the rest, only noise

Chapter 308 Friends, basketball is back in New York
The 1985 playoffs began, and Louie was indifferent.

Everyone is looking forward to May 5. This year, the NBA has created a brand new game, the lottery draw, which is more complicated and more accidental than the coin toss and guess coin in the past.

However, in mid-April, Ewing's coach John Thompson refuted some bad teams' remarks about Ewing's "willingness to win": "Patrick is a dignified player. He doesn't want to play on a mediocre team. If this happens, a group of lawyers will file an antitrust lawsuit against the NBA, and Patrick is willing to miss his rookie year."

These remarks, as well as the NBA's new lottery draw, are aimed at the bad teams represented by the Clippers, who have no lower limit to lose and have completely trampled on sportsmanship.

Last season, in order to compete for Olajuwon, the Rockets let a veteran play 53 minutes in a game with overtime and successfully lost.

They got their wish and landed at the bottom, got the No. [-] lottery, and won Olajuwon.

Sterling was jealous and publicly declared that he would let the team lose the game in order to gain the probability of winning the No. [-] pick.

The Clippers are definitely a representative of a bunch of hopeless bad teams.

In 1976, they were not in Los Angeles, and their name was not the Clippers (braves), but they used a first-round pick + $23, and were lucky to get Moses Malone's signing rights from Portland. Six days later, Buffalo actually sent Moses to Houston in exchange for two first-round picks in 6 and 77.Why did they abandon Moses so quickly?New head coach Tates Locke didn't like him.

Ten weeks after trading Moses, Rock was fired.

1977年4月:勇敢者队当季16胜56负，开启了他们为期16年与季后赛无缘的日子。两个月后，他们用一届明星辈出的选秀中的3号签（马奎斯·约翰逊）换来了斯文·特纳以及13号签。

That September, rookie Adrian Dantley won them the Rookie of the Year award, and the Braves celebrated by acquiring overrated scorer Billy Knight from Indiana for him.
They keep repeating the same bad luck every year.

Summer of 1981: Donald Sterling buys the Clippers from Levin for $1250 million and sets out to build the franchise into the worst team in sports history. …

The most disturbing point is that the potential new stars who come to this team will have physical problems.

Therefore, in order to prevent people like Sterling from getting Ewing, the league changed the lottery system to at least minimize their chances of getting Griffin.

Ewing's mentor, Thompson, even warned directly, implying that the league should do something about it, and don't let Ewing go to those unlucky teams.

After Ewing hired David Falk as his agent, reporters asked him which city he would prefer to play for, Indiana or New York.

This is a funny question, Ewing still has the most basic emotional intelligence.

He replied: "I will work for whoever chooses me. This is the rule."

In late April, the league announced that the 1985 lottery draw would be the first live-streamed lottery draw in history.

Stern is worthy of being Stern, he can always think of ways to make money in different ways.

After Sampson fulfilled people's expectations and grew into the league's No. [-] center, Ewing became the most coveted lottery ticket.

To understand how coveted Ewing was in 1985, one has to forget about the small-ball future and go back to a time when a big man ruled the league.Sure, there are eccentric unsolvable all-around forwards like Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, but for the most part, positions are dictated by height and size.This is the alliance of Russell and Chamberlain, Walton, Malone and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Ewing can not only save the bad team, but also save the team's ticket revenue.

He is definitely the most recognized non-professional player in history before entering professional sports.

The seven non-playoff teams all have the same 14.3 percent chance of getting Ewing.Among them are the Warriors who are really in trouble, and there are also the Eagles who temporarily stumbled and shyly won 31 games, and they dare not talk about their bodies but are honest.The Seattle SuperSonics need a true center, Lanier is retiring, and they have nothing but Jack Sikma, a power forward masquerading as a center, on their books.Clippers general manager Carl Hill issued a letter of apology to season-ticket fans after the season ended.The Pacers were still as confused as they were in the ABA, and the Kings fled Kansas City amid booing and relocated the team to their ranch in Sacramento.

Then there are the Knicks, who are the least blameworthy team among the bottom seven teams.

They poached Little Lu from Boston with a lot of money, hoping that he would become the messiah to save the team. As a result, Cartwright broke a bone before the season started, and as the season progressed, injuries swept the team.Many nights, fans cheered for the team's losses.

If there's a perfect home for Ewing, it's New York, the league's largest market.Anyone who knows NBA history will admit that the 80s was the heyday of the NBA, but it is easy to forget that the real heyday of the NBA is not in the competition between black and white.

The 84 generation took advantage of the trend, so in the middle and late 80s, the audience of the NBA became more and more. Now, Jordan has made the Blazers the darling of the media.Olajuwon sold out Houston's season tickets.

Barkley and McHale, fat and thin, are also saving the Chicago Bulls, dubbed the circus of poisonous dogs.

And, with the NBA's four-year, $9190 million TV contract with CBS set to expire in the summer of 1986, a more attractive, more focused league could help them sign a bigger contract.

