A special adviser offers good luck advice to Warriors NBA Draft lottery representative Steph Curry

Larry Riley had just passed a week since his new job as CEO of the Golden State Warriors when he was asked to represent the team in the NBA Draft lottery on May 19, 2009. He says that unlike other reps, he didn’t bother to bring no one brings luck with him at the annual event, where the draft order is decided on live TV through the design of ping-pong balls with the team logos. Appropriately enough, the Warriors ended up with the No. 7, which was exactly in line with their original probabilities.

You probably know what happened next: Riley and the Warriors selected Stephen Curry from Davidson. “We played well,” Riley says today. “After all, we were lucky.”

In that sense, even though Riley – now senior adviser to Atlanta Hawks basketball operations – doesn’t need any good luck charms, she’s still the perfect source to offer some lottery advice to Curry, who will be representing the Warriors Thursday night alongside .. a dog, apparently.

Stay with me: the dog is called Larry too. And Larry Riley’s official advice for Curry is that he should absorb the luck of the Irish through his daughter … Riley, a name with Irish roots. “All Steph has to do is take one of Riley’s belongings – a teddy bear, something she likes – take it with him to the lottery, and he’s got the luck of the Irish on his side,” says Larry Riley.

Therefore, through the combined powers of Larry and Riley and Larry Riley, the Warriors can avoid falling to choose five. (They have the best odds of getting a selection of the top three and are guaranteed no worse than the choice of five.)

Why would Larry Riley, a front office executive for a different lottery team, publicly reveal such invaluable information to Curry and the Warriors? Well, for two reasons. First, the Riley-Riley connection is real and Larry hasn’t forgotten it. (Keep the name references in this paragraph, it’s easier to follow.) In 2012, Steph scheduled a rare meeting with Larry and let Larry know that he and Ayesha were likely to name their first daughter Riley, a story first told by Larry. earlier this summer at KGMZ-FM. “I’m just tickled to death by how it turned out,” Larry says now. “I was totally flattered, and I still am today, of course.”

Secondly, Larry Riley still has fond memories of the 2009 draft – or at least its result, since picking seven initially seemed too little, too late for Curry. Riley had Blake Griffin first on her board of directors, but says she really wanted Curry more than anyone else. “We had a series of conversations about pick trading afterwards, because we didn’t think Steph would be there,” he says. “I told a lot of people close to Steph that if he was there at seven, we would get him.” And they did, after taking on Griffin at the Clippers, Hasheem Thabeet at the Memphis Grizzlies, James Harden at the Oklahoma City Thunder, Tyreke Evans at the Sacramento Kings and, infamously, point guard Ricky Rubio and Jonny Flynn at the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Eleven years later, Riley has only a humble and reasonable request for Curry if she chooses to heed Riley’s advice. “The only thing he can’t do is sabotage the Hawks,” he says. “This is the deal.”

Alex Shultz is the sports editor of SFGate. Email: [email protected] | Twitter: @AlexShultz