Oh NBA draft lottery, we’ve come so far since David Stern
brazenly grabbed the envelope with the folded corner and handed Patrick Ewing
to the Knicks. The whole process has grown so much that the selection process
happens off-screen now, so we can be TOTALLY sure a team doesn’t get a #1 pick
because Dan Gilbert was owed one or Tom Benson just took the Hornets off the
league’s hands. Things like that would NEVER happen at the draft lottery!
We here at No Regard find lots of value in the more trivial NBA happenings, and since televised corporate meetings where you
kinda feel like something’s off are kinda my thing, I DVR’d the draft lottery
just to watch Arrested Development on Netflix and catch the #1 pick later or maybe just look on Twitter
write a running diary. There are white guys AND more white guys! I hope you like pictures of someone else's TV.
Here we go:
:00 – looks like I missed the opening sequence, if there was
one. Here’s Chad Ford sitting at a table next to some other guy talking about
Nerlens Noel. A graphic of the draft rules comes on the screen and the rosters
of the league’s crappiest teams scroll across the bottom.
The camera turns to Heather Cox standing in a room full of fresh
NBA gear. “Nice!” you probably just thought to yourself. “That stuff must be
worth a fortune!” Well, you’re wrong. Just look at this crap.
I’d pay like 8 bucks for the contents of that room.
:01 - Cox tells us she’s in the Good Morning America studios
where the lottery itself actually happened. Apparently somewhere there is a locked
room full of team executives and exactly four media members plus “members of
the accounting firm Ernst & Young” (because they DEFINITELY didn’t rig it
this year). They don’t have phones or internet in there, just David Stern
telling them exactly what will happen to their families if they go anywhere
near Twitter in the next half-hour. Then Cox shows us the ball picking device
and some charts with numbers.
In case you care, the Magic have the best chance of winning
because the Dwight Howard trade turned out so well for them.
:03 Ford starts telling us about a bunch of guys we didn’t
bother watching in college this year and says maybe Ben McLemore can be the #1
pick (I'm disregarding this, it's Nerlens' night). Heather Cox re-appears and talks to Anthony Bennett from UNLV, who has
his arm in a sling. Along with Nerlens Noel’s torn ACL, this may be the
gimpiest draft in a while.
:05 – I still haven’t figured out who the co-host talking to
Chad Ford is. Ford is talking about guys who might get picked 5-10. They won’t be heard from until the vastly underrated Rising Stars Challenge where they’ll take turns picking on Brandon
Knight.
:08 – We’re suddenly transported to the Simmons/Jalen
Rose/Magic Johnson/Mike Wilbon Patronizing Everyone pregame show. Simmons runs
through his Karma Power Rankings. [5. Philly 4. Orlando 3. Wizards 2. Kings
(no) 1. Pistons.] That was even more pointless than this blog post. Simmons
predicts a Kings lottery win, which is the consensus suspicion among NBA
conspiracy theorists.
:11 – The guy who runs NBA security just escorted some
accountant to the podium with the draft results. They are the only two people
in the room who already know the results.
This is so white. We’re almost halfway through and have already gotten two
commercial breaks, a cut-away to the Spurs-Griz pregame show, a room full of
worthless gear and several people taking their jobs way too seriously. We
haven’t met any team representatives yet and don’t know about any of the picks.
:14 -
Time for a vignette of possible lottery picks! Ten years ago I watched this
very show to find out where LeBron, Darko, Wade, Melo and Bosh might go. Today,
I barely know who the guys in this video are.
:15 – Meet the team reps!
Jazz: old white guy
Mavericks: middle-aged white guy
Raptors: middle-aged white guy
Sixers: middle-aged white guy
Blazers: Damian Lillard!
Timberwolves: Kevin Love! He brought a Ricky Rubio
bobblehead, doesn’t say a word, is so far beyond this crap.
Wizards: Bradley Beal!
Pistons: Andre Drummond!
Kings: Keith Smart (DeMarcus hasn’t fired him yet!)
Pelicans: Monty Williams lies to us about how excited he was
to have Austin Rivers on his team. Also everyone is officially calling them the
Pelicans now. I want them to win this so we can have Nerlens in Nawlins.
Suns: old white guy
Cavs: Dan Gilbert’s kid in a bow tie and holy crap his voice has dropped. Also
he’s FURIOUS to be at the lottery again.
Bobcats: a man named Fred Whitfield who is shockingly NOT
white. If I told you to speak to a Charlotte businessman named Fred Whitfield
and released you into this room, you’d take at least 7 guesses before picking
this guy.
Magic: old white guy
That’s four players, two coaches, seven non-Kevin Love white guys of
varying ages and one Fred Whitfield.
Side note: Dan Gilbert is currently 2/3 of the way to
actually becoming Willy Wonka.
:18 – It’s Adam Silver time! I guess Stern has some
reporter’s blood all over his suit and didn’t bring a change of clothes. Picks
9-14 go in the order they were slotted to go, with the Raptors losing their
pick to the Thunder, which is somehow related to the James Harden trade.
:20 – The Pistons get the 8th pick, which means
the Wizards get to squander a top 3 pick this year! They show Bradley Beal, who
has not yet processed this information.
:21 – The Bobcats get the 4th pick despite having
the 2nd best odds to win the lottery. Whitfield looks pissed.
That leaves the Wiz, Cavs and Magic. The camera cuts to
Nerlens Noel, who must be begging for the Wizards to win this right now,
the Magic are no fun and Cleveland is in Cleveland.
:24 Chad Ford promises there will be actual basketball on
after this. Bradley Beal, Dan Gilbert’s kid and this guy are waiting to see the
#1 pick.
He looks fun.
The Wiz get the #3 pick. Beal does not care at all.
:25 – Magic get the #2 pick and Dan Gilbert’s kid finally
acts like a kid with a solid fist-pump. Cox interviews Dan Gilbert, who
promptly makes a joke about keeping his kid confined to his room for six weeks
for not winning the draft lottery last year (he's probably not joking). There is a palpable sense that the
Magic guy wants to punch both Gilberts in the face and that all the players
were ready to go to 1OAK with JR Smith an hour ago.
:27 – The guy who isn’t Chad Ford interviews Nerlens, who
mumbles through the whole thing. He’s not looking forward to Cleveland.
:28 – Turns out Chad Ford was Jay Bilas the whole time. I
still haven’t figured out the co-host’s name. Every single team rep has already
bounced.
:29 – Since nobody is left in the room, they give us this
fantastic picture of what the creepiest rich people in Cleveland look like.
Note the guys sitting on either side of Dan Gilbert.
There's a 100% chance they have a basement full of Oompa Loompa's.
That’s enough of this. Don't worry, Nerlens. That really dumb sound you hear is everyone in Cleveland assuming this will get LeBron to come back. Also, Kyrie looks really fun to play with, so there's that.