No matter which team gets the lucky bounce on May 30th and wins the NBA lottery, fans will be quick to put on a tinfoil hat and scream "conspiracy."  If the Bobcats get selected, they will say that it is because David Stern wants to improve a struggling team and to get people in the Time Warner Cable Arena.  If the Wizards win the lottery, it is because the NBA wants to give John Wall an opportunity to show that he is indeed a worthy top pick.  If the Cavs win, it is because there was a backroom deal between David Stern and Dan Gilbert to drop the legal investigation regarding LeBron James' free agency voyage to Miami.  If the Hornets win, it is because David Stern had an agreement with Tom Benson in order to convince him to buy the franchise that had been on the market for a long time.  If the Sacramento Kings win, it is because they want to conjure up excitement for when the franchise inevitably moves to Anaheim.  If the Rockets win, it is because David Stern wants to set an example against teams that "tank" and to reward the Rockets for trying to win despite their ceiling being limited.

No matter what happens, NBA fans will have "proof" that the lottery is rigged.

And they are all 100% wrong.

David Stern is not the omnipotent power that NBA fans like to pretend that he is.  On various message boards and Twitter, I see people speculating on how the NBA draft will pan out.  There are plenty of comments about pertaining to how David Stern will "rig to lottery."  Additionally, he will "not give it to the Hornets because that is too obvious."  

If NBA fans truly believe that the lottery is rigged to give certain teams the top pick, they need to re-evaluate their thought process.  How would the NBA decide on who to give the top pick to?  What people ignore is that this would have to happen with all of the thirty teams knowing that it is happening and without any of them speaking up about it.  Let's say that you are Michael Jordan and you were told that the league would rig the lottery so the Bobcats would win the Anthony Davis sweepstakes.  That means that you were specifically told that you would not be getting Kyrie Irving in 2011 and that you kept your mouth shut about it for all this time in the hopes that you would be selected as the lucky franchise at some point.  It would be beneficial for all parties involved to have a legitimate lottery system instead of one that subjectively selects a team without leaving it to odds and chance.

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While the whole Cleveland sporting world has been focused on the NFL draft, the Cavaliers have quietly gone home after a 21-45 season.

Their winning percentage of 31.8 was certainly better than that of the previous season (23.2 on 19 wins. 63 losses). But did the Cavs really improve from 2010-2011 to 2011-2012?

Statistically, the only two major categories that they showed a marked improvement season-to-season were rebounds per game (42.3 vs. 40.3) and steals per game (7.1 vs. 6.6). They advanced to the rear in assists per game (19.8 vs. 21.0) and turnovers per game (14.6 vs. 13.7), at least partially due to having a rookie at point guard.

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On a night when the Cleveland Browns made strides to improve their outlook, the Cleveland Cavaliers went into Chicago and did exactly what they needed to do to help theirs.  Byron Scott rested Kyrie Irving who has essentially locked up the Rookie of the Year award.  The Cavs lost by a final score of 107-75 and were thoroughly outmatched.  

Antawn Jamison played his final game for the Cavs.  Jamison was brought to Cleveland by Danny Ferry over two years ago in order to bolster a roster that had the best record two years in a row.  By the time it was all said and done, he played the majority of his Cavaliers career on a lottery team.  Jamison took 18 shots, made 4 of them, scored 12 points and looked like a high school senior on his last day of school in the process.  Antawn Jamison maybe got a raw deal in Cleveland.  He came here expecting one thing and got another.  He will be remembered for scoring a lot of points and taking a lot of bad shots.  He was a consummate professional in Cleveland off the court, but he will not be remembered as the “One that Got Away.”  

Anthony Parker also played what will probably be his last game for the Cavs.  Parker had an invisible 19:52 of playing time.  He was signed as a free agent in 2009 in order to provide some length around the perimeter so the Cavs could match-up better against the Magic  Just like Antawn Jamison, Parker came to Cleveland expecting one thing and found himself as a veteran leader on a lottery team.  

Antawn Jamison was not the only Cavalier to play as if he didn’t care about this game.   Overall, the team shot 32.2% from the field and only had 8 assists.  The only player who clearly played hard was rookie Tristan Thompson.  In his final game of his first year. Thompson scored 13 points and grabbed 12 rebounds.  The Bulls big men present a difficult match-up for a rookie and Thompson held his own.  

The Bulls went through the motions and still won by 32 points.  Once again, they played the Cavs without Derick Rose and they did not miss a beat.  The Bulls may not win a championship or even get out of the conference, but the Bulls are a very well-coached and deep team.  

Chicago moved the ball very well.  The Bulls had 29 assists compared to their 9 assists.  As I mentioned earlier, the Cavs only had 8 assists.  Whenever a team has 21 more assists than their competition, they are probably going to win by a lot of points.  The futility did not end on the offensive side of the ball.  Chicago had 60 rebounds compared to 38 for the Cavs.  Considering how much more efficient the Bulls were offensively and how many more rebounds they had than the Cavs, it is impressive that Cleveland lost by 32 points.  

Despite the wishes of many Cleveland fans, the Cavs missed the playoffs and an opportunity to play the Bulls in the first round of the playoffs.  The Bulls are a deep team that play very well as a cohesive unit.  It doesn’t matter if Derrick Rose is hurt when John Lucas III can come off the bench and score 25 points on only 16 shots.  In fact, the Bulls missed Derrick Rose for a large portion of the season and clinched the first overall seed.  In the meantime, Cleveland stumbled their way to the finish line and are tied with the New Orleans Hornets for the third worst record in the NBA.  The 2011-2012 Cavs were clearly not a playoff team.

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As another mostly lost Cleveland Cavaliers season comes to a close, I still can't shake the thought that it will be at least another 5 years, minimum, before the Cavs become really competitive and hence interesting again. And that's being aggressive about it. When a NBA team falls off the map, it's usually a 10-year rebuild, just ask Chicago once they finally lost Michael Jordan.

The real problem with NBA history in this regard is that it is so maddeningly consistent. For reasons which the NBA has yet to fully address, the sport with the least number of players is paradoxically the hardest sport for a franchise to turn itself around. Blame it on a combination of a playoff system that's too large, a salary cap that's too exception-ridden and an abiding bias by players against cold weather cities, among other things.

That's why, ultimately, fans still seethe about LeBron James. Had he not abandoned the Cavs, Dan Gilbert and the team he owns and loves would still be sitting in high cotton. Games would still be selling out and nobody would have to endure a game in which the locals field a team of D league refugees unless it was simply to rest the starters at the end of the regular season for another push to another championship.

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