The Beginning of the End

Before I start this article, I would just like to thank the Godfather and Chad Ford for their mock draft today on espn.com. (Blog Note: Bill Simmons will henceforth be referred to as the Godfather in all articles a la Vince Vaughn/Luke Wilson in Old School.) My buddy described that running article as Christmas in late June and that wasn’t an exagerration. But now onto our own thoughts on the 2007 NBA Draft…

Tonight will be a night to remember for those gifted players that will hear their name called during the 2007 NBA Draft. They will get the chance to shake NBA Commissioner David Stern’s hand and put on their new team’s hat as they relish their first moments as a professional basketball player. For most of these players, getting drafted will be the culmination of a lifetime of dreams and jump shots.

However, as significant as the draft is for each individual player, it is tenfold more crucial for each individual team. The NBA Draft can make or break a NBA franchise for decades if they do not choose wisely. My hometown team, the Boston Celtics, have been unfortunate with their draft selections for my entire lifetime. (I wish I was kidding but I was born just a few months after the Len Bias tragedy and the Celtics have not won a Championship since.)

I hoped that 2007 would be the year to break this trend with the Greg Oden/Kevin Durant sweepstakes but the lottery system left Celtics fans and David Stern asking themselves “What did I do to deserve this?” (Unfortunately, I could also answer that rhetorical question with one word … tanking). As the Godfather repeatedly references, Celtics fans everywhere are now left with a constant feeling of nausea leading up to Draft Day as our comically incompetent Director of Basketball Operations, Danny Ainge, has to make yet another decision that has the potential to make or break our beloved franchise. Right now, I’m waiting for him to take another undersized player with little offensive ability with the #5 pick, just to see if he can actually outdo his other inexplicably bad front office moves.

In all honesty though, I just take it for what it is at this point … high comedy. By now, Ainge’s uselessness is only rivaled by one other major sports front office official … Matt Millen. If we could only put these two in a room, we’d have a brain trust of impenetrable strategic brilliance (Insert sarcasm thick enough to cut with a knife here.). Ultimately, if we’re going to make sure that Celtics fans everywhere stay off suicide watch, I’m led to believe that there is only one possible solution for the long-term safety of the Boston Celtics fans…

FIRE AINGE!

I know he won a bunch of championships with the C’s and is a favorite son from back in his playing days, but he has GOT to go. For that matter, hire anyone to replace. I’m not even kidding. Hire a chimp that can pull name’s from a hat. He would have a better chance of making the right pick for the Celtics at #5 with that method, plus he’d be infinitely more entertaining doing backflips when the Celts played well and throwing his [ahem!] at any of the players who slacked off.

But as bad as it is to be a Celtics fan amidst such unbelievable incompetence, I actually would venture to say that it must be worse to be David Stern. Coming off the lowest rated NBA Finals in recent memory, the lack of competitive games between the two conferences as a result of the gross disparity in talent is becoming alarming. We can credit Stern with developing such ideas as the surprisingly successful developmental league which has put teams in major markets like New York, Miami, and Chicago. Wait, sorry, I just remembered that this league is the Eastern Conference and not the NBDL, so I retract any and all previously granted praise for Stern.

Now to make matters worse, salt is just being rubbed in Stern’s metaphorica wound as not one but two arguably franchise-making future stars in Greg Oden and Kevin Durant are headed to the already stacked Western Conference (and not even to a major market to boot). For everything that he’s had to deal with as a result of the inequality between the conferences, the draft lottery must have been like taking a couple Ali haymakers right to the chin for Stern.

Never has there been a time that the Eastern Conference could have used a jolt of star power like an Oden or Durant more than right now, and with the Hawks sitting at #3 and the Celtics at #5, we missed it by that much. Just think about it, the two new stars of the NBA will be playing in the Pacific Northwest? Not only are Portland and Seattle not exactly major marketing cities, but by the time their home games are played, most of the East Coast is asleep. To make matters worse for Stern, a growing percentage of “fans” don’t even watch games till February and even then they only watch the fourth quarter when the game matters. So now, our poor David has the two most hyped players since King James playing in more-or-less obscure places where the vast majority of basketball fans will rarely get to see them play.

To make matters even worse, these are not two of the most stable franchises in the league. The Portland JailBlazers have seen their players incarcerated almost as much as the Cincinnati Bengals. Just a theory of mine, but this may be due to the fact that Portland has more microbreweries per square mile than anywhere else in the U.S. Now this club will be acquiring an underage player in Oden who has repeatedly said that he loved college, an institution founded around the bedrocks of kegstands, beer pong, and chugging contests. Consequently, I just don’t see a multitude of microbreweries and an underage Oden combining to create a trouble-free marriage of player and city.

In fact, I can just see it now. After the Blazers fail to trade resident problem child Zach Randolph, he and Oden are going to go out on the town “to welcome big Greg to Portland.” Randolph will buy Oden some drinks (translation: Oden will be alternating shots of Patron, bottles of Cristal, and beer bongs of PBR), and ultimately both will get arrested for supplying to a minor (in Randolph’s case) and underage consumption and public drunkenness for one of the stars upon which the league’s future is mortgaged. What's more, I can also imagine Stern crying himself to sleep on his little twin size bed (he’s just a little guy after all) while he figures out how to get more goofy, “white bread” kind of guys like Mark Madsen in the league.

Then there is the Seattle Supersonics landing Durant. This is just a disaster waiting to happen. Seattle will most likely be on the move, because of the lack of funding for a new stadium. Stern is pushing for a franchise to move to Oklahoma City, which means the Sonics could become the OK City Sonics. However, in my humble opinion, Vegas is the answer not Oklahoma City. Although OKC has already proven that it can support an NBA franchise, Vegas just offers so much more in the way of marketing and publicty (Please note that I’m completely ignoring the fact that at least ¾ of the Las Vegas Sonics’ lineup would be arrested within the first 2 months.) Nevertheless, just look at this…

OK City, OK

Vegas Baby Vegas

Which sounds more exciting to you? OK City is exactly what it says, okay, but Vegas has it all. After the NBA All-Star weekend though, a few provisions would have to be put into place prior to the move becoming final. First off, Pacman Jones and his entourage would not be allowed inside city limits at all (for obvious reasons), and John Daly, Michael Jordan, and Janet Gretzky probably shouldn’t be allowed in either just because they would have Durant point-shaving in no time. In fact, I actually take that back. If Oden is going to be chugging down gallons worth of Dead Guy Ale, Durant may as well be every bookie in America’s best friend merely for the sake of symmetry.

So there you have it. Oden and Durant going to the Pacific Northwest will be an absolute disaster for the NBA (maybe even worse than Ainge staying in the Celtics’ front office and trading Al Jefferson and the #5 pick to Atlanta in order to move up #3 and guarantee that they get their man Yi. Don’t think this couldn’t happen with Ainge and Doc Rivers at the helm.). As for the 2 “can’t miss” rookies, I see Oden pulling a Frank the Tank and running through downtown Portland in his best Naked-Bill Russell costume while Durant ultimately gets the Pete Rose treatment after a couple years of throwing games in Vegas and the two “future” NBA stars will be out of the league after 3 years. Maybe Stern doesn’t deserve such bad luck, but it’s his own fault that he didn’t rig this year’s lottery for the Celtics like he did for the Knicks in the infamous Ewing Draft. So, in the end…

FIRE STERN TOO!

Or at least get him a really stiff drink. It’s bad enough that he has to deal with all of this AND he’s going to look like a midget on national television as he shakes hands with the vertically gifted future NBA stars. Hey, maybe Big O can mix him up something nice.