• All Hail The Pathos Of The NBA Draft Lottery

    By Will Leitch, 12:20 PM on Tue May 19 2009, 32,671 views

    This is a weekly column from Leitch.

    As anyone who has been unfortunate enough to come across my turgid prose over the last few years knows, I have a difficult time working up much enthusiasm for the NFL or NBA Drafts. Drew made a solid case as to why I'm wrong a few weeks back, but I just can't help it: I'm never going to be convinced that watching men in suits read names off index cards for several hours is a productive use of my time. Agree, disagree, whatever, we're both right and we're both wrong.

    But I'm about to gut my point. Because I love tonight's deformed third cousin to the NBA Draft: The NBA Draft Lottery. This makes no sense, of course; the only real advantage the NBA Draft Lottery has on the NBA Draft is that it is shorter. But I love it anyway. There's something about watching representatives of professional sports franchises -- people who, by definition, are control freaks -- put on suits and piss themselves in fear while the indifferent hand of chance either grasps their bosom or slaps them across the face.

    Last year was a particularly great one: The Bulls somehow lucked into Derrick Rose, and we got to watch someone named Steve Schanwald, executive vice president for basketball operations, display his balding middle aged white guy pumped-up face. This was legitimately the closest Steve Schanwald will ever come to any semblance of athletic activity, and it was glorious: He looks like a guy who just pulled out an amazing final-round victory at Trivia Night at Applebee's. The only reason Schanwald was there in the first place was because the Bulls had such small odds to win the top pick: If they were at 4:1, you'd have to think they would have sent a Paxson, or even a Bob Love out there. But instead: Steve Schanwald. Awesome.

    There's something inherently lovely in watching defeated, doomed losers -- who, after all, were the worst teams last year -- beg ping-pong balls for a deus ex machina to save them from their own ineptitude. (Bill Simmons' "Elgin Baylor is a Draft Lottery veteran" riff still makes me laugh.) Most in sports is visibly merit-based: This throws fate into the mix. It's always there, of course, fate: It's just now we can see it plain and clear. Right next to desperation.

    Who are the highlight reps this time? The Sacramento Kings have the best odds, and we're lucky to have Chris Webber on stage. This guy reps the Clippers, the always-great Kevin Love stands up for the Timberwolves, Allan Houston limps on stage for the Knicks and we'll see Larry Bird out there for the Pacers, which is something he must just love. It's fractions and decimals and the mercilessness of luck, for us all to watch. And it'll be over in 20 minutes.

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    Send an email to Will Leitch, the author of this post, at will@deadspin.com.

    By Will Leitch
    May 19, 2009 12:20 PM 32,671
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    All Hail The Pathos Of The NBA Draft Lottery

    Maury Brown. Big happy warm girl hugs to Maury Brown from The Biz Of Baseball for providing an easy one-stop resource to see every single member of the Baseball Writers Association of America's "badge list." The association, which has always had a certain Skull & Bones feel to it, has finally started accepting people like Rob Neyer, Will Carroll and Keith Law, but it took forever, and I assume it involved some truly terrifying hazing. The longest current tenure for a member of the organization belongs to Seymour Siwoff of the Elias Sports Bureau, who first got his "badge" in 1952 and, according to my research, is 176 years old. It's a fascinating list to dig through.

    Things I learned:

    *** Jayson Stark and Tim Kurkjian are a lot older than I thought they were.
    *** Jay Mariotti is actually a member, though he probably hasn't been to a game in decades. Amusingly, even though he's fully employed by AOL Fanhouse, they still list him as "at large," because listing where he actually works would presumably be an affront to the great name of the BBWAA.
    *** Considering the percentage of new additions over the last few years, they're going to need to add a "BBWAA (and Japan)" at the end of their name.
    *** The BBWAA still hasn't figured out what to do with reporters who cover the team for MLB.com. The BBWAA rules explicitly state that "employees of MLB.com shall not be eligible," which is why some of the best beat reporters around aren't allowed in. This is a problem now, but it's about to become more of one. Look at Brian McTaggert, who is about to move from the Houston Chronicle to MLB.com, who is actually the chairperson of the BBWAA's Houston bureau. Does he get kicked out now? Considering that in some cities the team sites' beat reporter is one of the few people left to cover the team, what happens now? And more to the point: How does this affect Mike Lupica's table at the yearly banquet? It's still at the front, right? Better be.

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