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1992 and 1993 - The Hornets and Magic double-dip
OK, technically these are two lotteries, but their time proximity and similarity were so striking they caused the league to change its rule. One year after winning the lottery and drafting Larry Johnson, the Charlotte Hornets jumped from the No. 8 spot up to No. 2 in the 1992 lottery. That allowed the Hornets to pair Johnson with Georgetown center Alonzo Mourning (pictured with the Heat). The next year, after using the '92 first pick on Shaquille O'Neal, the Orlando Magic jumped from the No. 11 spot to second in the '93 lottery. The Magic had finished the preceding season 41-41, the best record in the NBA among non-playoff teams. Orlando drafted Chris Webber and traded him to Golden State for a package that included guard Penny Hardaway. Two seasons later the Magic advanced to the NBA Finals before losing to the Houston Rockets. The coincidence of two teams having such remarkable lottery luck back-to-back resonated with the NBA. Within months the league reworked the lottery rules, giving the league's worst teams extra chances in the weighted process. Because of that change, the worst team now gets a 25 percent chance at the top pick, up from 16.7 percent in 1993. -
1987 - Spurs get the right to enlist the Admiral
It's hard to imagine using the No. 1 pick on a player who wouldn't be available for at least two seasons because of a military commitment. But that's how special a talent Navy center David Robinson - "the Admiral" - was. At 28-54 the Spurs were far from the league's worst team. The Los Angeles Clippers were 12-70 and New York and New Jersey were each 24-58. But it was the Spurs who got the prize in Robinson. There were other good players in 1987 - Scottie Pippen, North Carolina's Kenny Smith and eventual Hornet Armon Gilliam among them. But Robinson, particularly when paired later in his career with Duncan, became an all-time great. They won two championships together. Robinson averaged 21.1 points and 10.6 rebounds in a 14-season career and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2009. -
1985 - Ewing to the Big Apple; conspiracy theories all around
This was the first draft lottery, an attempt to mitigate the perception from the previous season that the Houston Rockets had tanked games in 1984 to land center Hakeem Olajuwon. Georgetown center Patrick Ewing had huge star potential and the New York Knicks - situated in the NBA's largest market - had won just one playoff series in the previous 10 years. So when the Knicks were declared lottery winners, the conspiracy theorists were unleashed. Over the years this lottery took on an urban legend that the league had frozen the envelope containing the Knicks logo so that commissioner David Stern would know which envelope to grab last, representing the top pick. That first lottery and the one in 1986 were unweighted and every draft spot outside the playoff participants was up for grabs. Later the league limited the lottery to the first three picks and began weighting the process so that the worst teams had the best chance to stay in the top three.
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