Fresh Meat!

First of the new blood, the future swinging big dicks of the NBA, cannonballed into the talent pool last night. Check out the live blog at Dallas Basketball dot com, or the video clip at the Morning News.

Speculation that the Mavs were planning on buying a first round pick came to zip as the Organization stuck with #51. I hope Mr. Nelson and the rest of the suits know what they're doing. The next few seasons is when the Mavs have to start developing talent ready to take over the team when Dirk retires. I'm all for finding a vampire and making Dirk immortal, but the NBA probably has rules against undead players. They're shortsighted that way.

But, nobody was willing to bite with what the Mavs were offering ($3 million) . . . at least not publicly. As Mr. Fisher points out, the back-door deals are also beginning, teams trading picks for established players, cash, and so on.

For now, our FNG is a young man by the name of Shan Foster. He's a graduate of Vaderbuilt University and that school's all-time leading scorer. He's being considered (how seriously is a matter of speculation) as a backup shooting guard or small forward.

With the draft done, free agency begins to warm up. Negotiations between franchise reps and players' agents begins July 1, players can sign on July 9. I'll look up those particulars later.
-BJ

Drawing Straws and Here Come The Rookies

Tomorrow is Draft Day, so in the spirit of Higher Learning, we're going to have a brief lesson on how the NBA circulates the talent pool:

The Draft, or Oh Shit Here Come The FNGs:
The deadline for declaring eligibility is 60 days prior to Draft Day, with potential draftees given until 10 days before the draft to back out if they change their minds. They must be at least nineteen years old and/or one year out of high school, and if they are not drafted run the risk of losing their college eligibility. That may change in the next year or so; the league is considering raising the minimum age to 22.

The talent pool is evaluated, the NBA processes the data gathered, and the Draft is announced listing players in order of their potential awesomeness. Quick hits; Jason Kidd was a #2 pick in 1994, Stackhouse was #3 in 1995, Dirk was #9 in 1998, Jet Terry was #10 in 1999, Dampier was #10 in 1996, J-Ho was #29 in 2003, and Brandon Bass was #33 in 2005. Teams then get to select from that list, with a lottery system determining who gets first dibs -- see below. The draft is conducted in two rounds of thirty (one pick per team per round), for a total of sixty brand-spandy-new NBA rookies.

List of prospective draftees here.

The Lottery, or Fate as a Bingo Tank:
How it works is the 14 teams who didn't make the NBA playoffs are each given a list of four number codes. The team with the worst record gets the most codes (250), therefore has the best chance of scoring a number one pick (odds are about one in four).

On Lotto Day, a group of NBA officials, team representatives, and some media guys acting as witnesses (check this out for an eyewitness account) enter a room. Cell phones, laptops, and PDAs are left outside. The door is locked. A set of ping-pong balls numbered 1 to 14 are dropped into a lotto randomizer, left to cook for exactly twenty seconds, and four are drawn. The team holding those four numbers (doesn't matter what order they're drawn in) gets the #1 draft pick. Process repeated for picks 2 and 3. Picks 4 through 30 are handed out in inverse order of win-loss ratio.

This year's lottery was held on May 20. The Chicago Bulls (33-49) came away with the #1 pick, the Miami Heat (15-67) #2, and the Minnesota Timberwolves (22-60) got #3. Click for the full list of picks.

A side-effect of the lottery that wasn't anticipated (correct me if I'm wrong on this) is the incentive for teams that aren't doing well in the regular season to delibrately run their record down in the hopes of scoring one of the first three picks. Hence the pissing and moaning in Dallas about how the team should've quit trying to even make the playoffs this year and just taken our chances with the lottery.

Fuck that shit, says I. If there isn't nobility in trying, why bother competing at all? Boring rant for another day.

A more in-depth look at talent rotation, free agency, what about the undrafted, and so on later. Right now Dallas only has one draft pick, #51. The first round pick (#21) went to the New Jersey Nets as part of the trade for Jason Kidd. Word around the campfire is the Organization is going to try and buy our way back into Round One.
-BJ

Sources:
http://www.nba.com/draft2008/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_Draft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_Draft_Lottery
http://www.nba.com/history/draft_evolution.html

Happy Birthday Dirk!

And the .50 Cal turns 30 today.

(raises glass)

Here's to you, Mr. Nowitzki. May your cup always be full and your heart never empty.

(drink!)
-BJ

2008 NBA Champions, the Boston Celtics

Wow.

Amazing happened.

Both coasts are waking up with headaches this morning, for very different reasons. 131-92. That wasn't a game; it was a gang-rape.

God it was fun!

- Paul Pierce is The Truth, and anyone who denies it should have their head examined.

