THE NBA LOTTERY : Seven Have-Nots Await the Chance for Ewing; the Envelope, Please

The exciting prospect of drafting Georgetown’s Patrick Ewing has executives from the seven teams participating in today’s National Basketball Assn. draft lottery considering some extraordinary measures.

“I’ve thought about parapsychologists, mediums, Tarot cards and Ouija boards,” said Tom Newell, the Indiana Pacers’ director of player personnel. “The last couple of days, I came close to doing it.”

One general manager, who, out of embarrassment, didn’t want his identity revealed, refuses to speak the name of that seven-foot center who is expected to change the course of whichever team gets him. The suspense will end just before 11 a.m. PDT, here at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, when Commissioner David Stern selects the envelopes of the NBA’s seven most frequent losers--Golden State, Indiana, Sacramento (formerly Kansas City), New York, Seattle, Atlanta and the Clippers--to determine the draft order.

The only certainty at this point is that Ewing, the dominating three-time All-American center, will be the first pick when the actual draft is held June 18.

Since the lottery has team executives talking about fate and appealing to the gods, The Times has consulted several soothsayers for predictions.

Radio astrologer Farley Malorrus, for instance, was asked to predict which team will be the lucky one today. Provided with the birthdate of each franchise, Malorrus consulted the stars and made a chart for each team.

And the winner is . . .

“It looks like Indiana,” said Malorrus, who has a noontime show on KFOX-fm. “Indiana is having a Venus return. Venus is at 11 degrees Aries only twice a year, at most, and it’s there this Sunday. They have a 90% chance of winning.”

“That’s great,” Newell said, laughing, when advised of the prediction. “Let’s cancel the lottery and give us the pick.”

Hold it! Not so fast.

Matthew Goodwin, a Westwood numerologist, made his prediction, using the birthdates of the general managers of the sorry seven teams.

His prediction: “Golden State. Their chart shows the most room for expansion in the next year.”

Another astrologer, requesting anonymity because he’s afraid high-stakes gamblers will bother him if he’s right, also used the general managers’ birthdates but came up with still a different prediction.

“It’s either the Kings or Indiana,” he said. “The general manager for the Kings (Joe Axelson) will be genuinely lucky on that day, according to his solar chart. The Indiana general manager has a lot of stuff going on in his life now, and he has good vibrations. Of course, I’m working with limited information.”

Of course.

One thing on which all three agreed was that the Clippers have almost no chance of drawing the No. 1 pick.

“The Clippers’ (franchise) birthdate in L.A. is not good,” Malorrus said. “Their chart is just not lit up. Their only chance is if they reincorporate, change their name or move before Sunday, and then consult me.”

Fat chance. The Clippers never consult anybody before moving.

If we’re perhaps treating a serious subject too flippantly, consider how the NBA office is handling the lottery. It figures to be a combination of Super Lotto and the Miss America contest.

“With David Stern as Bert Parks,” joked Arn Tellem, Clipper vice president.

At halftime of today’s nationally televised Boston-Philadelphiagame, the CBS eye will switch to the Starlight Roof on the 18th floor of the Waldorf-Astoria. Stern, an assistant and the seven general managers will be on the dais waiting for the independent accounting firm of Ernst and Whinny to put the seven gray envelopes, each with a team’s logo inside, in the bowl. That done, a brief explanation of the rules will be given. Then Stern will draw the envelopes and put them on boards marked No. 1 through No. 7. To generate a little more drama, Stern will open the envelopes in reverse order until it comes down to the last two teams. It’ll be just like a beauty contest in which only two women are left nervously standing.

The No. 2 envelope will be opened then, revealing the identity of the first runner-up, and the winner will get to sign Ewing for a figure that Carl Scheer, general manager of the Clippers, has said will undoubtedly have two commas in it. He means, of course, that it will be for at least $1 million.

All of that should take about five minutes. But as with space shuttle landings and Presidential press conferences, the TV guys probably will spend twice that time analyzing what happened.

Rick Welts, NBA marketing director, said with a straight face: “We’re trying to play down the lottery. When the board of governors voted for it, we thought about what would be the most efficient way to do it, without a lot of hype and making it into a circus.

“We considered using numbered Ping-Pong balls in one of those vacuums like they have in the New York lottery. But it just didn’t seem dignified enough. We originally were going to use white envelopes, but we discovered that you could faintly see the teams’ logos through it if the light is right. So, we went to gray.”

The league isn’t alone in hyping the lottery. At least one sportswriter from each of the seven cities involved will cover the event, and Scheer and Dave DeBusschere, the Knicks’ general manager, were interviewed Friday on NBC’s “Today Show.” Three Atlanta television stations--only one of them is owned by Ted Turner, also the Hawks’ owner--will do live remotes.

“Pro basketball doesn’t get much interest down here,” Atlanta General Manager Stan Kasten said. “But the lottery is talked about all over town. Just the possibility that we may get Ewing has gotten people excited.”

Turner, by the way, was supposed to attend the lottery for good luck and, it is presumed, to mug in front of the CBS camera. But Kasten said that Turner, who has launched an unfriendly takeover bid against CBS, has since changed his mind and won’t attend.

Even without Turner--or Clipper owner Donald T. Sterling, who will stay in Beverly Hills--the lottery promises to be a spectacle.

