Patrick Mahomes, the two-time NFL MVP and Kansas City Chiefs quarterback, found himself at the center of an NBA conversation Tuesday night — not for his athletic prowess, but for his reaction to the Dallas Mavericks’ stroke of good fortune in the 2025 NBA Draft Lottery.
With a simple, celebratory tweet that read “Let’s goooo!!! ,” Mahomes set off a firestorm of conversation across social media. The Texas native, a well-known supporter of all things Dallas, including the Mavericks, was elated to see his team win the coveted No. 1 overall pick in the upcoming NBA Draft. The moment, however, wasn’t without controversy.
Within seconds of NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum revealing that the Mavericks had secured the top selection, allegations of draft lottery rigging began flooding social media platforms. NBA conspiracy theorists were quick to point to the improbability of Dallas jumping from the No. 10 spot — where they had just a 3% chance to win the lottery — to No. 1. And Mahomes, despite having nothing to do with the NBA’s operations, instantly became a prominent face attached to the narrative.
The quarterback’s enthusiasm mirrored that of Mavericks fans everywhere. After a disappointing 2024-25 season plagued by injuries, defensive inefficiencies, and chemistry issues between Luka Dončić and Kyrie Irving, the franchise seemed to be drifting. A top draft pick felt like a much-needed jolt — a chance to reshape the future and perhaps finally put a legitimate supporting cast around Dončić.
But for critics and skeptics, the timing and outcome of the lottery raised immediate red flags.
“The Mavericks winning this lottery is too convenient,” one widely circulated post on X (formerly Twitter) read. “The league needs Dallas to be relevant. Luka Dončić is too marketable to let rot in mediocrity.”
That narrative — that the NBA manipulates outcomes for market appeal — isn’t new. It dates back to the 1985 lottery when the New York Knicks famously won the rights to draft Patrick Ewing, sparking decades of speculation about a “frozen envelope.” More recently, similar theories emerged in 2019 when the New Orleans Pelicans, fresh off trading Anthony Davis, miraculously won the Zion Williamson sweepstakes. And in 2023, when the Spurs won the right to draft Victor Wembanyama, French phenom and generational talent, skeptics again cried foul.
In 2025, it’s Dallas’ turn under the microscope — and Mahomes’ high-profile cheerleading only added fuel to the fire.
It’s important to note that Mahomes is not a passive observer when it comes to Dallas sports. A native of Tyler, Texas, and a former baseball prospect himself, Mahomes has been vocal in his support for all things Texas. He’s a minority owner of the Kansas City Royals and also part of the ownership group of the Kansas City Current of the NWSL, but his basketball loyalties remain in Texas — particularly with the Mavericks.
“Mahomes is just being a fan like the rest of us,” one user posted in his defense. “But when a megastar tweets about it within seconds, it makes people feel like he knew it was coming.”
That idea — that Mahomes somehow had advance knowledge — has no basis in fact. But the optics were enough to give rise to new theories.
One meme that circulated within minutes of the lottery results showed Mahomes photoshopped in a referee uniform with the caption: “Mahomes rigged the NBA now too?”
While humorous, it underscores how any coincidence in sports these days is often viewed through a lens of suspicion. Leagues like the NBA, which operate complex, closed-door systems like the lottery process, are especially susceptible to such scrutiny.
The lottery process itself, held behind closed doors with a select group of media and legal representatives in attendance, uses ping-pong balls to determine outcomes — a system designed to be both fair and random. Still, only the results are televised, not the actual drawing, and in the age of AI, deepfakes, and instantaneous online skepticism, the lack of transparency only heightens public distrust.
Despite the controversy, Mavericks fans like Mahomes are basking in the moment. The No. 1 pick could mean the arrival of a franchise-altering player — someone like 6-foot-10 forward Jayden Pryce out of Duke or explosive scoring guard Te’Andre Wilkes from Kansas. Both are considered consensus top-tier prospects with the potential to complement Dončić’s unique game. Whether the Mavs decide to use the pick or leverage it in a blockbuster trade to acquire an established star remains to be seen, but the mere option puts Dallas in an enviable position.
Mahomes’ tweet, for better or worse, became the unofficial stamp of validation for Mavericks nation — and a flashpoint for critics.
“I get the skepticism,” said NBA insider Ramona Shelburne during a late-night ESPN panel. “But sometimes, the lottery just breaks your way. Mahomes has nothing to do with it. He’s a Texas guy excited for his team. But because of who he is, it becomes a thing.”
It’s a phenomenon we’ve seen before: when superstars outside a given sport make a comment, post, or appearance related to major news, it ripples far beyond the original moment. Whether it’s Drake sitting courtside and being blamed for the Raptors’ bad luck or Taylor Swift attending Chiefs games and inadvertently influencing jersey sales, modern fandom is intertwined with celebrity at a level that blurs the lines between observation and implication.
In this case, Mahomes is guilty of nothing more than being a high-profile fan. But in the hypersensitive world of sports fandom, that’s enough to trigger a domino effect of accusations.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is expected to face questions about the lottery process in the coming days. While there has been no official suggestion of wrongdoing, the league may feel pressure to revisit how the results are communicated publicly. Calls for live broadcasting of the actual lottery drawing — not just the reveal — have grown louder each year. Tuesday’s outcome only amplified that conversation.
For Mahomes, this is unlikely to become more than a momentary blip on the radar. He’s used to being under a microscope and has handled far more intense scrutiny in his NFL career. But the reaction to his tweet is a reminder that in today’s sports ecosystem, even a cheer can be controversial.
The irony, of course, is that Mahomes — an NFL quarterback — is somehow being tied into an NBA conspiracy. It speaks volumes about his cultural reach and the public’s increasing tendency to assign deeper meaning to even the most innocuous actions by celebrities.
What happens next will depend entirely on what Dallas does with its good fortune. If the Mavericks land a superstar and vault back into contention, fans will call it destiny. If the pick flops or gets traded in vain, skeptics will claim the system failed yet again. Either way, Mahomes will remain an unlikely footnote in the story, remembered for an enthusiastic tweet that ignited a nationwide debate.
And perhaps that’s the larger story — not about whether the NBA lottery is rigged or not, but about how sports fandom has changed. In a world where everything is shared instantly and nothing is immune from suspicion, even joy can look suspicious. Mahomes didn’t cause the Mavericks to win the lottery. He didn’t rig anything. He cheered for his team, as fans do.
But in the modern era, even that’s enough to get people talking. And maybe that’s what sports are really about — conversation, emotion, debate. Patrick Mahomes didn’t start the fire, but he threw a little gasoline on it with a tweet and a smile.
And for now, Mavericks fans — with or without rigging allegations — are just happy to be holding the No. 1 pick.