Conspiracy theory: my mission: go behind closed doors and uncover the secret pingpong-ball plot. (Know It All).

I am dispatched to Secaucus, N.J., to witness the drawing of the pingpong balls that determine the order of the first 13 picks in the NBA draft. I arrive certain I will find some sort of conspiracy afoot. This is the NBA, after all, and when it comes to all-time great conspiracies, this league ranks up there with JFK, Jimmy Hoffa and the Roman Senate. Every NBA fan knows that whenever a ref's whistle blows, whenever a draft lottery is conducted, whenever so much as a sneaker squeaks on the court, it is orchestrated by the great league conspiracy.

With super-famous, love him-or-hate him prospect LeBron James on the line, no way the league will leave it to fate to decide the top pick. Right? Surely the fix is in. Surely there is Velcro involved, weights in the balls, controlled air in the lottery machine. Something. I am allowed behind the scenes, and I am certain I can uncover the conspiracy.

Here's how the NBA lottery works: 12 team representatives (Houston did not show, having traded its pick to Memphis) pack into a conference room in the bowels of the NBA office. Another 12 team reps are in the studio and won't know the results until the envelopes are unsealed. There's a lottery machine at the front of the conference room, operated by the official turner-on-er, Kenny Payne of the league office. Payne takes out a case filled with 14 pingpong balls, each marked 1 through 14. He holds up each for inspection, announces the number and drops it into the machine. He then performs his most important function of the evening: turning on the machine.

The league does not simply assign each team a number and draw from there. Instead, each team gets a group of four-number combinations, and the size of that group depends on how bad the team's record was. When four numbers randomly are drawn out of 14, there are 1,001 possible combinations, and the worst team in the lottery is assigned 250 of those combinations. The next team gets 200, and so on down to the last team, which gets only one combination. Because Cleveland and Denver tied for the worst record, they both got 225.

After the machine is on, league official Lou DiSabatino takes out a stopwatch, turns away from the machine and times it for 10 seconds. He holds up his hand, signaling Payne to hit the button that will select the first ball: 6. Five seconds later, he does it again: 2. A pause: 3. Then there's a 12.

6-2-3-12. Checking the assigned combinations ... it belongs to Cleveland. And that's it. The whole thing takes 25 seconds.

Imagine my surprise. No intrigue? No dropped ball, no Velcro? Where are the Knicks sneaking up to steal the top pick? I expected the league to create some kind ...