The NBA Draft lottery is the NBA’s most fertile ground for conspiracy theories. No matter what happens, every year basketball’s most woke fans theorize how the secretive, supposedly random process by which the league determines who gets the top pick is actually selected ahead of time or rigged by the hoops Illuminati. And this year is no different.
Dikembe Mutombo revealed a decades-long global conspiracy to rig the NBA Draft lottery
Perhaps Dikembe Mutombo sent out an accidental tweet Tuesday. Perhaps he revealed the inner workings of the secret cabal that controls everything about the NBA, and indeed, everything about the entire world.
Tuesday afternoon, Hall of Famer Dikembe Mutombo congratulated the Sixers on their NBA Draft lottery win ... hours before the allegedly live and unpredictable draw took place.
Sure enough, the Sixers did go on to win the draft lottery, and now have the No. 1 pick.
On the one hand, the Sixers and Mutombo each explained that his tweet was an accident not an example of Mutombo’s knowledge of a predetermined result.
On the other hand ... isn’t that exactly what they would say?
Let’s examine each side of the issue to find whether or not this year’s draft lottery truly was rigged.
On the one hand: Mutombo made an honest mistake
Mutombo explained to the AP that he had received an email from the Sixers asking for a congratulatory tweet:
The email, obtained by AP, showed some sample tweets that could be used. He copied and pasted one onto his Twitter page — but then immediately sent it.
“It was like maybe 30 seconds, then I realized, ‘Whoa! What did I do here?’” he said. “But it was too late. It was out in the air.”
This story seems to check out. Other Sixers legends tweeted essentially the same thing after the Sixers won the lottery -- here’s Julius Erving tweeting something with “congrats,” ”#1 spot,“ a mention of the Sixers’ team account, the ”#PHILAfirst” hashtag and a picture of Erving on the court in Philly. The same person who wrote Mutombo’s tweet probably wrote Erving’s. And if we go back to when Mutombo made the Hall of Fame, the Sixers’ team account tweeted out the same photo of Dikembe with Allen Iverson, so I guess that’s their go-to Mutombo photo.
Plus, scrolling through Dikembe’s Twitter account, it looks like he has a basic misunderstanding of how to share things people send to him with an instruction to tweet it. Here’s a Twitter video Mutombo tweeted with just the phrase “Twitter Video” as description. Here’s a link to a Wiredrive presentation Mutombo tweeted with just the phrase “Wiredrive Presentation” as description. Here’s a link to some photos Mutombo tweeted with just the phrase “PHOTOS” as description.
Sometimes Mutombo tweets perfectly, with perfect grammar and perfect social media etiquette like accurate @ mentions. Sometimes he misspells his own name. This gives me the impression this is not the first time somebody else has written a tweet for him, just a poor example of timing. If you ask Dikembe Mutombo to tweet something, he will probably do it, without looking too deeply into the details.
On the other hand: How could Mutombo have known before the lottery
Tweets are always real. Nobody has ever lied on Twitter. So Dikembe surely knew. And how could he have known if not for a conspiracy???????
On the one hand: It would’ve been pretty easy to guess Philadelphia might win
The 76ers had a 25 percent chance of winning the lottery, the best of any team. Perhaps Mutombo merely saw they had the best chance of winning and thought it was safe to schedule a tweet (and then accidentally tweeted it on time). Perhaps he thought them having the best chance of winning meant they had actually won.
If Mutombo merely guessed the Sixers might win, it would’ve been a good guess.
On the other hand: Dikembe Mutombo has clearly known about this for years
Remember Mutombo’s signature celebration? The finger wag?
Photo credit: Leigh Vogel, Getty Images
It’s become a pop culture touchstone, even landing him a spot in a GEICO commercial.
But was Mutombo really wagging his finger? Or was he telling us something else?
I believe that Mutombo was actually holding up a “No. 1,” as in “the 76ers will have pick No. 1 overall in the 2016 NBA Draft.”
This is more heinous than we thought. The draft lottery is not rigged on a whim in the hours and days before the draft, but years in advance. Sports is not live entertainment -- the powers that be apparently plan it out decades before we get to watch it.
On the one hand: This is stupid
No matter what happens in the NBA Draft lottery, people will assume it is rigged.
A team with the best lotto odds wins, like the Cavs did when they got LeBron? Rigged.
A team with out-of-nowhere lotto odds wins, like the Bulls did when they got Derrick Rose? Rigged.
