I was just poking around ESPN's NBA front page and found this, the NBA Free Agent Slot Machine. Normally I don't play their dopey "games," but I find this one oddly entertaining. I've gotten some wacky outcomes, such as LeBron James and Carlos Boozer joining Dwyane Wade on the Miami Heat or Chris Bosh leaving Toronto and joining the L.A. Lakers or LeBron signing with the Washington Wizards; Amare Stoudemire and Dirk Nowitzki typically don't move. And now that I think about it, it might be kind fun if the NBA really did its free-agency with a slot machine; teams throw money in and then Commissioner David Stern throws a switch to determine who goes where. They already use a lottery to determine the draft order of the first fourteen picks, so why not?
Obviously, I jest, though this could lend us a behind-the-scenes glimpse of how ESPN makes their own predictions.
