2013 Draft Lottery Running Diary (with Pictures!)

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 8^th 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 4^th pick despite having the 2^nd 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.

No Regard Previews: Xs and Os

One Game We Will Definitely Watch Tonight: Boston Celtics vs. New York Knicks

The last time these two basketball outfits met, the ball game ended in a chaotic mess. Carmelo Anthony alerted the NYPD and whoever else would listen that a citywide manhunt of Kevin Garnett must ensue. So tonight, one can only imagine that the majority of TNT's coverage will center around these two competitive gents. Will they shake hands? Will they fight? Will they kiss!?

But since we pride ourselves on ignoring all that silly stuff, instead focusing only on round ball tactics and nothing else here at No Regard I'll say this: Tonight's professional basketball bonanza presents a very serious contrast in basketball playing styles. 

The Knicks (a Manhattan-based, paid basketball squad) rely heavily on shots from far away that count for three points, three-pointers if you will, as well as chucked-up bombs from New Jersey native J.R. Smith. Smith may or may not close his eyes before he wings the orange sphere towards the cylinder. They also give opponents a heavy dose of Brooklyn-born Carmelo from Redhook, whose ability to score anywhere on the floor is the bee's knees. The Knickerbocker's are known to sprinkle in some high screen-and-rolls, too, arguably the most basic play in all of basketball plays.

Here's how it works: One player, usually a point-guard, (but in the modern NBA anything goes) bounces a ball into the floor while he waits for a bigger guy to get in the way of a guy wearing a different color tank top whose job it is to try and stop him from doing great stuff. Then, the player still pounding the leather thing into the court either drives hard to the rack, hoping to score, or passes the rock (slang for basketball) to the guy who was getting in the way a second ago. This guy is now headed to the hole himself. Complicated, but true.

The Celtics (a Boston-based, paid basketball group of men) put a strong emphasis on defensive stops, so that they can own the transition game. They also prefer mid-range jump shots preceded by penetration from their two best wing players, Rajon Rondo and Paul Pierce. Sometimes, this works, but other times the Celtics lack of offensive diversity leads them to get smoked by talentless hacks like Larry Frank's Pistons (a Detroit-based basketball franchise).

Whatever happens tonight, this much we know for certain: Grown men will box each other out. Millions will watch while consuming alcohol. Lord knows I'll have a pinot noir or two. 

One Game We Won't Watch Tonight: Orlando Magic vs. Toronto Raptors

Not to brag, but Andrew and I went to the Raptors-Nets game the other day in Brooklyn at Barclays Center (don't say the "The," they don't like it when you say "The Barclays Center"). It was the best day of our lives. I learned that Landry Fields makes a living playing guard for the Raptors now. Complicated, but true.

Anyway, nobody loves Big Baby Davis more than me, but I'll be watching the All-Star reserve announcements instead of taking this one in. So sue me if I would rather listen to Charles breakdown who got snubbed or whatever. It's a free country. Obama told me two days ago. 

No Regard Presidential Previews: Orlando Magic (Richard Nixon)

Oh the season. Oh the season! Election or NBA, both are upon us. We're getting into the spirit by bringing you our season previews (with a little help from the presidents). One per day for the next 30 days—which will bring us to the Day of Reckoning. So please join us on the campaign trail as we shake hands, kiss babies and sink jumpers.

“Life isn't meant to be easy. It's hard to take being on the top - or on the bottom. I guess I'm something of a fatalist. You have to have a sense of history, I think, to survive some of these things... Life is one crisis after another.” - Richard Nixon

Richard Milhouse Nixon's legacy, in the minds of most, begins with the Watergate break-in and ends with a resigned Tricky Dick throwing up deuces and boarding a helicopter out of town. While that is his enduring image, our 37th President of the United States was so much more than we remember. In his time in office, Nixon ended America's involvement in the Vietnam War, opened diplomatic relations with China, signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the Soviets, established the Environmental Protection Agency, established the first minimum wage, brought the first national attention to cancer research and won the Space Race by putting a man on the Moon. But all you remember is Watergate.

The Orlando Magic have had some really, really good years. Shaq and Penny Hardaway brought them to the 1995 NBA Finals, and Lil' Penny was the best non-Jordan ad campaign of the '90s. Tracy McGrady won a scoring title for the Magic in 2003. Dwight Howard won three Defensive Player of the Year awards in a row. The Magic have been to the playoffs the past six years. In 2009, the Magic went through the Celtics and LeBron's heavily-favored Cavs to reach the NBA Finals. But all you remember is the Dwightmare.

