Are you going full conspiracy theorist? Based on the
photo, it does look like you can easily see
a you know we got away with it. Every
year the NBA determines the top of its draft order
by lottery. The odds are weighted, and the
rest is pure luck. There's nothing for anyone to
do but accept their fate. Still, each team
sends someone to go accept that fate, and since
there's no job but sitting and hoping that representative can
be anybody. Teams often send employees, but they've
also sent famous investors, players from other leagues,
players from other eras. They've even sent a child
, which worked out great. No matter what,
at least one of these people will get lucky,
perhaps extremely lucky, and depending what that luck means
, the job of the representative suddenly changes, which
brings us to this guy. This episode is presented
by Honda. The all new CRV Trailsport hybrid is
built to explore. So, before we get to
like who this is and what's happening here, I
want you to imagine yourself in his position. You've
been sent to Chicago to go sit at a podium
at the draft lottery, and that's your job.
Just sit there and wait for the odds to go
as they may. What's that long weekend looking like
for you? Are you gonna, you know,
put a lot of like thought and focus into doing
your job really well? Are you bringing a good
luck charm, or you just hanging out? Like
, how seriously would you take this role? I
mean, first blush, that's a relaxing weekend.
Yeah, like a free trip to Chicago. Chill
in the hotel room, I get the service.
And what do people do in Chicago? Uh,
hot dogs. Just bask in the way. What
about good luck? All you have is luck at
the lottery. Would you bring anything with you?
I've never really had a good luck charm, but
if it was my job and it's like, well
, I don't want to get fired, so I'll
put something into it in a rabbit's foot in the
airport. I'm just bringing my finest suit, you
know. Oh yeah, you're just gonna dress really
well, really well, you know. That's actually
really good. I think I would probably show up
at the lottery and you could tell that I was
enjoying my weekend. Like I'd be in the hotel
bathrobe wearing the Chicago Blackhawks hat with like all sorts
of Chicago, which is really is that the only
thing you know about it? I don't actually know
. So. Is Rolando Blackman. He does not
work for the Dallas Mavericks. He used to play
for the Dallas Mavericks. He was a really good
player for the Mavs. He was an All-Star in
the 80s. He was their draft lottery representative.
And if anyone knows anything about how the 24,
25 season went for the Mavs, this makes some
sense. Without even knowing that much, like,
why do you think Rolando Blackman is representing the Mavs
at the lottery? I honestly do not know.
I was just gonna say sometimes it's. Like we
have to give a former player a job. He
was so we can just let him sit in a
list he's up. Or you go down the list
and everyone on the list, uh, the entire
fan base is mad at them because you just traded
away Lukaans. So you know, often the team
owner might be or the GM might be or some
of the players on the team or the coach,
but I think the. must have gone down the
list and been like, either people didn't want to
do it, or they were just like, people
are going to be too angry to see us on
TV. So the Mavs had very almost no chance
, like a 1% or 2% chance of winning the
draft lottery. This job was literally 99% going to
be just sit there, get the 12th pick,
the camera, right? And so the GM Nico
Harrison, knowing that everybody on earth who cares about
the Dallas Mavericks. is still angry at him for
trading away Lukadoncic was like, I'm not gonna get
this negative PR for no reason. Let's send a
former player. Let's send someone who's not directly affiliated
with that trade to represent us. They probably asked
more people they're probably like, Dirk Nowitzki, you
wanna go? And he's like, oh, I
have a thing. Rolando was like, sure,
yeah, I'll take a trip to Chicago and then
go sit in a chair for a little bit.
And then the Mavs won the lottery, and this
is what that looked like. He really looks like
he's enjoying himself and I'm happy. It's nice because
it seems like he really cares about his former team
, right? Yeah, it's nice. That is
definitely the excitement of winning something. Yeah, you
didn't do anything. That is the key right there
, doing nothing but winning. Every team sends one
person to be in the lottery room, and that
was some like assistant GM who brought like a good
luck charm. He had gotten a sticker from his
kid that he brought with him, and he said
it was a good luck charm. Orlando Blackman said
, uh, the exact quote was, I just
brought a positive fantastic. Fantastic and I kept repeating
, we're going to be number one. We're going
to be number one. He secreted it. Yeah
, he just like sat there and vibed as hard
as he could and it worked out. And the
thing about getting the number one pick, especially when
you had really long shot odds, is if it
happens in a year when there's a very obvious number
one pick, like this year, you become the
face of that luck. So Cooper Flag is going
to be the number one pick in the NBA draft
. And if you look back at past years they
were like that. When the Knicks won the first
lottery, everyone pictures Dave DeBusher holding up, you
know, the rights to draft Patrick Ewing. When
the Magic won the lottery twice in a row and
got Shaq and Penny. Pat Williams, the owner
of the team, became sort of the face of
that. Steve Francis was the lottery representative when the
Rockets got the rights to Yow. Gordon Gunn getting
LeBron, the son of the owner of the Cavs
, Nick Gilbert, when the Cavs wanted a bunch
in a row, like, you immediately become associated
with this moment forever. And so Rolando Blackman,
who again 98. 99% chance he would have had
nothing to do, been on TV for all of
5 seconds, no interviews, nothing will forever be
associated with this extreme long shot good luck that the
Mavericks got. Great smile. It's a great smile
. It looks great. It is complicated somewhat by
, again, the fact that the Mavs in most
people's eyes deserve this good luck, the least that
anyone has ever deserved it. And it's not Rolando's
fault, but it's a weird spot to be in
. To be associated with that forever. I wonder
if he takes it into other aspects of his life
if he's like, I'm lucky now. Yeah.
