The NBA lost the lottery
Note: This column appears in the May 31st issue of The Paper.
Riddle me this. If a 19-year-old, 7-foot-2-inch center gets drafted first overall but is forced to play out his career in Portland, Ore., where he will become one of the most dominant centers since Bill Russell, will we ever see him play?
Or what if a 19-year-old, 6-foot-9-inch swingman, who can score like Jordan and play the game of basketball with as much enthusiasm as a 12-year-old kid shooting hoops on the playground, is drafted No. 2 overall and forced to play out his career in the rain drenched city of Seattle, will we ever get to see him play?
These are the questions that the NBA will be forced to answer after the NBA Lottery on May 23 awarded the Portland Trailblazers and the Seattle Supersonics with the first and second selection respectively, in this year’s NBA Draft.
Consensus thinking says that Portland will select Ohio State freshman Greg Oden (the 7-foot-2 center) with the first pick and Seattle will select Texas freshman and national player of the year, Kevin Durant (the 6-foot-9 swingman) with the second pick, placing the top-two talents in the country in a part of the country with small media markets, and hardly little fan following.
The way the draft lottery played out couldn’t have gone any worse for the NBA and some of its most historic, yet struggling franchises, specifically the Boston Celtics.
With the second worst record in the NBA last year, Boston and its hardcore fans had the second best chance (behind the Memphis Grizzlies) to land one of the top-two picks in the draft. But due to the way the NBA works its draft lottery, just because you have one of the worst records in the game doesn’t necessarily assure you of obtaining one of the top picks.
So, Boston was one of the biggest losers in this year’s lottery, but the biggest loser was the NBA itself.
Three years ago, the NBA got “lucky” and had then No. 1 overall pick LeBron James go to his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers. Playing on the east coast, James is able to be seen on TV weekly, playing at a time when the majority of the country is actually still awake.
Now, with the lottery playing out the way it did, Oden and Durant will be hardly ever televised and will be playing in a part of the land where the people are concerned more with mountain climbing and coffee than they are with basketball.
“I view it as a missed opportunity for the Eastern Conference,” said Ernie Johnson Jr., studio host of the NBA on TNT. “It’s not their fault it just happened. I would have thought that Boston would have got one of those guys.
“You like to see some of the more storied franchises like Boston return to glory,” added Johnson. “And (getting either Oden or Durant) would have been a step in the right direction.”
But Boston isn’t getting Oden or Durant, instead they will more than likely be getting a 7-foot-1-inch player from China, who they will hope will turn out to be more like Yao Ming than Shawn Bradley. A player that is an unknown and does not bring any guarantee of turning that franchise around like Oden and Durant would have.
Had Boston (or Atlanta, Memphis or New York for that matter) faired better in the draft lottery we as fans of the NBA, and basketball itself, would be able to see Oden and Durant play with as much frequency as we do James, or Dwayne Wade.
Like James and Wade, Oden and Durant would have become household names. But now? We may very well hardly ever get the chance to see them play.
“Unless they make it to the playoffs no one will see them,” Johnson said of Oden and Durant. “You might see them on the weekend more or catch them when they come to the east coast, but that’s about it.”
For Johnson, you can already see how where you are drafted plays in your notoriety.
“There is no telling how big Chris Paul would be if he played on the east coast,” said Johnson of the point guard from the New Orleans Hornets, 2005’s Rookie of the Year, and who was passed up by your very own Atlanta Hawks during the 2005 draft. “He’s one of the best players in the league right now and no one knows about him.”
So, now not only will the country not know about Paul, but they will also not know about Oden and Durant, two players, that had they landed some where on the eastern shoreline, could have turned around a franchise and become the new faces of the NBA.
But now they will be out in the Pacific Northwest never to be seen or heard from again, which is too bad for teams like Boston, too bad for fans like us, but most importantly too bad for the NBA.