Where Nixon covered up the Watergate break-in and was essentially forced to resign from the Presidency, the Magic (particularly since-fired GM Otis Smith) handled the long, miserable Dwight Howard fiasco about as poorly as possible. Trading for Hedo Turkoglu, Jason Richardson and Gilbert Arenas was basically re-arranging the deck chairs on Titanic, just as the resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew did nothing to take the heat away from Nixon. Dwight Howard wanted a trade. Sometimes he pretended he didn't, but rather than go quietly, Howard took down coach Stan Van Gundy in one of the NBA's worst heel-turns. Howard was traded to the Lakers and the Magic wound up with Arron Afflalo, Al Harrington, a platter of spare parts and some draft picks. Andre Iguodala and Andrew Bynum changed hands in that trade, the Magic wound up with neither of them.

In the aftermath of his resignation, Nixon quietly withdrew from the public eye for a while before being pardoned by his successor, Gerald Ford. The 2012-2013 Orlando Magic are led by Afflalo, Jameer Nelson and Glen Davis. Hedo Turkoglu averaged 10.8 points per game last season and is the highest-paid player on the team. There's always the lottery, which, by the way, the Magic have won three times.

Rushed Pull-Up Jumpers

Pokemon who the team should adopt as its new mascot: Cubone

Headline we'll be most sick of reading: "Shadow of Howard Hangs Over Magic"

Headline we're most looking forward to: "Glen Davis, Hedo Turkoglu Face Off in Eating Contest at CiCi's Pizza, Everyone Involved Loses." 

If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you enter the pearly gates?: "Did you bring Stan? I really want to hang out with that dude."

No Regard Recaps: Ain't Over 'Til It Ain't Over

One Game We Watched Last Night: Atlanta Hawks vs. Boston Celtics

Hawks: 87, Celtics: 86

Al Horford and his freshly healed pectoral muscle is starting to become a real thorn in the side of the Boston Celtics. Horford's emotional return is more than just fluff, in fact, as it was his big body that prevented Rondo from getting up a potential game-winning shot on the final play.

Speaking of Rondo, I love that he shoots threes now. You know who else made a three last night? Kevin Garnett!
 
                  

You know who can't shoot threes? Ryan Hollins. But he can provide some serious energy minutes off the bench. Boy, that guy loves being out there on the basketball court in a Celtics uniform.

What else, what else? Oh yeah, how come Walter Ray Allen misses foul shots now? Not okay.

One Game We Didn't Watch Last Night: Orlando Magic vs. Indiana Pacers

Magic: 87, Pacers: 105

This was probably Stan Van's last game as head coach of the Orlando Magic. Or it wasn't, we'll never know. So even though we didn't watch, we did make sure to tune into his post-game presser because that's where SVG shines magnificent. He didn't disappoint. As one reporter introduced the premise that this past season was tough for Van Gundy both on and off the court, SVG interrupted. He said that wasn't true, that the past year has been good for him off the court because his wife likes him most of the time.

Goodnight Stan.

No Regard Recap: We Did It!

One Game We Watched Last Night: Boston Celtics vs. Orlando Magic

Celtics: 87, Magic: 56

In previewing this game, I practically dropped to my hands and knees and begged the Boston Celtics to create a video tribute honoring Big Baby's time as a Celtic. My favorite team's video department came through! The video was short, but it is the best video of all time.



The game itself was strange. The Cs were without established film actor Ray Allen and established commercial actor Rajon Rondo. Seemingly undermanned, the Celtics entrusted their point and shooting guard duties to Avery Bradley and Sasha Pavlovic respectively. They did not disappoint. Neither did Brandon "Big-Mouth Billy" Bass or Paul Pierce, who each dropped 19 in the victory. Pierce was as fit as he has been all season, playing the role of both facilitator and scorer.

Orlando's offensive was, simply stated, completely inept and only scored a scant 56 points. In his return, Big Baby shot 2-9 from the field, but was able to nab a respectable 11 rebounds. As a team, the Magic shot 26% from the field and could only manage 20 second half points. It was an ugly affair.

The story of the night, though, was of course the video tribute. It significantly over-shadowed the game. It was much celebrated by Glen Davis, the Magic (despite an abysmal performance), the Celtics and the entire NBA community.

One Game We Did Not Watch Last Night: Dallas Mavericks vs. Phoenix Suns

Mavs: 93, Suns: 87

#FREESTEVENASH!

Enchanted, Transported and Even Sometimes Devastated

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No Regard Daily Previews: Holden Caufield

One Game We Will Watch Tonight:
Denver Nuggets Vs. Orlando Magic

I'm not in love with what is going on with either of these franchises these days.

