NBA DRAFT: Day on which people with humorous names wear funny baseball caps and ill-fitting suits. -Glossary from Freedarko Presents: The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac
If you’ve never watched a professional sports draft before I won’t hold it against you. I watched the 2013 NBA Draft for the first time since 2006. It’s a bizarre media blitz chock-full of obligatory awkward player intro backgrounds (think of those too real NFL pre-game starting lineup that gaze back at you with drawn out blinks and Athletic-Fortitude-Stares). As an obsessive sports kid growing up in the early 90’s, I relied on draft coverage, college ball highlights, and rookie cards to introduce me to the new class of last names on jerseys I didn’t recognize. With the rise of videogames in the mid-late 90’s there began the tangible era of rookies: they had attributed skill-sets and distinct player movements I could interact with. Rookies became even more real, they were bottlerocket X-Factors whose future path you could guess but never pin down.
And so the 2013 draft came and I casually dropped in and found myself enamored. Just one more pick...’ was my mantra for the entire broadcast. Bill Simmons was particularly entertaining because he is, as the internet loves to remind us, a ‘Homer’ (one of unabashed allegiance) for his beloved Celtics. Simmons is coming off a very underwhelming debut this past season alongside Magic Johnson, Jalen Rose, and Michael Wilbon on the NBA Countdown crew. Simmons and Wilbon morphed from unique and passionate commentators in their respective environments into trite observers of Magic speaking fluent Coach Carter-ese.
Simmons has complained via Twitter about his discomfort with the scripted nature of corporate sports broadcasting and many basketball nerds have given up hope on the man. Alas, the NBA 2013 Draft. From his genuine surprise to Anthony Bennett being taken 1st in the draft to his ability to actually make the Stone Monolith that is Jay Bilas emit uncontrollable laughter at the question of whether Mason Plumlee is a rich man’s Greg Stiemsma, average, or poor man’s Stiemsma, there was actually a human experience which incorporated spontaneity into a live television broadcast. But regardless of one’s like or dislike for Simmons, Draft Day 2013 held an unexpected and dark “rebuild mode” that took place during the draft as Simmons’ beloved Celtics traded away their two best/old players since Bird and...Antoine Walker (?) for scrubs, draft picks, and Gerald Wallace.
There is nothing quite like hearing Jalen Rose utter, “Don’t get fired, Bill” multiple times during an NBA Draft as Simmons stares out into the drunken New York crowd in disbelief as he voices his need to find the hotel bar. And then of course there was David Stern trolling the crowd, loving his last draft as NBA commissioner. Booing Stern has become a beautiful inverse relationship that signifies both every conceivable basketball conspiracy theory since 1984 as well as the gleeful pleasure fans get in mocking an all too self-aware authority figure. When Stern announced his final pick as commissioner, the selection of Nemanjan Nedovic, the crowd erupted in an overwhelming and unprecedented standing ovation. Stern then introduced Adam Silver, who would be hosting the 2nd and final round of the draft. And in one simple transitional phrase the boos were passed onto Silver by way of the phrase, "the next commisioner of the NBA". And as Silver brought out surprise guest Hakeem Olajuwon, Stern's first pick as commissioner in 1984, with Jalen Rose narrating over the telecast, "It was a dream.....just a dreaaammmmm", the draft transfigured from ESPN Tebow-reprise to glorious Spectacle and I thanked my (unintentional) basketball card collection of players-turned-announcers that Tim Legler and Greg Anthony couldn't be there and all was right with the basketball world and it was good.
