It seemed a fairly innocuous thing: a simple drawing to decide whether the Utah Jazz or the San Antonio Spurs would pick 13th in the 1985 NBA draft. The big names - Patrick Ewing, Wayman Tisdale, Xavier McDaniel, Chris Mullin - would all be long gone by then.
But the league had to decide, thanks to identical 41-41 records, which team would pick No. 13. The Jazz won the draw. The rest is postal service history, as the most famous Mailman of them all signed on with the Utah Jazz.Today the Jazz will be in a similar situation. Having finished tied with Chicago with a 55-27 regular-season record, the Jazz will be involved in a drawing to determine who picks No. 22 and who is No. 23 in this year's draft, June 27.
"People say `What's the difference between 22nd and 23rd?'," says Jazz Director of Player Personnel Scott Layden. "Sometimes there's a lot."
In 1985, there was plenty of difference. Had the Jazz not won the draw over San Antonio, things could have been dramatically altered. Utah had originally thought Karl Malone wouldn't be available by the 13th pick, and was setting its sights on Terry Porter. Theoretically, had Malone been gone, the Jazz could have ended up with Porter and John Stockton in the same backcourt. Porter ended up being picked No. 24 by Portland.
Washington, which picked No. 12, surprisingly went with Kenny Green, leaving the Jazz to take Malone. Jazz Coach Frank Layden was so surprised, that in a telephone conversation following the choice he told Malone, "We didn't think you'd get to us."
Meanwhile, San Antonio, picking No. 14, went with Alfredrick Hughes of Loyola-Chicago. Hughes was a wash, going on to one undistinguished year with the Spurs before drifting off into oblivion.
Had the Spurs picked 13th and taken Malone, they undoubtedly would have been better immediately, and probably never been bad enough to qualify for David Robinson as the No. 1 overall in the 1987 draft.
"You could drive yourself crazy going back and looking at what might have happened," says the younger Layden. "In every draft we've had, you could come up with a scenario that would be devastating to the franchise. It's just so fragile; there's so much involved. Every draft we've been involved in could have turned out to be disastrous."
Though the Jazz will be picking far down the list again this year, Layden says any first-round pick is crucial. "With Thurl Bailey, I think we'd much rather have picked seventh than eighth; with Stockton we'd much rather have picked 16th than 17th; and, of course, there was Karl Malone."
Last year the Jazz's first-round pick was only No. 21 and they ended up with East Carolina's Blue Edwards, who went on to make the NBA all-rookie second team. A roll call of other late picks over the years includes the likes of Joe Dumars (18), Porter (24), Mark Price (25) Sherman Douglas (28) and Vlade Divac (26). "I'll tell you what," says Layden. "You can make up an all-star team from guys picked up in that area."
The NBA Draft Lottery will be staged today on CBS television during halftime of the Bulls-Pistons playoff game. The game begins at 11 a.m. MDT and the lottery will begin at around 12:15 p.m.
Actually, only 11 teams will officially participate in the Lottery: Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Golden State, the L.A. Clippers, Miami, Minnesota, New Jersey, Orlando, Sacramento and Seattle. All except Dallas failed to make the 1990 playoffs. The Mavericks are in the Lottery because they obtained the No. 1 pick of the Bullets in a 1986 trade involving Jay Vincent.
The selection process will involve a random drawing. Each of the 11 teams will be assigned from one to 11 balls, with the team that finished the regular season with the worst record (New Jersey) getting 11 balls and the team with the best record among non-playoff teams (Atlanta or Seattle, to be determined by a draw) getting one.
The balls are placed in a clear cylinder, mixed, and then drawn to the top. The first ball out of the cylinder represents the first pick in the draft. The second (non-duplicate) ball will represent the second pick, etc. The order of selection for the remaining eight teams will be determined by inverse order of their regular-season record, thus assuring that the team with the worst record in the league will get no worse than the fourth pick.
Draws to break ties between identical teams will be held prior to the Lottery.
After the first 11 picks, the remainder of the first round and the second round will be determined in inverse order according to won-lost records.