[ad_1]
Forty-five minutes before national viewers watch the solemn announcement of the NBA provisional lottery results on Tuesday, the draw for the ping pong ball will take place in a separate room at the Chicago Hilton.
Moderator Kiki Vandeweghe, a team leader of 14 franchises, selected media members and a lawyer from Ernst and Young will be present – devoid of any means of communication such as cell phones, computers.
Fourteen ping pong balls are placed in a hopper numbered from 1 to 14. According to an internal note, ping pong balls have already been weighed, measured and certified by Smart Play – a leading manufacturer of lottery of state.
Four of these ping-pong balls will determine Zion Williamson's new home in the NBA.
The first choice in the draft is determined by the draw of the first four balls that state a numerical combination. There are 1,001 possible number combinations. A thousand of these combinations have an assigned team. A four-ball combination does not do it.
For example, the Knicks will be awarded 140 different combinations (14% of 1,000) – which could be anything from 1-2-3-4 to 14-13-12-11, including any sequence random between the two. If one of their combinations is drawn, they would win the first choice.
In fact, 14 ping pong balls are mixed in the lottery machine for 20 seconds and the first ball is shot by Vandeweghe. The machine is turned on for an additional 10 seconds to scramble the balls for the second setback, an additional 10 seconds of mixing for the third ball and the fourth ball.
The length of time the balls are mixed is controlled by a stopwatch that faces the machine and tells the operator when to stop.
The lucky team assigned to this first four-ball combination will win Williamson's rights. If the four-ball combination is the only one that is not assigned, a restart is made.
Once the first choice is awarded, four more shots will determine the second choice. (A repeated team will force a restart.) The machine spits four more balls for the third choice and again for the fourth choice. The rest of the project will fall in the order of the worst record of losses.
Darrington Hobson, from Ernst & Young, places the teams' logos in an envelope and hands them to the studio where Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum will make the results public for millions of viewers. Neither Tatum nor the representatives of the team on the stage are informed of the results of the ping-pong ball.
A video of Vandeweghe's current draw is posted on the league's website just after 8:30 pm show.
[ad_2]
Source link