Determined by Fate: NBA Lottery & Coin Flip

The New Orleans Hornets defied the odds last night and came up the big winner in the 2012 NBA draft lottery. With a 13.7 percent chance of gaining the first overall selection, the Hornets leap-frogged over the hapless Charlotte Bobcats, who suffered another loss despite having the best statistical chance (25 percent) of obtaining the No. 1 pick after finishing with the worst winning percentage in league history (.106). 

It’s no secret that Kentucky’s precocious freshman big man Anthony Davis was the overwhelming favorite of every lottery team’s general manager. The speculation now is on who will be the No. 2 choice, with a number of contenders considered far less attractive and potentially franchise-changing than Davis.

The draft order was not always so determined. As far back as 1966, the overall No. 1 pick was decided by a coin flip between the two teams with the worst records in each division. Each team thus had a 50 percent chance of gaining the first pick.

That flip was never more important than in 1969, when the ultimate prize was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. So much research and planning go into any successful business venture, yet it was sheer chance that played such a prominent role in ordaining the immediate and long-term fate of two NBA franchises, the Phoenix Suns (who guessed wrong on the coin flip) and the Milwaukee Bucks (who chose first).

Several years ago, I spoke with Jerry Colangelo, the GM of the Suns at the time, about the call he made. “Do you ever think about that,” I asked.

“Oh, yes,” Colangelo said, laughing. “I’ve had plenty of time to think about it.” He then gave me the background on the call.

“Back in 1968 [the Suns’] first season, I wanted people to engage with us regarding the process. So, we had a contest through the local newspapers to let the fans vote, and 51.2 percent said ‘heads.’ We asked the commissioner, Walter Kennedy, if we could make the call. Milwaukee obliged.

“We tell the story that the coin went up in the air and it came up heads. And then the commissioner flipped it over and called tails. Just that little flick of the wrist had some amazing impact on two communities. It was crushing to lose the flip. I remember getting in a car and just driving for about four hours, not headed anywhere, just driving. I came to the conclusion that I better get back to the office; there was a lot of work to do.”

With that work, the Suns chose Neal Walk with the No. 2 pick after Milwaukee predictably took Abdul-Jabbar.

Colangelo, named by the Arizona Republic as the most influential sports figure in Arizona in the 20th century, has had a distinguished business career. With the expansion Suns, he was the youngest GM in pro sports and later was part of an investment group that bought the team. He was inducted into the basketball Hall of Fame in 2004 and was the architect of the the gold-medal-winning USA men’s basketball team at the 2008 Olympics. Colangelo also brought two other major pro sports franchises (the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Phoenix Coyotes) to the state.

The coin flip was out of his hands, so to speak. But did he have any regrets?

“No, not really,” Colangelo said. “Obviously, if one is totally honest with himself, he would say, ‘Gee, if I had to do it over again, I wouldn’t have made this trade or that deal.’ But I remember reading a book where Buzzy Bavasi in baseball was quoted as saying, in the area of player personnel and deals, if you’re right 51 percent of the time, you’re way ahead of the game.

“I think our track record...we’ve been right a heck of a lot more than we been wrong in player transactions. I’m a firm believer that you don’t look back. You learn from those decisions and you look forward.”

Good advice for the executives of the Charlotte Bobcats as they contemplate their next move. 

Can You Spell "Ice Cream?"

The word of the month in my elementary school was “empathy.” The principal and the teachers had stressed to all of the children the importance of identifying and understanding others’ feelings. That lesson was reinforced every Friday in the morning announcements with the recitation of individual examples of empathetic behavior by the children in the different grades. My own unfulfilled attempt at empathy went unannounced until now.

One Friday morning, after I administered and then collected the first-graders’ spelling test (10 words that started with the letters Q-U plus a bonus word), a sensitive little boy, Michael, came to the front of the classroom and said shyly, “I was wondering how I did on the test.”

Mrs. T will grade them on Monday when she returns, I told him.

