I’ve already gotten some interesting comparisons on Twitter (someone suggested Patrick Ewing), so I wanted to open this one up to as many of you as possible since I’ve only got 60 Twitter followers. My low number of followers is either because I’m new to Twitter or because I’m only 1/6 as interesting as Dan Filowitz — which would be tough to swallow because he’s only 1/7 as interesting as my dogs.

Tell us your ideas for the Obama/NBA Player comparison via Twitter (@DanFilowitz and @discipleKen), email (nba@disciplesofclyde.com), or in the comments section of this posting. Or yell them really loud.

I look forward to discussing your ideas on the show. Obama is a hoops fan, so you know he’ll listen eventually.

Thanks in advance, friends.

–ken

In the exciting conclusion to Part 1, Dan and Ken get together to talk about things that have hardly anything to do with what was going on in the earlier episode.

What, in fact, did they talk about? That’s for you to decide. Or, rather, to listen to.

Songs from the episode:

“The Plan” - Richard Hell and the Voidoids
“Let’s Take A Trip Together” - Morphine
“Roygbiv” - Boards of Canada

Subscribe via iTunes, whydontya?

Follow @DanFilowitz and @discipleKen on Twitter. Twice the inanity, same low price.

For the first time on FreeDarko Presents: The Disciples of Clyde NBA Podcast, we have split an episode into two parts.

Why? Well, that’s for you to decide. Or something we decided. It was a decision, that’s for sure.

Speaking of decisions, there was an important one made by our guests on this part of the episode, Bethlehem Shoals and Spencer Hall of Every Day Should be Saturday. They might decide to announce a potential secret project, right here on the show.

What will they decide? To announce the project? To do a project at all? To keep a secret?

You’ll have to listen, and probably donate some money to charity, to really find out.

Also make sure to check later for Part 2 of this episode, where Ken and I decide to do a second part of a podcast episode.

Songs from the Episode:

“The Half” - Dennis Brown
“Life Goes By” - Madlib
“Elevators (Me and You)” - Outkast
“Winds With Hands” - Pelican
“Summa Dis” - Freddie Gibbs

The pictures referenced in the episode:

Picture 1
Picture 2
Lots ‘o Pictures

Oh no, I wasn’t referring to the content of his choice, but to your characterizing the manner of his announcement as betraying a callousness and lack of self-awareness.

Callousness? Lack of self-awareness? For announcing his move on live TV? How else would you have liked him to announce it?

The insane “Durant did it the right way by signing with the team that gave him his “start” and announcing it on Twitter” infuriates me. Durant signed for the max with the only organization that could offer him a contract this year, a year before a new CBA is in place which will likely have worse terms for players. If ‘Bron had announced on Twitter, the complaints would have been “He’s such a coward, he can’t even look Cleveland in the eye”.

If he made the announcement in Miami flanked by Wade and Bosh, he would have been tarred with “Wade can both win and make it through a press conference without LeBron; LeBron needs Wade for both”. And god forbid he makes his announcement before tens of thousands of delighted Miamians, with broadcasters running footage of that party side-by-side with Clevelanders burning his uni.

Yes, “The Decision” made for awful television and the show shouldn’t have been dragged out like a reality-show results episode, but what would you have him do? A press conference? Why would LeBron want to draw easy parallels between his professional choice and a recent press conference held by a beswooshed, transcendent athlete who used it as a forum to discuss decidedly non-professional matters?

Yes, it would be callous if had made up his mind in Bejing in ‘08 and dragged out the announcement as long as possible, but I don’t think that was the case. He could not talk to other clubs prior to a handful of days ago. I feel that he saw the landscape, heard the pitches and moved with all deliberate speed to decide and announce it. No Hamlet he.

What infuriates me (to the same degree that listening to political talk radio does) is the media initiating an immediate attack on the hubris of LeBron making his announcement via “The Decision” without providing any suggestion of what would have been a better method.

