Rome deserved to get ethered because his question was dumb. LOL at just blatantly asking the commissioner if the draft lottery is fixed. The more nuanced way to ask that question would've been "People are speculating that the lottery may be fixed because the Pelicans, an NBA-owned team, got the #1 pick. How do you respond to those people?" Stern wouldn't have had an issue with it if he asked some variation of it like that.
Also, here is more of the interview, Stern ethers him with "I gotta call someone more important, like Stephen A Smith"