Former Lakers star Shaquille O’Neal shared quite an interesting story about the NBA Draft and former NBA commissioner David Stern.
“In 1992, I think the draft was in June or something, I meet Mr. Stern in March, and he says to me, ‘Hey, I know who you are, can’t wait for you to come to the NBA,’” O’Neal said on Ashley Nevel’s podcast. “Then he pulled me to the side. ‘You want to play where it’s cold or where it’s hot?’ He asked me that. Yeah, he did. He asked me that. And I was like, ‘Hot.’ And he smiled, and I smiled. And then, couple days later they had the draft thing and the top three things. Minnesota was No. 3. And then Charlotte was No. 2 and then Orlando, Florida was No. 1. I didn’t think anything about it. You hear a lot of these conspiracy theories, and there’s a lot of situations that could make these things sound good and sound true.”
Now, Shaq didn’t necessarily say that the lottery was rigged for him to go to Orlando, but the ensuing results certainly make you wonder.
The Magic did in fact draft the great Shaquille O’Neal with the number one pick in the 1992 draft.
Once he spoke about the meeting with Sten, Shaq went on to reference this season’s draft lottery, which wasn’t without controversy.
The Dallas Mavericks landed the No. 1 overall pick – thus will be able to draft high school sensation Cooper Flagg , who is by far the best pick in the crop.
Dallas had just a 1.8 percent chance to land Flagg, which has led many to question if the league had a hand in it.
Some people have hypothesised that because Dallas gave up Luka Doncic to the Lakers, that the league helped the Mavs out by giving them another young superstar.
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