Look, Public Relations generally eludes me, and while I enjoy media criticism, I am either not savvy enough or I simply fail to follow anything with enough attention to piece together a narrative of how and why the media spins a story in any particular way. I only followed Bron’s free agency in the papers and occasionally online, so I only have a sense of how the story was covered in broad strokes and can’t state which individuals were journalistic heroes or villains.

A large part of the reason that I didn’t follow it too closely was that there was a constant stream of “why he should go to X, why he shouldn’t go to X, Why he should go to Y”, etc, etc that made mock drafts look valid and worthwhile. Hell, the horoscopes broke as much news as the sports section on this matter, with the same accuracy. All of these pieces on where & why he should go anywhere were made without knowing what LeBron’s criteria was. And for the last month, whenever “where do you think he’ll go” came up (and it did come up, by serious and by beyond casual fans), I demurred because I had no idea what his criteria was (although in the past I had enjoying suggesting that had Portland drafted Durant, a running mate, an owner who had already lost more billions than LeBron will ever earn, great fans and a great press corps would have made the Blazers a fantastic choice).

However, Bron’s free agency was a) a national b) sporting news event. And he broke it on a) a nation b) sporting news channel, which donated its time for the scoop and Bron then sold the resulting commercial slots and passed on the revenue to an eminently worthy sports-related non-profit. The only cynicism I could muster is “That’s a long way to go to get a charitable write-off”, but my heart’s not in it. Kudos for him being able to harness some of the whirlwind surround him to monetize it.

You know what’s televised these days? 5- and 4-star high school football players announcing what college they’re going to. Far, far, far more troubling to me than “The Decision” is high school boys announcing what college they’ll be signing with (or what colleges they have whittled down the list to) on the NBC’s national broadcast of US Army All-America Bowl. Have you seen army recruitment ads of late? The few that aren’t about brow-beating parents for having reservations about a future filled with bargaining with their lord that their kid only lose a limb in one of our god-forsaken unending wars against concepts are about how the army teaches valuable job skills and provides money for college. One of the commercials has a voiceover mention these skills while showing a digital cameraman filming rolling tanks. How many enlisted men does the army train as cameramen? To find jobs soldiers will have to go to college and they may well need the GI Bill to pay for school because their parents can’t foot the bill and they aren’t brilliant enough or athletic enough to get a scholarship. Sure, nearly all public school’s football team loses millions of dollars a year, money that could otherwise go to kids who watch the US Army All-America Bowl to see where their social betters will spend the next 4-6 years while the viewers are being solicited to fight imperial conflicts in exchange for tuition which will, in part, go to building a better weight room to better attract better football players in the future. Maybe even US Army All-America Bowl-caliber players.

You know who made money off the free agency saga? The media, which increased circulation, ad sales and pageviews thanks to ginning up wild speculation and then criticized LeBron for dragging his free agency out for an interminable 8 days across the length and breadth of a Cleveland office suite and indolently basking in the spotlight by avoiding anything beyond platitudes. And I’m not even talking about the tabloids, whose spitefulness is a given and, along with Jimmy Dolan, would certainly give any free agent with identical or better offers from out-of-town suitors pause before committing to the Knicks.

Take NY Magazine. In May they ran a cover piece, co-written by Will Leitch, “Why LeBron Should Be a Knick”. Reason # 4 was he can move into the old 27-acre Frick estate in NJ for only $57 million. Reason # 3 was “Allow Us to Introduce you to Chris Bosh”. You see, LeBron was on record saying “I would definitely love to play with Chris Bosh” and NY Mag said “The Raptors’ big man is perfect for you”. I didn’t buy that issue, as I am outside NY Mag’s demographic (which stretches all the way from the upwardly mobile upper-middle class to the lower upper class), but rest assured that the issue was sold by vendors for cash considerations, some of which might even trickle down to Mr. Leitch. NY Mag is, at the end of the day, a business. Not a good one, mind you. It’s the sort of business that loses tens of millions of dollars a year and only survived thanks to the good graces of a genuinely interesting, presumably comic sans-eschewing, recently-deceased billionaire (the playwright Wendy Wasserstein’s brother). And though Mr. Leitch was not privy to Mr. James’ thoughts, nor solicited by Mr. James’ associates, he felt it was his duty to tell LeBron where and how to spend his money and to partner up with Bosh.

