Former Philadelphia 76ers player and Hall of Famer Dikembe Mutombo must take NBA fans for suckers. Or, just a loony bunch of keyboard warrior NBA conspiracy theorists. Probably the latter.
"I want to let people know there was no conspiracy," Mutombo said to the Associated Press on Tuesday night in a phone interview.
Suuurrreeee there isn't.
The 2016 NBA Draft Lottery went down Tueday night in New York, and as statistical probability and some ping-pong balls would have it, the 76ers won the No. 1 overall pick. Or, as the well-established NBA conspiracy theory community claimed, the 76ers won a rigged lottery after Mutombo accidentally posted a congratulatory message to the team for winning the No. 1 pick hours before the event. He quickly deleted it, but the damage was done.
"It was like maybe 30 seconds, then I realized, `Whoa! What did I do here?"' he said. "But it was too late. It was out in the air."
The 76ers came into the lottery with a 25 percent chance — the highest of all teams — of winning the pick after finishing 10-72, the worst record in the NBA this season. Fans, however, have long been skeptical of the lottery, believing that in some years, the NBA purposefully rigged it so certain teams would be rewarded for corrupt reasons. Logical tweets, like the one below, aren't the most fun takes, after all. Boo to reason and trust in organizational integrity.
As the "real story" goes, Mutombo reportedly showed the Associated Press an earlier email containing sample tweets from the team if the 76ers landed the pick, and he went ahead and posted one without checking if the lottery had happened or not.
Ignoring math: HOW DID THE 76ERS KNOW THEY'D NEED TWEETS IF THEY WON? Obviously, there's a conspiracy to reward them for booting team-destroyer and former 76ers general manager Sam Hinkie.
And that's what we're choosing to believe, Mutombo and the NBA be damned.
