[DON'T] F**K THE DRAFT: A month ago, the most popular story about the NFL draft was about how strange it was that the mere act of choosing players -- not of actually making them play, but just picking them -- was such a huge event. I don't buy that, but if you do, then you'll shake your head when I say that I, and millions of other people, found a TV at 5:30 p.m. yesterday and anxiously watched the NBA Draft Lottery, which isn't even about picking players who will later play, but instead was the act of picking the order in which teams will pick the players who will later play. And you know what? It was riveting. When the #6 slot went to Milwaukee, it was apparent to those who knew the arcane draft rules and who could do some simple subtraction (a group that apparently did not include the ESPN announcers) that three long-shots had leapfrogged Memphis, Boston, and Milwaukee (Adlai! It's a team!), the worst three teams in the NBA, to claim the top spots in the draft. Because this draft class includes the two most-hyped players since LeBron James, that was a league-shaking development. Like tribal council reversals and last-minute stitching, it was improbably gripping television.
Predictably, the draft lottery losers have some sour grapes to spit out. Sports Guy Bill Simmons, who is frequently funny and insightful but who as frequently overcooks his woe-is-me-the-plight-of-the-long-suffering-Boston-fan complaining, says that if you're not a Boston sports fan, "you can't even fathom the pain." Did you follow a team that had an undersized freak of nature with an outsized heart, only to alienate him and then trade him for pennies on the dollar? Have you given your heart to basketball, baseball, and football teams that dominated regular seasons, only to sink under the weight of penalties, dropped passes, poor pitching matchups, or Dikembe Mutombo? Simmons has an answer for you -- Boston's pain is more acute because, and this really is his argument, it is accustomed to winning. So you should just be thankful that you haven't experienced all of those heartbreak-enabling championships.
Even better, though, is the reaction of Memphis lame-duck governess Jerry West. It's unfair, cries West, that the worst teams don't get the best players. That would be a fair point if it didn't come from the boss of a team that -- like the other two luckless lottery losers -- openly threw games for the last few months of the season just to improve its lottery position. It's hard to tell which teams are really the worst if some of them are shelving their best players (or pulling them from the fourth quarter of games) because they affirmatively want to lose. To West, then, I'd say the lottery worked pretty well this season. The punishment for tanking is the risk that it won't pay off, so all you have to show for your 60 losses is the embarassment of going out with everybody knowing you took a dive, plus maybe Mike Conley or that Li Jianling guy.
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