his hand into a globe and grabbing an envelope, do I think that, maybe, ‘Oh, we’re freezing one of those envelopes.’ That’s not idiotic because that’s easy to execute, and one person has to be involved. Any conspiracy where it’s like, ‘Well, we need a whole lot of the executives and lawyers at Ernst & Young to be in on it. We need the league owners to be fine with it. The Wizards owner is like, ‘God damn. These conspiracies have never worked for me. But I’ll keep playing along.’ We need the reporters to be in on it. It’s so dumb,” he said.
Finally, Wright brought the argument full circle, once again questioning the intelligence of the conspiracy theory pushers.
“Sometimes it’s hard to tell who’s smart and who’s not, as far as people who have public platforms and talk about things for a living. If one of your favorite personalities today is like, ‘Ha ha, wink, wink. We knew that was gonna happen,’ they’re just as, they’re not as bright as they think they are. Just dock their IQ points 10. It’s like if you saw them fall off a 20-foot ledge onto their head. Like, moving forward, you’d probably be like, ‘Oh, they’re not as smart as they once were.’ You now know it. So I’m sorry. And like I said, I know I’m hurting some people’s feelings today. But it’s just idiotic.”
