Xiao Hua denied that there was an operation to win the No. 1 pick! He said everything was fair, and Irving s eyebrow injury triggered a chain reaction

June 5, there are about 20 days left before the 2025 NBA Draft. In this year's lottery, the Mavericks won the No. 1 pick. In an interview, NBA president Adam Xiao Hua hit back at the question, hinting that the league did not have a secret operation to the Mavericks win the No. 1 pick.

Mavericks won 10th place in the Western Conference last season, and they missed the playoffs. In the lottery draw, the Mavericks won the No. 1 pick with a 1.8% chance, which ranks fourth lowest in league history. Considering that the Mavericks had previously sent Doncic to the Lakers, they were accused of being a conspiracy theory after getting the No. 1 pick. In addition, the Mavericks will most likely use the No. 1 pick to choose Flag from Duke University.

Earlier today, NBA president Adam Xiaohua was interviewed and talked about this: "We call it the lottery draw. I think sometimes it is because it is called the Lotto that people think that the Mavericks have a chance of winning the No. 1 pick. I mean, you have to remember that the worst-performing team has a 14% chance of winning the lottery, which means that there is an 86% chance they won't win. The Mavericks only have a 2% chance. So you know, that team with a worse record has a seven-fold higher chance of winning the No. 1 pick."

Then Xiao Hua continued, "When people say that the lottery mechanism is problematic, I have different opinions. The original purpose of lottery draw is to prevent the team from playing bad. So here, you see a team that is obviously striving to compete. No matter how the outside world looks at the deal, they were indeed competing for victory. You know, Irving was injured later, and then Davis was injured. Yes, and then they entered the lottery zone like this. So, I still said that everything is fair, probability is probability, and things have developed like this."

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