I understand that Orlando is still one of the top teams in the East record-wise, Dwight Howard's offensive game has improved since last year and Stan Van Gundy is a great coach. Fine.

Bibby's World: Funsurance

Don't know how we locked this down, but we'd like to introduce you to No Regard's newest blogging sensation... Mike Bibby! He'll be checking in whenever he can, just to remind us: It's Bibby's World, we just live in it!

Hey guys, it's me again. Today we're going to talk about having a good time, and what you can do when you're not. Last Monday, after losing to the Orlando Magic by four (Not my fault. I scored seven points.), my teammates and I wanted to go out. Since we were in Orlando, I thought it made sense to suggest Disney World. But because my teammates are totally predictable, they suggested clubs. "Wow," I said, "Clubs AGAIN? We just did that in Phoenix!" But there was no stopping them, especially Etan Thomas, who always has to be the life of the party.

No Regard Daily Recaps 11-2-10

EndlessPat toasts Cartier Martin for sending his team into overtime.

So here's the thing: I was told to review what surely would have been a fascinating Orlando-New York game at The Garden tonight.

Unfortunately that game was called on account of asbestos.

No, I'm not kidding. Madison Square Garden was deemed an unsafe workplace for its hard-laboring employees, and I was told to shift my attention to the Lakers-Grizzlies matchup, which we all knew was going to be super lame.

I don't like playing by the rules, so instead, I decided to be a bit of a wild card, a free agent if you will, and decided to watch The Battle of Who Could Care Less: a showdown between the winless Wizards and the equally winless 76ers.

It turns out I am a genius. Here's why:

No Regard Daily Recap: 10-28-10

One Game We Watched Last Night: Washington Wizards vs. Orlando Magic


I knew the Wizards' team dynamic would be a little bizarre to start the season, but this was worse than I expected. Flip Saunders needs to be concerned not only about his offense clicking on just about zero cylinders, but about how quickly it took for John Wall to become visibly frustrated by the situation. You could feel the star rookie’s pain every time he drove to the basket and saw no one else making a move. He wanted to create plays, but it seemed like no one else wanted to be a part of them, and when they did, they were settling for mid-range jumpers that rarely fell. There were a couple positives here for the Wizards: one, that Wall, while a bit shaky, showed glimpses of his ability to get to the basket against any defender; another, that JaVale McGee and Yi Jianlian actually looked like an imposing frontcourt duo several times toward the end of the second quarter. But overall, you have to wonder how long it’s going to take for this team to come together with any sort of fluidity, and how the return of Gilbert Arenas will help and/or complicate that process.

Team Dreamin' 2011: Orlando Magic

At No Regard, we love basketball. We love the spectacle and strategy of the game, but sometimes the league's lack of imagination confounds and disappoints us. Call us optimists, visionaries, or kids who watched too much Space Jam, but we have ideas. Damn are we gonna share 'em.

Hi Orlando Magic. Yeah, we see you in the back refusing to make eye contact with us, trying not to get called on. But we didn't forget about you.

Because Magic, your plans for this year are as important as any other team's 2010-2011 strategy. You need to capitalize this season or never, because in Dwight Howard you have the one piece that no other team has (Pau is 3/4 the player Howard is; Brook Lopez is about 2/5, but on his way up), but his athleticism will only last so long. And your former All-Star Rashard Lewis (who gets paid $10 million too much each year) is clearly the favorite to gain 35 pounds during the inevitable lockout of 2011.

Unfortunately, you've surrounded Dwight with mediocrity, albeit an opulence of mediocrity. But as we've learned from the Mavericks, you can have as many third options as you'd like, but you cannot win a ring without two sincere stars, one at least seven-feet-tall and the other capable of creating his own shot.

(Yeah, OK. 2004 Pistons, I see you in the back, you can put your hand down now. Right, you won a ring without following this rule. Your outlandish collection of role players masked as all-stars worked together to create a demonic mega-lord with Larry Brown for a brain. When a squad regularly holds teams to 68 points, you can disregard whatever algebra other teams use to chase rings.)

What I'm suggesting here is the NBA equivalent of "write what you know": Hide your deficiencies by playing to your strengths.

Your deficiencies: Lack of traditional post-up scorer; having a point guard who's merely very good during the New Golden Era of Point Guards; the aforementioned missing second banana; no one willing and able to take over offensively in the last two minutes of a close contest; the dangerous trajectory of losing interest in an effective and outspoken head coach; Patrick Ewing on your coaching staff.

Your strengths: Dunks.

So, a humble suggestion for the upcoming season...