In early May, the "New York Times" published an editorial: "If Ewing finally wears a Knicks jersey, it will benefit every team in the league."

So, the time came to that day, May 5th, Mother's Day.

Louie bought his mother cake, flowers, and a bigger TV.

In the afternoon, the family prepared to use this TV to watch CBS broadcast the first lottery draw in NBA history.

Representatives of the seven teams fidgeted in their seats at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York.

In order for the team to win the lottery, they did a lot of meaningless and ridiculous things.

Seattle has designated this day as St. Patrick Ewing's Day, and local people hope that this festival will bring good luck.The Clippers had arranged to open their switchboard that Sunday in response to overwhelming season-ticket demand.The Kings threw a party at their new stadium in Sacramento and brought in two psychics to do their luck.

Meanwhile, Knicks general manager Dave DeBusschere received another prayer from fans on the road.He later revealed that he may have "made a little selfish request to God" during his prayers at 9:15 a.m. that morning at St. Joseph's Church near his home.

When the lottery began, the playoffs between the Celtics and the 76ers were also going on simultaneously.

The league deliberately chose to begin the live draw at halftime of the game.

The atmosphere at the scene was extremely tense. In order to alleviate the terrible atmosphere, Stern made a joke: "Everyone, relax, there are no weapons on the security guards."

A moment later, Stern left the stage and re-entered the stage.

What happened next became the most famous episode in the history of the NBA lottery, which will be played repeatedly on YouTube and dissected by conspiracy theorists in the future.Stern re-explained the entire process of the lottery to representatives of the seven teams.

Then, it started.

A gray-haired man from Ernst & Whitney named Jack Wagner dropped seven envelopes, one at a time, into the plastic globe, pausing briefly—perhaps to adjust for particular targeting?Before the fourth letter is poured, the globe slams against the outside of the letter, crumpling the corners. The NBA's head of safety, Jack Joyce, made the globe spin eight times.

Then it's time to decide the grand prize.

It can be seen that Stern was extremely nervous. Before opening the globe, he carefully looked at the letter inside. Finally, he seemed to have found the target, exhaled with amnesty, and began to reach out to find the first choice, the one that would determine Ewing's fate.Stern fumbled for a moment, grabbed the envelope, flipped through it, and produced the lucky envelope, which "by chance" had a crease in one corner.

Sterling then selected six more envelopes, which he placed in order after the first envelope, and he began to display, counting down from the last selection. "The 1985th pick in 7," he announced nasally, "belongs to the Golden State Warriors!"

Louie in front of the TV saw the camera turn on GM Al Attles, the pride of the Bay Area with a stoic face, the general manager and former coach of the Warriors, whose team finished with the worst record, and who would at least have been guaranteed the No. [-] pick a year ago.

As soon as the result came out, he was in pain as if someone had stabbed him in the heart.

"It's so pitiful, he is as disappointed as Al Pacino when he learned that his wife deliberately killed the child." Lorraine is an avid fan of "The Godfather", and always likes to use the plot in the movie as a metaphor.

Louie nodded in agreement and said, "Well, I'm sure, given him a chance, he would slap the president in the face ten times harder than Pacino."

Next, Stern continued to open the envelope -- Kings, Hawks, Sonics, Clippers.Finally, there's the Indiana Pacers and the New York Knicks: one is the Ewing super prize, the other is the Benoit Benjamin C, or Wayman Tisdale consolation prize.

Stern had to choose between two letters, one plain and one with a dog-ear.In the end, he chose the normal letter to open, looked up and announced: "The second pick in the 1985 NBA draft belongs to the Indiana Pacers!"

There was a huge cheer from the crowd, including the New York media, and three things happened at the same time.

Pacers owner Herb Simon, who came to the scene in person, stood up and learned that his team had passed Ewing and sat down as if his spinal nerves had been punctured. How desperate was he?
The shot shows Debusschere pinching his trigeminal nerve as if thanking God for answering his prayers.

Louis unscrewed the cap of a bottle of Coke with one hand.

"Drink again, how many bottles did you drink today?" Li Xuanbing said unhappily.

"Mom, I have a headache, let me drink it." Louis didn't realize that he was already a 25-year-old adult man, and he was acting coquettishly with his old mother.

"All right, all right!" Although Li Xuanbing didn't know what happened to his son in recent years or why his temperament changed drastically, there should be very few mothers in the world who can resist their son's acting like a baby. "If you don't want a second baby, you can drink whatever you want!"

While drinking Coke, Louis listened to Stern say the words that have been sung as the Bible by New Yorkers for more than ten years.

"Guys, basketball is back in New York."

Louie was annoyed, and he believed Ewing was too.

Even if it hasn't started yet, Louie knows that reshaping Ewing is a big and difficult project, and Ewing, he definitely doesn't want to play for Louie.

So, let's do it again: Mr. You, all encounters in this world are reunions after a long absence.

PS: There is a clip of the lottery meeting on the Internet, I will see if I can post it in the Easter egg chapter.

(End of this chapter)