“We tried to tone it down,” Stern said. “But it just took off.”

There used to be a simple, less glamorous, way of determining which NBA team received the first-round draft pick. It was called a coin flip.

“I remember when we used to hold the coin flip in (former Commissioner) Walter Kennedy’s office with almost no media or TV,” Stern said. “We’d have the owners or general managers of the two (last-place) teams on the phone. One would call heads or tails, we’d flip it, and that would be it. Only a reporter from AP and one from UPI attended. But with Ralph Sampson and Akeem (Olajuwon) the last two years, there’s been incredible publicity.”

The coin flip, between the teams with the worst records in the Eastern and Western conferences, had been used since 1966. Until the era of the Twin Towers, the only time the coin toss created a stir was when the Phoenix Suns and Milwaukee Bucks flipped for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1969. Phoenix called heads and lost.

The coin toss was criticized the last two seasons, when Houston finished last in the Western Conference both seasons and won the flip. There was talk around the league that the Rockets had intentionally lost games to give themselves the shot at the No. 1 pick.

Another blow to the integrity of the system occurred in 1982 when Sterling said of his then-San Diego Clippers: “We’ve got to bite the bullet. We can win by losing.”

Just the appearance of such unethical practices prompted the NBA Board of Governors to adopt the lottery system, in which the seven non-playoff teams would have an equal chance at the No. 1 pick. Even the league press release says plainly that the reason for the lottery was to prevent teams from tanking late-season games.

“The lottery was decided for different reasons,” said Stern, who attended last Sunday’s playoff game between the Lakers and Trail Blazers in Portland. “But the main one was to get the focus off just two teams playing for a chance at the flip. We feel that, given just a one-in-seven chance in the lottery, a team that has a chance to make the playoffs would not forgo that opportunity. That’s the stance we’re taking.”

The coin flip may be history, but talk of teams intentionally losing has continued. In fact, it was heard more this season than before, since seven teams had chances at the No. 1 pick instead of just two.

There were rumors about Atlanta, which slumped in the late season, enabling Cleveland to make the playoffs. The Cavaliers had traded their first-round draft choice this season to Dallas, so they had nothing to gain by losing.

Seattle and Phoenix spent the final weeks of the season fighting for the final Western Conference playoff spot, which meant facing the Lakers in the first round. Phoenix, devastated by injuries, won only four games in the last month and still made the playoffs because Seattle played even worse. SuperSonic center Jack Sikma contributed by missing the last three weeks with tendon and ligament problems in the third finger of his nonshooting hand.

“People can say what they want,” Stern said. “This was the best system we could come up with. The Board of Governors will meet in June again and maybe they’ll think of a better way.”

The reaction from the general managers was mixed.

Said Indiana’s Newell, whose team would have qualified for the coin flip under the old system: “I’m not at liberty to speak (against the lottery) for fear of a fine. But we are a team really in need. We won 25 games, which is enough to qualify for the NCAA tourney but not the NBA. Now, we have the same chance as Atlanta, which barely missed the playoffs.”

Said Atlanta’s Kasten: “We like it. We may only have a one-in-seven chance of getting the No. 1, but we have an 86% chance of getting a better (drafting) position than where we finished (seventh overall). I was for it at the time we voted and I’m for it now.”

Golden State, which had the worst record, is naturally upset. Assistant general manager Hal Childs has posed this question to Bay Area writers: “What ever happened to parity? This laughs at it.”

Stern’s reply: “As I recall, Golden State voted for the lottery.”

Scheer said he’s against the lottery “for reasons different than the potential throwing of games. The draft has been held to establish parity. And now, that might not happen. If Golden State gets the seventh pick, it destroys them.”

If Golden State wins the Ewing lottery, Warrior employees will be in the sales office today to answer phone calls about season tickets.

“Getting Ewing not only means a better team but a stronger franchise,” said Scheer, who predicted increased attendance, a better TV contract and tons of free publicity for the lucky team.

Golden State owner Franklin Mieuli said he’d spend whatever it takes to sign Ewing.

“The fans, through the media, have perceived Ewing as a franchise-maker,” he said. “If such a phenomenon exists, Patrick Ewing is it. He’s perceived the same way Kareem (Abdul-Jabbar) was.”

Ewing should command less than the $2 million Abdul-Jabbar will make next season, but probably not much less.

As in beauty pageants, however, the runners-up also are attractive. The draft was made considerably stronger last weekend when Oklahoma power forward Wayman Tisdale and Creighton’s 7-foot Benoit Benjamin declared themselves eligible. They are expected to be picked second and third in June.

“We’re looking for a big man,” Sacramento’s Axelson said. “Our only question is at what point (in the draft) do we stop looking? If we draw the first, second or third pick, we could get our superstar. After that, we’d have to wrestle with some decisions.”

Said Newell: “A week ago, we were moping around the office because, if we didn’t draft first, we weren’t going to get a big-impact player. Now, with Tisdale and Benjamin, we don’t have to get the No. 1. It’s funny, most of the general managers I’ve talked to aren’t planning for getting the first pick. They are all thinking about the later picks.”

Scheer, however, has thought of little other than Ewing as lottery day approached.

“I’ve never won anything in my life,” Scheer said. “You’d think this one time I’d get lucky.”

Gosh, Carl. They say it’s just not in the stars.