Luke Walton has two NBA teams in which he’s currently invested, so one of his coworkers decided to take advantage of that.
Walton is still an assistant coach for the Golden State Warriors, who are in the middle of the Western Conference Finals. He’s also been named the head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, who had a big day on Tuesday with the NBA Draft Lottery happening. The Lakers were likely to have one of the top picks in the draft, but it wasn’t until the ping pong balls were settled that the team learned it would have the No. 2 overall pick in the draft.
Apparently Warriors PR worker Raymond Ridder messed with Walton about the lottery results ahead of time, and the prank worked:
Before lottery, Warriors PR czar Raymond Ridder texted Luke Walton that Lakers got 4th pick. Luke fell for the prank, now has last laugh.
— Bill Oram (@billoram) May 18, 2016
Luckily for Walton, the Lakers did even better than Ridder said — which was part of the prank; people anticipated the Lakers would win one of the top two picks, so picking fourth would have been a relative disaster. At least for now, Walton’s Lakers coaching career is off to a good start.
