A+ Move From The Orlando Magic Bringing Lil' Penny To Tonight's Lottery
(ESPN) – Hoping to cash in on some decades-old luck and nostalgia, Orlando Magicco-founder Pat Williams will have a blast from the past in his possession as he keeps a talking Lil’ Penny doll with him during the NBA draft lottery Tuesday night.
“We put the finest minds we’ve got on this one, and this is what they came up with,” Williams joked in comments to the Orlando Sentinel. “I’ll keep that very, very, very close. We don’t want anybody running off with that, so I’ll have that in my possession the entire evening.
“It’s our version of a lucky penny. We’ve tried everything in the past: lucky coins, four-leaf clovers, rabbit’s feet, Lucky Charms cereal. We’ve taken everything up there.”
LOVE this move from the Orlando Magic. It hit me that many of the stoolies reading this blog may have no idea who the hell Lil’ Penny is. That makes me sad. Not only were the 90s an awesome time for NBA basketball, but also NBA marketing. In my opinion, throughout history there have been some pretty iconic marketing ploys, and none may have been as amazing as Lil’ Penny. Times were much simpler back then. Based off Penny Hardaway, he was a main focus of a Nike campaign while the real Penny Hardaway played in Orlando from 1993-1999. These were some of the best basketball ads the world had ever seen since the days of MJ/Larry Bird playing HORSE for McDonald’s
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Which makes this an obvious no brainer for a team that’s going to be looking for some Lottery magic (pun not intended but intended) tonight. They enter the night with an 8.8% chance at landing the number one pick, but a 29.1% chance at a top three pick. At this point they need all the talent they can get, and Tankathon has them currently slated in the 5th spot. We’re going to see different representatives from all the lottery teams bring something for good luck, but they all are going to hate their chances the second they see Pat Williams holding that doll. You can’t compete with Lil’ Penny, so don’t even try.