A few hours after “The Decision” Leitch wrote “LeBron React: Never Has Being a Sports Fan Felt So Stupid”. Here are some of its gems (although now Bosh’s name is never mentioned nor alluded to), found next to ads for openskies.com, Lincoln Center and Balenciaga (my comments [in brackets]):

- “There they all were, trying to sell us something. After that. It was hawking souvenirs before the wake was over. And no one onscreen seemed to find this wrong.”

[pot, kettle – AM]

- “We cheer for athletes because sports does not matter, not really. We cheer because sports is, ultimately, harmless. And we trust that they will at least pretend. We trust that they will recognize the ultimate ludicrousness of this whole enterprise, that these are grown men wearing tank tops, throwing a ball up and around, running on wood, that this all exists because we allow it to exist, that the illusion must be maintained. We trust that they understand how good they have it, how much we give them, against our own self-interest. We trust that they are not laughing at us.

“That trust felt broken tonight… tonight, it felt like everyone involved — LeBron, ESPN, Bing, the University of Phoenix, Stuart Scott, the man who once chastised fans for having the audacity to boo, Jim freaking Gray — treated the millions of people watching like stupid, mindless consumers, empty lemmings ready to follow Sport into the abyss.

[How was this trust broken? If sports is ultimately harmless than how can anyone be offended by what is aired on a sports-only channel? The millions watching something that does not matter, not really, are aware of the unity of their identities as both fans and consumers. If sports do matter, really or not really, then a decision of this magnitude deserves to be treated as all other moments in sports: broadcasted live with scheduled commercial interruptions.

At least these athletes earning a living by throwing a ball and running on wood; Leitch earns his by critiquing their performance and has the audacity to claim that some trust was breached by a professional athlete subject to the vagaries of mass media attempting to harness the media to control one of the few, and possibly biggest, decisions he will make about where he will work, live and raise a family {I put in that family thing for you Ken, father of Wally, and I left out a massive bit about Teddy Roosevelt’s “The Man in the Arena” speech} - AM]

- “Why in the world are we watching these awful people? It was a question impossible to answer.

[Also apparently impossible to answer: why are these people awful? Is it because they are crafting their own narrative? Or does simply crafting their own narrative in an awful way make people awful? I suspect Leitch was watching because he was genuinely interested in a life choice LeBron was making and few people are interested in life choices made by people they earnestly feel are “awful”– AM]

- “ESPN, it feels, will never quite be the same”

[ESPN has an inherent conflict of a being a sports journalism outfit that is a rights-holder for nearly every sport it covers. If that changes, ESPN will never be the same. If ESPN cease its relentless self-mythology, it will never be the same. If ESPN stops hiring Syracuse grads, etc, etc. ESPN does sports, sports journalism and sports entertainment. This was an unentertaining mix of the latter two.

“The Decision” is actually he closest thing to its roots that ESPN has aired in years. Before it was the Worldwide Leader. Back when it didn’t have rights to any valuable sports properties. Back when people thought there wasn’t enough programming for a 24-hour sports channel. Back when pro slow-pitch softball was the second show the network broadcasted and airtime was filled with exercise videos.

“The Decision” was newsworthy and I suspect NY Mag would gladly have have streamed it live if LeBron’s camp had sought them out and asked for the same terms ESPN offered – AM]

- “And the fear is that we won’t be the same. The fear is that we’ve truly seen the ugly, dark heart of sports, and we won’t be able to come back. It feels extremely stupid to be a sports fan. It feels pointless. None of this felt harmless tonight. And we allowed this to happen. Perhaps this is what we deserve. Perhaps this will be good for us, all of us.

Let us all just hope everybody feels better in the morning. Some morning, someday.”

