Bill Simmons vowed he’d be “morally outraged” if the Dallas Mavericks won the 2025 NBA Draft Lottery.
And the Sports Guy kept his word.
Moments after the Mavericks were announced as the winners of this year’s lottery — and the rights to draft Duke star Cooper Flagg — on Monday night, Simmons took to X to offer the following analysis: “Oh get the f*ck out of here. Come on.”
While The Ringer founder didn’t offer any additional context, it wasn’t difficult for longtime followers to read between the lines. Especially for those who listened to the most recent episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast, in which the show’s host placed Dallas dead last in his “lottery karma rankings” for Monday night’s event
“To do that Luka [Dončić] trade and then end up with Cooper Flagg would be a moral outrage,” Simmons told co-host Ryen Russillo. “Not even an outrage. I’d be morally outraged. My morals would be discombobulated by it. I just can’t believe that’s how it would work out. It would make me so mad.
“Like, really, you motherf**kers just got Cooper Flagg after making the dumbest trade anyone else has ever seen and it worked out and you got Cooper Flagg out of it?”
While Simmons conceded that he’d be happy for Mavericks fans “who are as traumatized and upset about a trade as any fan base I’ve ever seen since I’ve started to like sports,” he remained adamant that Dallas deserved its last place karma ranking. Russillo, meanwhile, pushed back that the fan aspect of the situation should have kept the Mavericks out of last place, an argument that Simmons clearly didn’t buy based on his reaction.
This isn’t the first time that Simmons has taken issue with the results of the (allegedly) random draft lottery, as he famously called for the process to be overhauled after the Cleveland Cavaliers landed the No. 1 overall pick in three of the four seasons after LeBron James left for the Miami Heat (he later threatened to quit covering sports if the Cavs won the Zion Williamson lottery in 2019). Unfortunately, Simmons is no longer a part of ESPN’s pregame show, so we won’t be getting a nationally televised live reaction like we did in 2014. That, however, doesn’t make the visual of him stewing at the basketball Gods for not abiding by his karma rankings any less amusing.