Nick Piccone
Bob Cooney of the Daily News, who was present when the draft lottery actually took place, joined the WIP Morning Show today with Angelo Cataldi and explained why Dikembe Mutombo sent out a premature Tweet yesterday congratulating the Sixers for getting the number one pick in the NBA Draft… about three and a half hours before the lottery even took place. Cooney explained how it all happened:
Someone from the 76ers who is in charge of the alumni players sent out an email to many players talking about how excited they were for last night and one of the opening lines was, ‘And hopeful we are going to walk away with the number one pick.’ Mutombo read it, and didn’t see the ‘hopeful’ part. Thought it had said ‘we are walking away with the number one pick’ and tweeted that out. It was so on the up and up that right after we got done the draft lottery, I was sitting and writing and I got a phone call from a representative who had Dikembe Mutombo with them, and they wanted to talk to me to tell me the story. I didn’t have time because I was on a deadline but they explained the email. I think it was legit.
Too bad. How awesome would it be to think the NBA Draft Lottery is rigged and Mutombo spilled the beans beforehand? It’d be awesome. Mutombo also spoke to the Associated Press to downplay any conspiracy theory.
I want to let people know there was no conspiracy,” Mutombo said in a phone interview.
Mutombo played for the 76ers during his Hall of Fame career and now works for the NBA as a global ambassador. On Tuesday afternoon, he received an email from the Sixers organization asking him if he would post a congratulatory message on Twitter if the 76ers won.
The email, obtained by AP, showed some sample tweets that could be used. He copied and pasted one onto his Twitter page – but then immediately sent it.
“It was like maybe 30 seconds, then I realized, `Whoa! What did I do here?”‘ he said. “But it was too late. It was out in the air.”
Mutombo quickly deleted the tweet, which included a picture of himself and Allen Iverson, his teammate when the 76ers went to the 2001 NBA Finals. He soon posted another tweet saying he was just excited and had gotten ahead of himself, but was still hoping for a Sixers victory.
Sorry, Dikembe. The Tweet will live on forever.