[I think he recently saw a double bill of “Apocalypse Now” and “Platoon’ and mashed-up their closing monologues.  As The Dude {nearly} said, “God damn you [Leitch]! You fuckin’ asshole! Everything’s a fuckin’ travesty with you, man! And what was all that shit about Vietnam? What the FUCK, has anything got to do with Vietnam? What the fuck are you talking about?” – AM, with some help from the Cohen Brothers].

Note that I wrote hardly anything on the merits of choice of Miami, the economics of his choice, the illegitimacy of the “hometown” wailing, the America public’s growing belligerence towards all union workers or the petulance of the Dan Gilbert, for whom I had worked up a whole fragilely-conceived “Merchant of Venice” thing I mercifully dropped).

My main point is that I believe you wrongly conflated the media issue and the announcement issue. The media ran rabid for months, pouring barrels of ink in the service of building up LeBron and his decision. The media made LeBron back and front page news. They spent time in press conferences asking the NY Mayor, who despite being a billionaire (the 4th one I’ve mentioned thus far), might not be able to grapple with a crippling budget shortfall and a paralyzed state government, about LeBron. They asked a President, who is unable to get a handle on the economy, a war or two and the earth literally spewing itself on our Gulf shores, where LeBron should go.

For his part, LeBron was nearly silent. But maybe one or two of the above facts tipped him off that his decision was of some interest to those beyond his close friends and family. And so this man, a national press figure since his high school games were available on pay-per-view, used his leverage to dictate how the media would initially disseminate his message.

And then the media reacts. First, it reports on the substance of the message and then analyzes the sporting consequences. But that only generates so many column inches. Secondly, the rejected suitors lash out, because that too sells papers and generates pageviews. And thirdly, the media can then spend the rest of the long offseason extrapolating from the means of how a message was delivered that the messenger is an awful, callous, self-aggrandizing breaker of some unspecified trust.

The media necessitated “The Decision”. LeBron was only responsible for making one. The entertainment value of the program came from the inherent interest in the announcement, not the style of the presentation. That he’s not as smooth on a mike as Jay-Z says nothing about Bron beyond the fact that he’d probably still be living in Ohio if he wasn’t a phenomenal athlete.

- exhale -

Minor points:

- And what now of the Cavs loyalists, aghast that Bron could waver in devotion to their shared “hometown” team? Certainly they would not. Let’s watch them try to square this circle of opposition to abandonment when they leave acres of Cavs home tixs available each night.

-  Front row at MSG is already filled with Wall Street types and will never be organic.

-  I’ve always associated Boys & Girls Clubs as an oasis in hardscrabble neighborhoods, like Greenwich, CT and its scions of hedge fund managers,

-   You know who should be psyched about this? Americans! Now we have 1/4 of the US national team, and 1/3 of the rotation playing together regularly. Look at the teams playing in the world cup final: Spain’s players are largely from one of two teams and many of Holland’s players came up in Ajax fabled youth system. Familiarity breeds understand which breeds success. The US barely got by Spain for the basketball gold and I don’t know why everyone is ignoring that this move makes the US far more formidable in 2012.

-  Wade and Kobe have only won rings alongside Shaq and/or Odom; nobody does it alone.

- Actually, forget all of what I just wrote. Ken Drews is smarter than me and he always will be. I only write such things because I need the love of a good woman and a punch in the face.

***Editor’s Note***

The last point may or may not have been added by the editor. The editor can’t remember.

Our centennial episode happened to be recorded minutes after Lebron confirmed the rumors and signed with the Miami Heat. It was a fitting coincidence. Or not. Whatever.

The topic was, of course, why Lebron personally hates Ken and Dan. The final verdict: Jealousy.

Ken mentions this Jack McCallum piece about the Le-Spectacle and you should read it.

Other topics in and around this issue:

Why did this whole episode piss people off?

Why did the media lose its mind?

What is the future for the Heat?

What is the future for the teams he spurned?

And to top it all off, Ken and Dan mark this important milestone by reminiscing about their humble beginnings and then offering heartfelt appreciation to all applicable parties, including you. It really has been a pleasure.