A team that never wins anything finally gets a break, like when New Orleans got Anthony Davis? Rigged.
A team suddenly goes on an incredibly unlikely run of lotto luck, like when Cleveland won three of four lotteries? Rigged.
The greatest NBA Draft lottery conspiracy of the past few years implies the league is fixing everything so Cleveland can succeed. Cleveland. Cleveland? Most conspiracy theories center around leagues/organizations trying to ensure teams from population centers on the coasts succeed. This one implies the NBA would go out of its way to blatantly boost a team from the 31st-largest metropolitan area in the country, located on the coast of Lake Erie.
If every NBA Draft lottery conspiracy theory is true, the NBA is awful at conspiracies. They can’t make up their minds on what they want to happen. And despite their most obvious efforts, Cleveland still hasn’t won a damn thing.
The NBA tells us the process by which the lottery happens, literally shows us the lottery happening by the process described and the results often reflect the process they tell us they use.
Is it a dumb, arbitrary process that might not be the best way of awarding this? Probably. But it really seems like they do it the way they say they do it.
On the other hand: Mutombo is clearly a participant in a worldwide conspiracy perpetrated by the most important people on the planet
If you want to, you can buy the easy story, the one where nothing sinister happened. Or you can dig deeper. And when you do, you might find things that are inconvenient.
Here is Mutombo shaking hands with NBA commissioner Adam Silver.
(Photo credit: Grant Lamos IV, Getty Images)
But it goes farther. Look at this image from a secret NBA event where Mutombo was inducted into the league’s innermost sanctum, presided over by none other than ex-commissioner David Stern.
Stern and Silver have combined to control the NBA for the last 40 years, and Mutombo knows both of them. When they go about their dirty work -- rigging the lotto, vetoing trades, telling the refs not to make late calls against Oklahoma City, ensuring teams continue to offer Vinny Del Negro coaching opportunities -- Mutombo is in the loop.
But this extends larger than the world of basketball. See the “UK” on the wall behind Mutombo? Of course, it stands for “United Kingdom.” And Mutombo has been seen exchanging gifts with Prince William, Duke of Cambridge:
.@officialmutombo knows sharing is caring pic.twitter.com/72cS8sXeZj
— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) December 9, 2014
William, of course, is second in line to the British throne. But if he doesn't pan out? Mutombo has also been spotted with Prince Harry, William's brother. Here they are in front of a salacious painting of an Illuminati bacchanal:
Photo credit: Chris Jackson, Getty Images
Mutombo clearly serves as the NBA’s link to the British throne, but there’s more to it. Why would Mutombo feel the need to be pictured with both brothers -- unless he knows there’s an upcoming upheaval in the British monarchy. Mutombo is the only one who sees the upcoming rift as brothers William and Harry engage in a Shakespearean battle for the crown that will tear the United Kingdom asunder. And Mutombo is playing both sides.
Mutombo has also shaken hands with the world’s most powerful man, President Barack Obama:
But it goes deeper than a mere friendship with a basketball-loving President. Mutombo has friends on both sides of the aisle, as he was a special guest at George W. Bush’s 2007 State of the Union, getting a seat right next to First Lady Laura Bush:
Photo credit: Mark Wilson, Getty Images
And he’s hung out with the president before Bush, Bill Clinton:
Photo credit: Elsa, Getty Images
The last three Presidents of the United States -- leaders of the free world, the most powerful people on the planet -- and all call Dikembe Mutombo a friend. Interesting.
Mutombo has also befriended the Vice President:
And the Secretary of State:
Indeed, all power holders seem to have met with Mutombo.
And sure enough, he’s getting started with the next set of potential Presidents. Here he is with Hillary Clinton:
And while nobody has taken a picture of Mutombo with Trump -- yet -- it’s clear Mutombo’s influence is already rubbing off on the presumptive Republican nominee:
It’s not pleasant, but the truth is we do not have ultimate control of our lives. Markets can crash, wars can be fought and nations can rise and fall. We as individuals are ultimately powerless to cause or prevent these things. We are at the mercy of a small group of incredibly powerful people who actually pull the strings in our puppet lives. And Dikembe Mutombo is friends with all of these people.
And when these people choose to change the world -- or rig an NBA Draft lottery -- Mutombo knows.
* * *
Why the Lakers didn’t have to give their pick to the Sixers
See More:
