Don't Worry About the NBA Draft Lottery Or Anything Else

Yesterday’s annual rash of irrational optimism, unwarranted entitlement, and unreasonable faith in good luck charms has given way to unadulterated ecstasy, forced rationalization, and utter disappointment. Yeah, the NBA Draft Lottery causes excessive verbosity. So it goes.

It also cause fans, media, and team front offices to lose their grasp on reality. Fans stack their team’s past tragedies against those of other teams to argue that their team “deserves” a higher pick. Nope. No one deserves anything. Media members bicker about what every team’s front office should/shouldn’t do with picks that they don’t have yet. Front offices send various good luck charms to represent them in the lottery even though good luck isn’t a thing that exists. Simply put, there is hardly any reason to discuss the draft lottery before it happens because it’s random. It’s a quite literal lottery. But humans seem conditioned to obsess over things we can’t control, thus the outpouring of words leading up to yesterday’s ping pong ball fiesta.

Now that the draft order has been determined, teams in need can start their off-season activities in earnest. So now, the obsessing shifts to how teams should use the picks they’ve cemented to fortify their future. But once again, what’s the point? You can’t control this. Plus, you (whether you’re a fan, professional writer, NBA insider, whomever) don’t really know what a team should do because the actual draft is almost as much of a crapshoot as the lottery.

In fact, the success of pretty much every NBA front office decision is ultimately left up to chance, right? There are a million variables plus injuries. If you’re one of the very few people involved in the decision-making, all you can do is make educated guesses and weigh out risk accordingly. And if you’re not involved (which, chances are, you’re not) just relax. Stop worrying because that's not fun and sports are supposed to be fun. This is especially true if you’re a fan of one particular team. Don’t worry about who your team should pick. Don’t worry about who your team should trade for. Don’t worry about who your team could have gotten if they had kept a draft pick. Don’t worry about who your team could have drafted instead. Don’t worry about anything because you can’t control this, it doesn’t really matter that much, and life is short.

Most of all, if you can't help but worry, at least don’t be angry. Don’t hate anything about the NBA. It’s useless and unbecoming. Try watching basketball games instead. They are fun.