Songs from the episode:

“Don’t Think Twice” - Bob Dylan (and various artists)
“Jump” - Aretha Franklin
“Mambo Sun” - T-Rex

Subscribe via iTunes, whydontya?

Follow Dan Filowitz on Twitter. He types things using his phone or computer and then you can read them! @DanFilowitz

We’ve had an odd relationship in this space with Bill Simmons’ NBA writing over the past few years. In fact, i thought that he’d received so much attention here that I went out of my way not to discuss his book (the highest profile NBA book ever?) despite having two or three podcast episodes worth of responses to it.

Right now I’m angry at The Sports Guy. My 9 month old son went on a sleep strike yesterday that by 6pm threatened my wife’s hold on reality and so I had to be Superdad from the minute I got home until late at night, leaving no time for me to write the “I hate Lebron’s TV Special” piece that was fomenting in my head all day. And then Bill Simmons made about half of the points I was going to make in his own Lebron column. This is the eternal conflict between the hobbyist and the guy who writes sports for a living. This is the life we’ve chosen.

(BTW, based on he amount of crying and tantrums my son either had terrible indigestion from the latest foods we’ve added to his roster or he is going to grow five inches and eight teeth by the weekend. I’ll keep you posted.)

Here is the big point from Simmons’ article that I very much wanted to address on my own but didn’t because I suck:

Losing LeBron on a contrived one-hour show would be worse than Byner’s fumble, Jose Mesa, the Game 5 meltdown against Boston, The Drive, The Shot and everything else. At least those stomach-punch moments weren’t preordained, unless you believe God hates Cleveland (entirely possible, by the way). This stomach-punch moment? Calculated. By a local kid they loved, defended and revered.

It would be unforgivable. Repeat: unforgivable.

To further Simmons’ point, I actually believe that even the dopiest members of his entourage must know that spurning Cleveland on TV would ruin his image forever. He could win a handful of titles and that stink of being an insensitive dick would never come off.

Thus I predict he stays, making this TV special a lame exercise in self-congratulation for his loyalty that won’t be worth any of our time. There will be footage of Akron, photos of Lebron as a kid, interviews with old friends, the whole deal. The topper will be the soft-focus footage of Lebron interacting with a multi-ethnic mix of Boys and Girls Club kids from difficult home/economic circumstances that mirror his own humble origin, thus reminding Lebron (and the rest of us) of the commitment that he must make to the community of Akron. It will be a legitimately noble sentiment that will be poorly delivered and make you roll your eyes.

That sounds dreadful. I’ll wait for the internet to blow up 5 seconds after the announcement in minute 57 that confirms he will stay in Cleveland, thank you very much.

I disregard this upcoming TV “event” so much that I’ve even come up with a few of my own alternate derogatory “Le . . .” names for it in hopes that one will catch on and be used for years when we remember the stupidest media moment in sports history:

LeAmestock

LePatOnMyOwnBack

LeHandJob

That last one is a longshot that will probably need a boost from Deadspin to gain traction. Nonetheless . . .

He has to stay in Cleveland. He just has to. David Stern or Nike simply would not let Lebron ruin his brand name (and their own bottom lines) by doing this to the city of Cleveland on TV. Even if leaving was the plan within James’ circle when the decision was made to do the TV special, it couldn’t be now. The general idea of the TV special is so dumb that Stern or Nike couldn’t have known about it in advance, but once they found out about it they would all but order him to stay in Cleveland.  

The Miami rumors have to be a last ditch effort to create drama in minute 56 of the special, otherwise I really do fear for Lebron’s sanity, his legacy, and his very soul. I’m a Knick fan and I would love to have heard the news leak at some point this summer that he is going to New York. Obviously. But now I don’t want him. At this point it I will but upset if he is a Knick, which hurts because I love the Knicks so much that I still remember where I was when I heard about the Derrick Harper trade, I still lament Tim Mccormick never proved to be a reliable backup to Patrick Ewing, and I once even rationalized the signing of Lee Nailon. I love that stupid team. I freaking love them.

