If you’re a fan of the NBA, you have more patience than you probably realize. If you’re a fan of a rebuilding team, you have to wait years until the process begins to take shape, if it ever does. If you’re a fan of competitive contests with meaning, you have to wait from the All-Star Break in February until mid-May to get to the playoff pairings and games with real championship implications. In the latest test of fan patience, the part sport, part entertainment — and not necessarily in that order — mantra has convinced the league to take a five-minute event like NBA Draft Lottery, where the selection order for June’s NBA Draft is determined, and roll it up into one endless hour. The NBA Draft Lottery in 60, if you will.
WHY ARE THEY MESSING WITH US?
To simultaneously keep the advertisers happy and torment its fans, the league has expanded the NBA Draft Lottery show to one hour, even though most of us know the real action won’t take place until about 45 minutes into the program. Prior to that we’ll hear speculation of who the top picks might be — though depending on the year that can change in the weeks between the lottery and draft day — and plenty of commercials.
PUT ON A SUIT AND WAIT, BUT DON’T SAY CHEESE
After some buildup disguised as analysis, we then get to meet the representatives — usually a team executive — from each of the 14 lottery teams (mostly non-playoff qualifiers who haven’t traded away their pick), none of whom have any control over what’s about to happen. Judging by the looks on their faces, many of these reps would rather be any place else, particularly the ones who are in attendance due to their team’s lousy performance during the recently completed regular season. Some team executives no longer bother to show up, opting to send a current player in their place to represent the team.
WAIT, YOU’RE BACK AGAIN?
Former NBA great Elgin Baylor might have gotten at least as much notoriety for being an annual fixture at the NBA Draft Lottery as an executive during his 22 years with the Los Angeles Clippers as he did as a player, especially with the younger set. He and other regulars always had an embarrassed look on their face when introduced. Unfortunately, after a stellar NBA career as a player, Baylor had become the face of the NBA Draft Lottery due to his team’s long run of on-court misery.
You can’t always draft your way out of the cellar.
You can also tell which executives or players are present as representatives of successful teams who find themselves with a high draft pick as a result of a shrewd deal with a team who could use the pick a lot more.
Those are the ones wearing a smirk.
ARE WE THERE YET?
Some randomly-chosen suit gets interviewed (“How do you feel? I see you’re wearing your lucky tie tonight.”), and after a brief explanation of the rules the first five picks in reverse order — selections 14 through 10, pre-determined backstage using ping-pong balls and someone from a large accounting firm who can allegedly keep a secret — are revealed, followed by a stoic reaction shot (poor Jerry West got two reaction shots this year as the Clippers have two lottery picks in the teens). This takes a couple of minutes, followed by commercial break. Then we get picks nine through four. Three remaining.
Another commercial break. Now they’re clearly messing with us, and especially with those who are fans of one of the final three teams.
The three remaining representatives have been whisked out of their comfy chairs and are now standing, anxiously await the final results. It’s clear they’re relieved to finally stretch their legs after sitting motionless for nearly an hour. The top three picks are then revealed, then we get the obligatory “how does it feel?” interview with the winner, plus even more analysis and predictions. In years where there’s no obvious number one choice, the combines, team needs, injury histories, trades and other factors will determine which players get selected earliest.
YOU WANT TWO HOURS? THAT CAN BE ARRANGED
No reason for the NBA Draft Lottery to be stretched out for an hour when the entire process – at least the part they allow us to see on television — takes about five minutes and the results are already known. This could have been done at halftime of that evening’s game or right before it. It could have been done during one of those dragged out replay reviews to determine if some guy’s foot was behind the three-point line on a made shot or if a foul was a Flagrant One or Two or who touched the ball last with eight minutes remaining in the second quarter of a game with a 20-point difference.
If the show HAS to be an hour long, can we at least get the entire process live?
What’s next, an hour-long show for the coin flip to break the tie between two teams with the league’s 8th worst record?
Next year, find out what time the NBA Draft Lottery show ends, subtract 20 minutes and tune in then.
They’re not fooling me again.