He was disappointed with that answer. His classmates were preoccupied with other matters more important to six year olds and didn’t notice our private conversation. What’s the harm, I thought, of checking his test myself? I found it and quickly scanned the words.

You got just one wrong, I told him cheerily. You left out the “e” in “quite.”

It was not the result he was expecting. Michael’s lower lip started to tremble.

No, that’s good, I reassured him.

“No,” he said. “My dad told me that I couldn’t have ice cream tonight unless I spelled all 10 words right, and I REALLY wanted ice cream!” 

What had I done? My seemingly good intention was not going unpunished. Thinking quickly, I told him that he did get 10 words because he had spelled the bonus word correctly.

“It’s not the same,” Michael said.

But the test is not official until Mrs. T grades it, I said, somewhat desperate now.

Michael was inflexible. “I’m going to have to tell my dad when I get home today.”

Had it been possible I would have given ice cream on the spot to this noble little hero with his overdeveloped sense of righteousness.

The Art of Kindergarten

“I have only six letters in my name,” kindergartner Amanda proudly admitted today. Then she proceeded to misspell it on the rainbow she drew for me: A-M-U-N-D-A. “And I know how to spell ‘lettuce,’” she added, apropos of nothing. She did know.

Not to be outdone, Sophia said, “I know how to blink with both eyes,” which she promptly demonstrated with alarming rapidity.

Their classmate Braeden wore the multi-colored evidence of art class on his forehead, cheek, and the tip of his nose, having unsteadily proved to himself the veracity of the different fragrances on his scented markers.

The Knicks' Most Inspirational Moment

The Knicks face a must-win Game 5 tonight in Miami. Forty-two years ago this week, they hosted the Lakers in Game 7 of the NBA Finals. In that game, Walt “Clyde” Frazier scored 36 points with 19 assists. He called it the greatest game in his career.

In his book “The Game Within the Game,” Frazier wrote about the injured Knicks’ captain Willis Reed limping onto the court minutes before the tip-off: “The scene is indelibly etched in my mind, because if that did not happen, I know we would not have won the game.”

I once asked Frazier about that. Was Reed’s presence really that much of an inspiration?

“Yeah, it was,” he said. “It gave us so much confidence. Before the game, everyone was talking to Willis, wanting to know if he could play. I remember [Bill] Bradley saying, ‘Willis, just half of you would be more than anything anybody else could give us at that position. Try to play, man.’

“A lot of people think it was premeditated,” said Frazier, “that we waited until that moment. But when we left the locker room, we had no idea he would play.”

Reed scored the first two baskets, his only points in the game, but it was enough to inspire his teammates and the Madison Square Garden crowd.

“That’s the other thing,” Frazier said. “The fans became so catalytic. Once they started cheering, I saw [the Lakers’] West, Baylor and Chamberlain mesmerized. They stopped doing what they were doing and were standing there staring at Willis. At that point, I said to myself, ‘We got these guys.’ I felt so confident once I saw that.”

Snake

A first-grader today, hard at work drawing and coloring a picture of a snake, repeated to me the story told to him by his father about the Bronx Zoo’s missing Egyptian cobra. 

“Somebody left the door open on his cage,” he said, “and the snake escaped.” 

Oh, so the snake ran away, I teased him. 

“No, he slithered away.”

Mistaken Identity

“I saw you yesterday!”

Jordan greeted me excitedly when I entered his third-grade classroom.

You did? Where was I? I asked him.

“You were in your car.”

Was I even in my car yesterday, I wondered. I backtracked in my head over the previous day. I remembered that I mowed the lawn and then went for a run. No, the car on Monday was parked right where I left it on Friday.

“You have a pretty big car, right? Dark red?”

My car is small, I told him, and gold-colored. You’ve seen it in the school parking lot.

“You were driving near the dead-end street off Lakeview,” he said.

Wait, was the guy behind the wheel a very handsome man, I asked him.

“Yes!”

Well, then, it wasn’t me, I said.