I started rooting for the choice to be Cleveland the second i heard about the TV special. If he goes anywhere else then he forever becomes the avatar for the disappearance of the middle class, for the notion that you get the hell out of places like Cleveland as soon as you can because American prosperity doesn’t live there anymore since the jobs that once defined the “Rust Belt” all went to China and all we make anymore in this country is reality TV, gonzo-porn, and hedge-fund-billionaire-douchebags.

That’s right, kids, Ken Drews just said what we’re all thinking: if Lebron bolts Cleveland then the erosion of the American Dream is all Maverick Carter’s fault.

]]> http://disciplesofclyde.com/?feed=rss2&p=1032 http://disciplesofclyde.com/?p=1030 http://disciplesofclyde.com/?p=1030#comments Thu, 08 Jul 2010 05:47:58 +0000 DanFilowitz http://disciplesofclyde.com/?p=1030

Dan is joined by Rafe Bartholomew, author of Pacific Rims: Beermen Ballin’ in Flip-Flops and the Philippines’ Unlikely Love Affair with Basketball about the book, the Philippines basketball culture, and many other interesting topics that have nothing to do with one player and what team he may or may not play for.

Songs from the episode:

“Comin’ At You” - Monster Island Czars
“Ain’t it Good To You” - Ultramagnetic MC’s

Subscribe via iTunes, whydontya?

Follow Dan Filowitz on Twitter. Worth at least your mid-level exception. @DanFilowitz

Ken recorded his thoughts.  Why?  Because they were there.

Yuck.

I was looking forward to this, and I do think that the Knicks will pull off a pleasant surprise or two, but this is freaking tacky.  Whether the Knicks improve or not, I don’t like today at all.  Again, independent of how well the Knicks fare, there is a chance that I like the NBA a little less than I did yesterday. It’s all just so  . . . grotesque, right?

Am I alone?

Washington GM Ernie Grunfeld is very impressed by John Wall’s upside, but also conceded that he would be much more comfortable anointing the Kentucky freshman as the future of the Wizards if Wall were to blow out his knee and then not play for two years.

2. Philadelphia - Evan Turner

The Sixers’ scouts love Evan Turner’s versatility. Turner particularly impressed GM Ed Stefanski by conducting his post-workout interview in Esperanto while simultaneously amending Louis Williams’ 2008 income tax return.

3. New Jersey - Derrick Favors

You might say that the Nets’ scouts favor the Georgia Tech big man for his combination of length and upside. Did you see what I did there? Favor.

Rather.

Anyway, Favors’ ability to cover lots of ground makes him the draft’s best possible match with Brook Lopez. My sources across the league are telling me that having big men is good.

4. Minnesota - Wesley Johnson

Wesley Johnson is a safe pick who should thrive on the wing in orbit of the Timberwolves’ collection of big men. Or he’ll suck. Who knows, right? Life is nutty.

5. Sacramento - Demarcus Cousins

Geoff Petrie disregards character concerns and goes for the best player on the board, adding to his suddenly stocked and versatile frontcourt rotation. The decision was ultimately made when coach Paul Westphal convinced Petrie that a few well timed hugs during training camp would quickly transform Cousins from “angry loose-cannon” to “Black Alan Alda”. And as we all remember, Kevin Johnson often cites a 1992 embrace from Westphal as the start of his own transformation from “porn-addicted arsonist” to “current mayor of Sacramento.” So it all comes around.

6. Golden State - Greg Monroe

Disappointed by his inability to break Stephen Curry’s spirit this season, Don Nelson has explored trading for Delonte West in hopes that West will have sex with one of Monroe’s beloved older female relatives. That oughta do it.

7. Detroit - Al Farouq Aminu

Taking the best player available presents Joe Dumars with a redundancy at small forward that could result in a trade of veteran Tayshaun Prince for another pick or a rotation big man. The resulting infusion of depth could put the Pistons back into the Eastern Conference playoff picture, which will hopefully distract the entire city of Detroit from the realization that a strong manufacturing base fostering American prosperity was always a mirage and God is probably dead.