Do you immediately go by a scratcher like that?
I'm a millionaire. This is a million dollars.
This is it. He's already a millionaire. He
played in the NBA. He was an all-star.
Like he's doing fine I think. I think what's
cool about this gig is, again, there's no
skill, there's no qualification involved whatsoever. You want
to be, you know, have a nice face
for TV and. Act weird on camera, but
you don't have to do anything even after you win
the lottery, all you got to do is give
some interviews and stuff and be like, Great,
I'm happy we did it. And so I've looked
back to see like how weird it's gotten. You
know, teams usually just still send like a player
or their coach or the GM, the someone who
cares about what happens. The Suns sent Diana Taurasi
one year, so she was part of the Phoenix
Mercury, so that was cool. The Knicks sent
Walt Frazier one year, Cavs, there was that
run where they kept sending. Nick Gilbert, who
is the son of, uh, the owner Dan
Gilbert, one year the Nets sent Jay-Z, who
was technically an investor in the team, but obviously
not what he's well known for just sitting there.
I'm still trying to figure out like how far afield
you can go. Can you pick like last year's
Mega Millions winner and be like, this guy's got
good luck you go for that. Can you send
a non-person? Could you? What are the rules
for that? Yeah, I have no idea and
I don't know how far teams have pushed this.
That's not even that far. Yeah, that's fine
. But this is about as unusual as it gets
is like, here is a person who no longer
has any relationship with our franchise, but he used
to play for us 40 years ago. It has
a bit of like dare you to be mad at
him feel to it. Yes, that is the
thing that makes the mad situation unique. It's kind
of like, well, we're not gonna win,
so no one cares who's here. But if we
do win, I don't want my face to be
on TV because everyone hates me. Do you know
the odd odds and then and then Charlotte. So
they're all dolled up, they're like, you know
, they're imagining Cooper flag. relaxing in my hotel
room. I liken this image too. So the
Rockets didn't have great odds of getting the first pick
, but they got bumped down significantly because the Mavs
jumped up. And so you see that Rockets logo
looming in the background, fading, just like just
like simmering with rage. You can feel the tension
behind him. Would you guys want this role?
Like, do you feel like lucky enough people that
you'd feel comfortable in that seat? No. I
want the role because it's easy, but I don't
think I am a good luck charm. I see
, I love his energy though just going and being
like, yeah, it's gonna happen it's because if
it doesn't then like you don't lose anything. It's
just like, well, I tried my hardest.
I tried to will it. Yeah, I can't
blame him. I think I would be nervous.
Like, obviously I would want, you know,
the team I'm representing to win. I would be
a little nervous about that outcome though it's kind of
like being. at comedy show and not knowing whether
or not you're gonna get picked for some crowd work
where like I might go from passive bystander just kind
of zoned out smiling when the camera points to me
to like, whoa, I have to engage now
. Like I have to perform suddenly like doing interviews
and giving quotes to the newspaper. I would not
be ready for that. I'm sure a lot of
people were pissed thinking that this was rigged. Yeah
, that is the thing is there will. Forever
, just like with the Ewing lottery, like when
people look at that picture of Dave DeBuscher celebrating that
the Knicks won the lottery, that's often the headline
of a blog post that's like, you know,
was there actually a frozen envelope? Was the lottery
rigged? However unreasonable and illogical it is, there
will forever be conspiracy theories that because the Mavericks and
ownership traded away Luca, the NBA did them a
solid and gave them. The rights to Cooper flag
. And so yeah, Rolando Blackman on those blog
posts and Reddit threads or whatever like that's the photo
that goes with this. It's not rigged the draft
the shadowy figures that did the rigging. It's not
the person who made the Luca trade is this lovely
innocent man who last played in the 1980s and doesn't
make any. Decisions. To be fair, like
if I got away with something really sleazy and I
was really happy and just like a fat cat laughing
at people who are unlucky, it's exactly how it
would look. he's fully on the photo, it
does look like you can easily see what you know --> .