The NBA Draft Lottery is now less than a week away. I don't know about you but I'm already starting to eat my fingernails off and pace back and forth in my tiny apartment for hours at a time. Those ping pong balls can determine the well being of Sixers fans for years to come. Superstition levels are at Code Red.
NBA.com posted an article a couple of weeks back about the good luck charms many executives have brought to the lottery over the years. From a lucky fishing lure used by the Bucks in 2005 to a lucky horseshoe used by the Knicks in 1985 to land Patrick Ewing. There's been some weird crap people actually believe can bring you luck.
Which brings us to then-President of the Philadelphia 76ers Pat Croce. He actually went out and had something made that channeled into his lucky Irish roots. From NBA.com:
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Set to represent the Sixers at the lottery in 1996, then-President Pat Croce went international with his lucky charm, ordering a miniature basketball made of crystal from a jeweler in Waterford, Ireland. Armed on lottery night with the crystal figure and a good-luck coin that had belonged to his late father, Croce patiently waited to learn his team’s fate. Much to his delight, the Sixers were awarded the top pick in that year’s draft and used it to select Georgetown point guard Allen Iverson.
Croce brought the crystal back with him the next year and again it paid off, as Philadelphia jumped from the fifth spot to second overall. In 1998, with the Sixers possessing just a 10.3% chance of jumping into the top three, he once again brought the vaunted charm with him to the lottery. But even the luck of the Irish wasn’t enough to overcome the odds, and the crystal basketball was retired.
The moral of this story seems to be that you can only get so much luck out of one charm. And a crystal ball that brings you Keith Van Horn may not be all that lucky after all.
Do you have any luck charm ideas for Josh Harris or Sam Hinkie? I'm thinking Harris should just bring a copy of that morning's Wall Street Journal with him. That seems to have treated him well over the years.