- Leave Kobe out of it for a minute -- we'll get to him shortly. The Lakers should be absolutely disgusted by their defense last night. I saw at least two clear opportunities for defensive heroics and the Lakers totally whiffed them both. I'll leave it to wiser eyes to determine exactly when in the game the Lakers struck their colors. That last quarter looked like a bad dream.

- If Dirk is soft, what does that make Pau Gasol? Dairy Queen kiddie cone? A doggie bag from El Bulli? Those supercomfy mattresses NASA uses on the space shuttles? I'm going with the El Bulli thing, myself -- Chef Adri's known as the Foam Guy in certain circles.

- Inconsistancy, thy name is Odom.

- Rajon Rondo. A thing of beauty is a joy forever. He nicked better than a midway pickpocket. I'm thinking about buying the game video from NBA.com just to watch those steals.

- Ray Allen's shot wasn't dead, it was just resting.

- Dallas isn't going to live down either the Finals Disaster or the Golden State series until we're hoisting our own banner next year. But as Pride Salve goes, this isn't bad. Western Conference Champions, helmed by the MVP and the best player on the planet -- as the announcers reminded us every ten minutes -- and they got their butts kicked so hard they're going to be walking funny until Christmas 2013.

- Now we get to Kobe. I want you to bear in mind the public flogging Dirk's manfully endured the last couple years. #24's stats for last night's game; 7-22 shooting, 3 rebounds, 1 assist, 4 turnovers. When does the crucifixion commence?

- ESPNs obsession with sound bites is beginning to annoy me. Little reporter trying to get quotes out of Kevin Garnett by asking him cliche questions when he's the most blissed-out basket case in the solar system. The happy tears moment was beautiful on its own. Let the man be.

- The Lakers will be back. And so will the Celtics. And so will the Spurs/Hornets/Pistons/Jazz/Nuggets et al.

And so will the Mavericks.

- MasterCard Moment.
Cooler with Tap: $70
Eight gallons Gatorade: $15
Summerweight Suit: $5000

Winning It All: Motherfucking Priceless



No, funny would be if Coach Rivers sends The Truth his dry-cleaning bill.

Congratulations, Boston Celtics! Somebody FedEx everyone in Boston Irish breakfasts and a shitload of aspirin. Those have got to be the happiest hangovers on earth.
-BJ

My Humble Opinions, June 16

Well it wasn't pretty. I stand by my Cloudy Crystal Ball and say it's the Celtics in six. Tuesday night, and we're in the off-season.

Gonna be a looooong few months.

It isn't really a developing story, because Tim Donaghy's statements are farts in the wind. What he's saying isn't confirmable. Any trial attorney will tell you testimony's crap without a second independent witness or some other form of corraberation. All he's doing is trying to get his sentence reduced, and the world would be well-advised to keep that in mind.

On the other hand, the ref-ing in basketball is . . . confusing to the uninitiated. In researching the whys and wherefores of the sport I'm dreading the part on fouls. Is the officiating 100% fair and impartial? Of course not. The refs are human, they have favorites and hates, double-standards, moments of inattention, judgement lapses. That's human error and an issue in any contest.

The accusation is that the NBA is instructing their officials to favor one team over the other in their calls. Why? Well look at the press the Finals is getting. Historic rematch and all that. They even got Their Holinesses Magic Johnson and Larry Bird to pose for one of those There Can Only Be One spots. Larger audiences, greater glory, more money . . . the motivation is there.

Not trusting the sport itself to produce a riveting spectacle, a governing body directs its officials to create artificial results irregardless of who actually wins.

Sound familiar?

I understand why the blowhards don't consider figure skating a sport. It's not because of the idea that it's not as physically demanding as "real" sports (hey, you try dancing on ice skates while hauling around ninety-five pounds of partner), or because of the artistic elements involved, or even because the athletes wear sequins. It's the corruption in the scoring. Winning in figure skating can and does have almost nothing to do with how well someone skates on that particular night. The best example I have is (of course) the 1994 ice dance competition. Gritchuk and Platov did not earn that gold medal. Their program was inferior to the other medalists', wasn't skated as well, and involved clear and obvious rule violations for which they were not penalized. The ISU didn't want to reward the team that moved ice dance's artistic focus in a more theatrical direction (Torvill and Dean), and didn't want to reward the team who had run in that direction successfully (Usova and Zhulin). They weren't particularly subtle about it, either.

I'm not saying that's what the NBA is doing. But public perception can easily swing that way because the system of fouls and penalties is hard to understand if you don't know what you're looking at. I hope Mr. Stern and the rest of the league's leadership nip this in the bud toot-sweet. A reputation for corruption and unfairness killed figure skating in the US, and don't think for a minute the NBA is too big and powerful to fall down the same cliff.
-BJ