Teaching My Future Wife About the NBA Lottery
Last night provided a new twist for me. For the past two years, I watched the NBA Lottery in the confines of my penthouse suite (I had 1/2 of then entire upstairs at our rental house). I watched in my own room because I lived with three SEC fans (two Florida fans, and for the record, Florida fans are less tolerable than Kentucky fans) who thought the NBA was terrible. Did I think of them as mentally incompetent for such heresy? Yes, but I chose to watch the past lotteries comfortably instead of listening to them complain.
Well, this year, I watched the NBA Lottery with my soon-to-be wife at our house. We both got home early enough to have a nice taco salad dinner, and then we popped in disk number 2 of the first season of 24. We watched one episode that left her on the edge of her seat, so obviously we HAD to watch the next episode as well. Before we jumped into the second hour of the disk, I flipped to the Lottery which I was recording (I love TiVo, I know I mentioned this before, but I still feel obligated to express my gratitude) and fast-forwarded to the start of the Lottery process. I even skipped the David Stern interview. (I watched it later, no worries). As the lottery process started, and the Clippers landed the 14th pick, I told her that was where they were expected to land. Then the next 5 places were rattled off, and I continued to explain the odds for each team to select in the first three places. I had to be sure to let her know that it was a weighted process for the first three places, and then picks 4 through 14 went according to the team’s previous record.
Keep in mind, I wrote an entire law review article (just missed the publishing cut) for my law review on the possibility of Stern and the NBA pushing for an age limit requirement for the NBA Draft two years ago. This article was based on the Maurice Clarett decision and antitrust laws, and I pushed for a two-year removed from high school cap. Several months after I wrote the article (that nobody saw), Stern and the NBPA agreed on a one-year requirement, and I secretly patted myself on the back for my analysis. Anyway, as an introduction to the article, I broke down the history of the NBA Draft Lottery process and how the lottery process came to be. (For more information on how the Lottery works, go here: http://www.collegehoopsnet.com/history/draft/lottery.htm)
When the Celtics were announced at the fifth spot and the Grizzlies were announce at the fourth spot, I thought of four things: 1) I’m going to be reading a depressing Sports Guy article tomorrow; 2) holy schnikes the Sonics, Blazers, and Hawks possibly won Oden; 3) Patrick Ewing is really big, not Charles Barkley big, but close (lingering thought from his interview); and 4) why did the Grizzlies send Jerry West when he already left the team?
Anyway, this required further discussion on how the Hawks managed to land two Lottery picks. I had to explain the fact that Larry Bird and the Pacers owed their pick to Atlanta, unless it landed in the top-3. Therefore, Larry had to pray to himself, as the Basketball Jesus, that he would get a top-3 pick or lose it to the ATL. Then, I had to explain that Atlanta lucked out, because they would have sent their pick to Phoenix if they did not land in the top-3, because of a previous trade. We were possibly watching a juvenation of the ATL Hawks franchise, since they could land Oden and possibly Conley, Jr. This required some further explanation about the previous trades, and why top-3 picks are protected. Needless to say, I found the whole thing interesting. I even paused during the commercial break to try to better explain the whole process, which resulted in a frustrated look and the following statement (paraphrased), “Can we finish this, because I want to see what happens to Jack Bauer’s family.” By this time I realized that I was better off explaining the events from the previous seven minutes to the Schnauzer’s, Reese and Sam, than to her. (Those were her dogs before, I have a Chesapeake Bay Retriever that I can’t seem to pry from my parents grip.)
All in all, I enjoyed the Draft Lottery (our subsequent hour of Bauer, and the Spurs game), and am looking forward to the fall-out in the coming weeks. I am also interested to see if the Blazers try to move Zach Randolph to completely eliminate their recent troubled history and bring in some proven veteran winners/leaders and run with their core of Oden, Aldridge, Roy, Jack, Outlaw, and Webster.
I’ll be back in a few days with a preliminary Mock Draft, followed by a second Mock Draft after workouts, and then a final Mock Draft right before the real draft. Then I’ll create my own buzzword to use in my player analysis, something like starlikelengthability. Isn’t that what everybody is supposed to do?