8. LA Clippers - Cole Aldrich

A surprise pick for the Clippers, Aldrich projects as a defensive grinder who should compliment Blake Griffin’s game in the long term and hopefully clear the way to trade Chris Kaman’s large contract. Aldrich just threw up in his mouth a little.

9. Utah - Gordon Heyward

The Jazz have been high on the Butler forward since the combine, when he was able to name all six lead characters on Friends and then score well compared to many other draft prospects on standardized tests. They could also go with Luke Babbitt, who quite enjoys the work of comedian Patton Oswalt.

10. Indiana - Ed Davis

Davis’ upside as a defender and rebounder for the Pacers’ frontcourt rotation make this a no-brainer value pick. Another bonus? He hardly ever fires a gun into a crowd in the parking lot of a strip club.

11. New Orleans - Luke Babbitt

Babbitt should thrive knocking down open jumpers while playing with Chris Paul, the role originally indented for free-agent bust Peja Stojakavich. Or maybe the team will fold by August and in ten years we will all have forgotten that there ever was a city of New Orleans. It could go either way.

12. Memphis - Patrick Patterson

Chris Wallace taking the best player available continues a trend of teams stocking up on their frontcourt rotations with young bigs. Patterson should take over the starting power forward spot in January after Zach Randolph is arrested for . . . well, Randolph hasn’t decided yet. Perhaps something involving midget strippers and Dr. Conrad Murray.

13. Toronto - Xavier Henry

Bryan Collangelo sees the sweet shooting Henry as the perfect long-term compliment to the slashing Demar Derozan. Hedo Turkoglu will discover his own perfect long term compliment when he starts dating Amy Winehouse.

14. Houston - Ekpe Udoh

Daryl Morey knows that a healthy combination of Kevin Martin and Yao Ming could lead to a deep playoff run in 2011, which will mean that a physical defender like Udoh will come in handy. What doesn’t Morey know? The feeling of touching a boob before the age of thirty.

(BTW, I was twenty-four and it was awesome.)

15. Milwaukee - Paul George

The Bucks’ roster is long on depth, but short on star quality. George’s potential to break out and score next to Brandon Jennings makes him a great value pick for the end of the lottery. Remember when the Bucks did something stupid every summer and it was thus much easier to crack jokes about them in a blog? I miss those halcyon days.

16. Minnesota - Damien James

After picking up Wesley Johnson with the fourth pick, expect David Kahn to use the sixteenth pick on someone who plays the exact same position as Wesley Johnson.

17. Chicago - Solomon Alabi

With the departure of free agent Brad Miller, the Bulls will suddenly be short on frontcourt depth. Alabi’s upside as a defender makes him a worthwhile gamble at this point for Chicago. With Derrick Rose and the emerging Joakim Noah on board, plus salary cap flexibility this summer, it will be really funny when John Paxson manages to screw up this team. My guess is that he overpays for Joe Johnson, whittles away a chance to trade Luol Deng, and then throws Tom Thibidou out of a moving car for some reason.

18. Miami - Eric Bledsoe

ESPN’s Chad Ford has maintained for months that the Pat Riley will take the other Kentucky point guard as an upgrade from Mario Chalmers. While I agree with this logic, it doesn’t mean that Chad Ford knows what every person in the world is thinking at a given moment. He doesn’t, for instance, know what US state capital I’m thinking of right now. So there. Suck it, Chad Ford.

BTW, I was thinking of Montpellier. Which is the capital of Vermont. I think. I’d look it up but I’ve already lost interest.

19. Boston - James Anderson

Danny Ainge will resist the temptation to add the shakey Hassan Whiteside to his frontcourt and instead take someone to hit jumpers if Ray Allen exits or is phased out next season. Anderson is a low ceiling player who nonetheless has specific skills that could see him contribute off the bench on a stacked team like Boston.

