This column, by Bernie Lincicome of the Chicago Tribune, appeared in the May 27, 1985, issue of The Sporting News, after the Knicks won the first NBA draft lottery and the right to pick Patrick Ewing No. 1 overall.
CHICAGO — It is assumed that Dave DeBusschere is alive and well today, though for a few anxious moments you would not have flipped a coin for his chances.
The executive vice president of the New York Knicks, always a pressure player, looked very close to losing his faculties as he waited out the dramatic resolution of Patrick Ewing's future.
One can only imagine the same anxiousness on the face of Gen. Dwight Eisenhower as he awaited word on the landing in Normandy.
And when it was decided that DeBusschere's basketball team would have the privilege of making young Ewing excessively wealthy, you hoped someone would rush to DeBusschere's side, shove his head into a paper bag, tell him to breathe deeply and reassure him that the republic was safe.
TSN Originals: David Stern, the Knicks, Patrick Ewing and the 1985 NBA draft lottery conspiracy theories
The worst anyone thought of this draft lottery business was that it was silly. No one could ever have believed it was also dangerous to your health.
I would hate to imagine after all DeBusschere has been through what would happen to his blood pressure if Ewing suddenly decided to attend graduate school. You never can tell about scholars.
Breathless, DeBusschere thanked the fates for his good fortune. In keeping with the spirit of the occasion, he might have thanked all the little people who made it possible, except there are no little people in basketball.
National Basketball Association commissioner David Stern is a little person, and be did pluck the card from a Plexiglas container that awarded Ewing to the Knicks, but thanking Stern would have been a trifle tasteless and would have added to the suspicion that the whole thing was rigged anyhow.
There is the definite aroma of a hometown decision here. The drawing was held in New York before a New York audience and New York won the door prize. Winning anytime is something the Knicks have not been able to do since DeBusschere's hair was the same color as his belt.
The prosperity of the NBA is tied very closely to the Knicks' success, now guaranteed with the addition of Ewing.
But we are reassured that the accounting firm of Ernst and Whinney was diligently guarding the honesty of the proceedings as they have done for over flesh auctions such as the Miss Universe contest, for which, as far as is known, neither DeBusschere nor Ewing is eligible.
The team that could have used Ewing the most of course, was Golden State, which is somewhere near Sacramento, Calif., but not in it. Kansas City is at last report, in Sacramento, having rented a warehouse and Reggie Theus for the season.
Golden State and Indianapolis had the worst records in pro basketball, and in previous years would have flipped a coin for Ewing. In 12 of the last 15 years, the coin had come up tails, possibly proving that if basketball can ignore the law of gravity, the law of averages could ignore basketball.
But at least the services of a media were never thought necessary for flipping a coin, a more civilized procedure but clearly worse theater than inviting seven adults in suits to sit through a loser lottery without sweating from the neck up.
Golden State was eliminated immediately, the pain on Al Attles' face a convincing argument against his ever being selected as Miss Congeniality.
Alter Sacramento, Atlanta, Seattle and the Los Angeles Clippers were informed by Stern, who tore open envelopes about the size of church windows to discover their prizes, only Indiana and New York were left.
Indiana had been through this before, in the coin flip days, losing Ralph Sampson to Houston. Thus have the Pacers, in two different ways been denied the services of the two men who will likely dominate basketball for the next dozen years. That hardly seems fair for a place that cares about basketball so much that some people don't even bet on it.
The Knicks were the third-worst team in pro basketball and their getting Ewing injures justice less severely than it might have. Still, lotteries seem so much of an improvement on coin flips. For a Ewing, there should have been a better way.
The most obvious way, of course, would have been for Ewing to pick the team he wanted, as might a talented engineer choose a firm upon graduation. Bernie Kosar, the football player, was able to do as much and he picked Cleveland. As I said, you never can tell about scholars.
Another method, practiced on playgrounds every day would have been to shoot for Ewing. The best shooters from each team would take 20 free throws each. Most in would get Ewing.
Or, since the draft is supposed to reward the team most in need, the worst shooters could have taken the free throws and the team with the most misses would get Ewing.
What about a game of H-O-R-S-E? Or in this case, E-W-I-N-G? Same number of letters.
The owners could have played one-on-one. That would have been fair, if a lot like a junior high gym class among tenors who couldn't get into glee club.
Once the draw got down to New York and Indiana, the answer should have been simple. The two basketball teams could have played each other. Loser to get Ewing.
However, to keep each team from playing to lose, which is why they went to the lottery system in the first place, the teams would have changed shirts at halftime so that New York became Indiana and Indiana became New York.
Therefore, the winner would really have been the other team or the loser.
If that doesn't make sense, work it out on paper. It is really a quite ingenious answer.
And not hazardous to the health of anyone important.