The NBA Draft is one of the biggest events in the sport of basketball. We have witnessed many world-class talents on the stage introducing themselves to the world as young adults. There are many factors that contribute to the success and the way the draft is held. One of them would be the NBA Lottery Draft.
The NBA Lottery Draft is conducted to decide the order of the draft. In other words, the order in which the teams will select the players will be done this way. The Lottery Draft is used to decide the first 14 picks that teams will pick. If we go back in time, the first-ever Lottery Draft was held in 1985. However, that was also the first time the league saw one of its biggest controversies.
At the time, the NBA Commissioner was David Stern. He had just taken over the reins from Larry O’Brien a year before that. Stern introduced the lottery draft with one idea in mind; to ensure the teams had an equal chance of landing the top talent. In 1985, the New York Knicks managed to land the first pick for the draft that year. That was when they acquired Patrick Ewing‘s services.
Did David Stern have a hand in fixing the 1985 NBA Lottery Draft?
There were several rumors mentioning that the 1985 NBA Lottery Draft was rigged. The reason for this was because of what David Stern and Jack Wagner did on the day. The latter was responsible for setting the envelopes with the team names inside the plastic drum. Stern was to pick a team at random to decide who gets the first pick of the draft that year.
After the Head of Security of the NBA, Jack Joyce spun the drum, Stern walked over to pick up an envelope. As the cameras zoomed in to see which one he picked, we can notice something different about one particular envelope.
One might wonder how the corner of that envelope was bent. And it looks like Jack Wagner might have something to do with it. As he was placing them in the drum, he looked to have hit the corner of one envelope before setting it inside. Right after that, Wagner closed the drum for Jack Joyce to spin it.
David Stern announced that the second pick went to the Indiana Pacers, which meant the Knicks landed the first pick in the draft that year. That was when he said the famous words, “Basketball is back in New York City, my friends.” The Knicks drafted Patrick Ewing from Georgetown University as the first pick.
Where is Patrick Ewing now?
Ewing stayed with the Knicks for more than a decade. He played in New York till 2000, before moving to the Seattle SuperSonics. It would be safe to claim that he did well for the Knicks, especially since he helped them to the NBA Finals in 1994. Unfortunately for them, the legendary Hakeem Olajuwon stood in their way with the Houston Rockets.
Ewing averaged 22.8 points, 10.4 rebounds, and 2 assists per game for the Knicks after playing in more than 1000 games for the franchise. After leaving the Knicks, Ewing had a couple of brief stints in Seattle and with the Orlando Magic, before retiring as a player.
He didn’t bid goodbye to the sport though. Patrick became the assistant coach of a few teams, the Washington Wizards, Rockets, Magic, and the Charlotte Bobcats (now Hornets). He couldn’t land a role as a head coach in the league but did so at his college, Georgetown.
Ewing has been the head coach of the Georgetown Hoyas men’s basketball team since 2017. He hasn’t been able to lead them to the success he enjoyed with the college. In 1984, Ewing was the heart of the team that won the NCAA Championship. That has been their only title win to this day. The former Knicks star would be aiming to guide them to another in the future as a head coach.