The real challenge for Boston this summer will be finding the right coach for their unique collection of personalities if Doc Rivers decides to take a year off to watch his kids play in high school and college sports. If Danny Ainge knows what is good for him he’ll put Doc Rivers in touch with my dad, who came to all of my games, including the CYO baseball game in which I cost us the game because my allergies caused me to sneeze while I was running under a fly ball. Something died in him that summer.

20. San Antonio - Kevin Seraphim

Another year another great value on a big man that they can afford to have developed in Europe because they have foresight. I hate-respect the Spurs so much.

Wanna know how consistently put a winning team around a great player? Despite winning 50+ for over a decade the Spurs have used late first round and second round picks to bring in such stalwarts as Manu, Tony Parker, Luis Scola, Dajuan Blair, George Hill and George Hill’s penis.

21. Oklahoma City - Daniel Orton

Another year another great value on a big man that they can afford to have developed in on their bench because they you have foresight. I hate-respect the Thunder so much.

Of course, Thunder fans shouldn’t get too excited about their future. Sam Presti is either due for a screw-up because he is human or he is an evil robot that is going to become self-aware sometime next season, at which point he will use our own nuclear weapons against us and kill us all. So there. Suck on it, Thunder fans. Eli’s coming.

22. Portland – Jordan Crawford

With Crawford the Blazers get instant offense off the bench. Due to recent shrewd use of the draft and the salary cap their roster already has everything, which means that they can use their first round picks for players who’s games are not particularly well rounded but nonetheless boast a specific skill that will help the team win. Needless to say, the person running that train wreck sucks and must be fired.

23. Minnesota – Devin Ebanks

With small forwards Wesley Johnson and Damian James already in the fold, my sources indicate that David Kahn absolutely MUST use this pick address his team’s glaring need at small forward.

24. Hassan Whiteside

The Hawks need more shot-blocking in their big man rotation. They also need to not wet their pants in the second round of the playoffs when they actually face a decent team.

25. Memphis – Avery Bradley

Shortish combo guards are somewhat out of fashion lately, but Bradley’s combination of shooting and defense will fit in well on the Grizzlies’ second unit. Projected to go as high as Toronto at #13, Bradley offers tremendous value at #25. And Chris Wallace is all about value.

(Wink.)

26. Oklahoma City – Larry Sanders

This is one of the picks that Sam Presti took from Phoenix for bringing Kurt Thomas in a few years ago, right before he then traded Kurt Thomas to San Antonio for some more draft picks. The Thunder will use one of the four picks netted in that sequence on a long athlete who should block a few shots and then create a few highlight-reel dunks on the break with Russell Westbrook. It all raises an interesting question: if one of us ever manages to kill Sam Presti, will we become him?

27. New Jersey – Dominique Jones

The Nets like Courtney Lee, but he doesn’t exactly shoot the rock as well as advertised coming out of college. With CDR gone, Jones could be an integral scorer on their second unit. That is, unless the Nets trade the pick to Minnesota, who is dying to bring in a small forward, plodding big man or a point guard.

28. Memphis – Quincy Poindexter

If somebody gives Rudy Gay a ridiculous offer then the Grizzlies are going to need another small forward. Poindexter is a productive player whose toughness will work well with OJ Mayo. It would also behoove Chris Wallace to replace Gay with someone whose last name is almost as funny.

29. Orlando – Craig Brackens

Otis Smith would do back flips if he could get a guy like Brackens with the penultimate pick in the first round. Dwight Howard’s size and productivity makes having a short but productive power forward a legitimate option. Still, Smith would love to trade this pick for the one time use of a time machine that will convey him back in time one year so that he can punch himself in the nuts for ever thinking of trading for Vince Carter.

30. Wizards – Tibor Pleis

He’s German and he plays defense. I like it.

The Lakers traded this pick to the Wizard because they trade or sell their pick every year. If you don’t count the brief contributions of Sasha Vujacic, the last first round pick made by the Lakers to actually help the Lakers was Devean George. This is proof that the end the draft is an enormous waste of time and you should be ashamed of yourself for reading this sentence.

So that’s the 2010 draft, kids. Try to act surprised.