with Shaq and Penny...

but the entire reason why there was ever a lottery in the first place is because of the Lakers. The trades that the Lakers did in with Utah and Cleveland for future first round picks that eventually turned into Magic Johnson and James Worthy..... The league eventually chose to go with a lottery system to give variation to the top draft order and making it less likely that a team that was already solid would be able to make a deal with a bad team that would result in the top pick..

the Lakers signing Shaq as a free agent resulted in changes to the salary cap after that in an effort for the league to make it more difficult for a team to sign a big money free agent from another team....if you look at the history of the league, game changing free agency signings and trades have always resulted in the league making changes to make it more difficult for it to happen in the future...

Now the league blocks the Lakers getting Chris Paul.....and the Lakers go to plan B and C by tradeing draft picks for Steve Nash, and trading Drew Bynum for Howard, Duhon and Clark...

One thing to learn from all of this is that a team like Orlando...or a team like Cleveland..... when you have your chance to win titles...you got to finish the job...because if you don't..those young players are going to leave.... If Shaq and them beat Houston...Deisel probably would have never been a Laker.....had Lebron and the Cavs won the title...Bron would probably still be in Cleveland...if Howard and them had won a title with the Magic...he probably would have wanted to leave..

when you get your chances..you got to take em..