Eleven NBA Teams Hope for Lottery Jackpot: O’Neal

Coach Allan Bristow of the Charlotte Hornets nervously clutched his lucky turkey caller as he watched the 1991 NBA draft lottery.

And, sure enough, the Hornets won the lottery and the first pick in the draft, which they used to select Larry Johnson of Nevada Las Vegas, who became the 1992 rookie of the year.

Bristow will bring his lucky turkey caller with him for today’s lottery, which will be held at the studios of NBA Entertainment in Secaucus, N.J. The lottery will be shown by NBC at halftime of the seventh game of the Eastern Conference semifinals between Chicago and New York.

Louisiana State center Shaquille O’Neal is the grand prize, although O’Neal has said that he wants to play for either the Lakers or Clippers, neither of whom is in the lottery.

But with centers Christian Laettner of Duke and Alonzo Mourning of Georgetown and guards Harold Miner of USC and Jim Jackson of Ohio State, the available talent is solid.

“It’s pretty clear Shaquille is the highest-rated player, but we’ll get an outstanding player at any one of those four spots,” Bob Stein, president of the Minnesota Timberwolves, told the Associated Press.

Orlando General Manager Pat Williams agreed.

“Even if the worst happens Sunday and we have the fifth pick, we know we’re getting a quality player,” he said. “We have a less pressing need at center than most of the lottery teams because we have a young 7-foot center in Stanley Roberts, who has shown signs of developing, but O’Neal still would be the one for us.”

Now in its eighth year, the lottery is a random drawing that determines the order of selection for the first 11 picks of the draft, which will be held on June 24 in Portland, Ore.

Participating are the 11 teams that failed to qualify for the playoffs--Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Milwaukee, Minnesota, Orlando, Philadelphia, Sacramento and Washington.

For the third consecutive year, the NBA will employ a weighted system designed to increase the chances of the teams with the worst records getting the top picks. Each of the 11 teams is assigned from one to 11 Ping-Pong balls, the team that finished with the worst record--Minnesota this year--getting 11 balls and the team with the best record, Houston, getting one ball.

The lottery procedure resembles a TV game show.

The balls are marked with team logos, placed in a clear plastic drum, mixed and then drawn to the top. The team whose ball is the first to emerge from the cylinder gets the first pick. The second non-duplicate ball represents the second pick and the third non-duplicate ball the third pick.

The selection order for the remaining eight lottery teams will be determined by the inverse order of their record, assuring the team with the worst record of no worse than the fourth pick.

The actual lottery, which won’t be televised, will take place in a separate room before halftime, with representatives of the lottery teams, NBA officials and representatives of an accounting firm. The results will remain secret until they are announced at halftime.

After the drawing, team logo cards will be inserted into envelopes marked 1 through 11. The envelopes will be sealed and brought onstage, where the lottery results will be announced by NBA Commissioner David J. Stern. A second representative from each lottery team will be seated on stage. Neither Stern nor the team representatives will be informed of the lottery results before the opening of the envelopes.