Suns fans should cheer, not fear, NBA draft lottery

Suns fans are proud, patient and loyal. They love Al McCoy, the Gorilla and a bountiful history that spans nearly five decades. They are also victims of a longstanding persecution complex, highly susceptible to conspiracy theories that continue to dog the NBA.

With the draft lottery just around the corner, it’s time for the suspicions to stop.  Or maybe you should find another sport.

“I have confidence in the system,” former Suns owner Jerry Colangelo said. “I think it’s transparent. There will always be speculation about conspiracies because that’s human nature. But I can tell you, when it comes to the NBA, there’s nothing to it.”

That won’t slow down the current skepticism, especially after comments from Lakers coach Luke Walton. Los Angeles finished with the third-worst record in the NBA, behind the Suns and the Nets (whose No. 1 pick belongs to the Celtics). If the Lakers drops below third in Tuesday’s lottery, their pick will belong to the 76ers.

For some reason, Walton isn’t the least bit worried about losing the pick.

“Magic (Johnson) has already assured me that we’re going to get our top-three pick this year, so I’m excited about that,” Walton said during a radio interview with CBS Sports. “We don’t know who the pick is yet, but I was just happy to know we’re getting the pick. That’s good enough for me now.”

POINT GUARD: Can Suns find point guard of the future in the daft?

Walton’s hubris has raised many red flags, reinforcing what many Valley fans fear about the NBA, the only professional sports league to have its credibility questioned to the point of felonious behavior.

To this day, far too many fans believe that a frozen envelope was deployed to resuscitate the Knicks, who ended up drafting Georgetown star Patrick Ewing; that Michael Jordan was actually banned from the league for his gambling habits; that allegations of a rogue referee, Tim Donaghy, was proof of a league that routinely fixes its outcomes, feeding the bottom line by helping big-market teams.

Faith in fair competition is a scare commodity these days. Our current president routinely tweets about a rigged system in American government. Why should the NBA be any different?

It sounds so awful, and somebody help us if Walton’s prediction comes true and the Suns fall in the draft lottery. Especially after watching our NHL team drop to seventh in the 2017 NHL draft, after the Coyotes were aced out on generational talents like Connor McDavid, Jack Eichel and Auston Matthews in the previous two seasons.

NBA DRAFT: Lottery odds – Suns No. 2, Lakers No. 3

The distrust goes even deeper among Suns fans. They watched a referee, Richie Powers, compromise the 1976 NBA Finals for taking the law into his own hands, refusing to call an obvious technical foul against the Celtics. They endured the heavy-handed actions of former NBA Commissioner David Stern, who cost the franchise its best chance at a NBA championship by suspending Boris Diaw and Amar’e Stoudemire, who left the bench to defend an assaulted teammate. This is why McCoy and a legion of Suns fans can barely hide their disdain for the NBA and its officials.

Colangelo also understands. When he came to Phoenix in 1968, the expansion Suns lost a coin flip to the Bucks for the right to draft Lew Alcindor, who changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and scored over 38,000 points in his Hall of Fame career.

MORE: Magic Johnson to Luke Walton: Lakers are getting a top-3 pick

“Walter Kennedy was going to do the coin flip in his New York offices,” Colangelo said. “The ownership group for the Bucks were in Milwaukee. We were in Phoenix.  They were going to use a (John F.) Kennedy half dollar coin.  We ran a contest in the paper asking fans for their advice, and 51.2 percent voted for heads.  So we voted heads.

“So imagine that coin flipping over and over in the air. It landed in Kennedy’s palm with heads facing up. We win. But then he flipped it over on the back of his other hand, and the end result was tails. And that little gesture changed the course of history.”

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The NBA is full of these strange stories. Like Dikembe Mutombo congratulating the 76ers on winning the draft lottery before it actually happened. Like Cleveland bucking the odds and winning all those draft lotteries. Like the avalanche of free throws the Lakers shot in a Game 7 against the Kings, and all those free throws Charles Barkley attempted for the Suns in a Game 7 against Seattle. And the omnipotent attitude of Stern didn’t help matters, a commissioner who flaunted his power to the point of recklessness.

But there’s a long bridge between circumstance and criminality, and the NBA isn’t as guilty as you think. For all the despair and circumstantial evidence, Colangelo doesn’t suspect an ounce of foul play.  As a reporter who covered Jordan for nearly a decade, I can attest that he was burned out on basketball, angry at fame, angry at teammates, and devastated by his father’s death. His retirement had nothing to do with gambling.

The NBA isn’t a scam or a con. The draft lottery isn’t rigged. The competition is real and the best players usually prevail.

But for the sake of new boss Adam Silver and the image of the NBA, we can all agree on this: The Lakers better not win the lottery at our expense.

Reach Bickley at [email protected] or 602-444-8253. Follow him on twitter.com/dan.bickley. Listen to “Bickley and Marotta” weekdays from 12-2 p.m. on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM.

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