Before I begin, a few thoughts on what changed from last year. Two teams who had picks in the 20s last year are picking #1 and #2 this year. Portland, who picked first last year, is now the trendy pick to dominate the league for the next million years. And, as predicted, The Chicken won rookie of the year. Basically, this league has never been more effed up.
Let's draft.
1. Chicago Bulls
Pick: Sparky the Seal
Chicago's new (and totally inexperienced) coach will be able to ease into the job by taking a trained seal on the team. Coaching in the NBA is often a trial-by-fire business, but a seal makes everybody look good. Unfortunately, this sets the tone for what will be an utterly ridiculous draft.
2. Miami Heat
Pick: traded to Memphis for half a dozen bagels and a ticket to the natural history museum
The surprisingly sudden decline of the '05-'06 champion will no longer seem so surprising. But hey, Dwayne Wade needs to eat, and who doesn't like natural history?
So...
2. Memphis Grizzlies (from Miami Heat)
Pick: The future
They definitely don't have one at the moment, so I'd say it's a wise pick.
3. Minnesota Timberwolves
Pick: A 30-win season
The 'Wolves are easily the losingest sports franchise in Minnesota state history, so they'll look to move up the ladder a bit by drafting a slight improvement in their win-loss record.
4. Seattle Supersonics
Pick: The Seattle Supersonsics
Though it wouldn't make sense for most teams to draft themselves, it does for Seattle. Two reasons: it helps give the team the identity it lacked last season, and it secures the rights for Kevin Durant to write a novel about an NBA team that is actually a different NBA team, which is actually the same NBA team.
5. Memphis Grizzlies
Pick: the past
With the future already in their draft baggies, it only makes sense for them to draft the past. Expect your new history textbooks to be released in early February by 40-Time-Champion-Grizzlies Press.
6. New York Knicks
Pick: Sing Sing Federal Prison
Controversial pick, but the Knicks had little choice but to draft a prison to send their players to. Expect at least one starter to get the death penalty before the end of the season.
7. Los Angeles Clippers
Pick: pick forfeited
For the second year in a row the Clippers are forced to forfeit their pick in retribution for the Marko Jaric-Sam Cassell trade. But this time it's because of the Clips' poor ice cream service to Timberwolves fans last season.
8. Milwaukee Bucks
Pick: Mustard
The Bucks have been looking for a good condiment to put on their bratwurst for some time. They're lucky mustard's still on the board at this point.
9. Charlotte Bobcats
Pick: bunny slippers
I do not understand why the Bobcats are a perennial lottery team. Oh wait, yes I do. It's cuz they're soft. If the players are going to keep it up, they're going to need some nice slippers.
10. New Jersey Nets
Pick: a soda
Don't expect the Nets to prepare for this draft at all. The only reason they end up with anything is because their GM is heard to say, "I could really go for a soda right now." Will the soda deliver on expectations?
11. Indiana Pacers
Pick: Reggie Miller's ghost
Two things wrong with this pick: Reggie Miller is not dead, and ghosts are notoriously poor ball-handlers. Look for the Pacers to dump their whole roster in the Ohio River when this pick doesn't pan out.
12. Sacramento Kings
Pick: robots with lasers
There are many teams that wish to undo the mistakes of the past, and since the time machine withdrew from the draft two weeks ago, Sacramento changed its position to annihilating the possibility for mistakes in the future. Their strategy is to unleash the robots on opposing teams, but expect the robots to turn against the Kings a third of the way into the season.
13. Portland Trail Blazers
Pick: Memories of the 2006 and 2007 NBA drafts
Portland, taking this whole promising young team thing a little too far, decides to rub it in everybody's faces that they totally rocked the last two draft years. It would have been wiser to draft a healthy knee or something so that Greg Oden could walk under his own power.
14. Golden State Warriors
Pick: superpowers for everyone on the team but Baron Davis
Baron Davis already has superpowers. Everybody else needs a reason to live--but superpowers will keep their minds off of that for a while.
15. Phoenix Suns (from Atlanta Hawks)
Pick: The Hypnotist
Responding to Atlanta's pick last year of The Magician, Phoenix takes his brother, The Hypnotist. While everybody's been talking about The Hypnotist's poor work ethic and slipping athleticism, he's better than the alternatives (an iceberg, or 2 tons of confetti).
16. Philadelphia 76ers
Pick: mustaches
You can never have too many mustaches.
17. Toronto Raptors
Pick: one ticket straight outta this league
I hate the Raptors. Get the heck out of the NBA, you stinky jerks. And take Canada with you.
18. Washington Wizards
Pick: The 1970s
Surprising pick, considering the Wizards weren't a team in the 70s and therefore would cease to exist once this pick is signed. But the 70s were a golden age for Washington. Watergate, Vietnam, Jimmy Carter. Good times.
19. Cleveland Cavaliers
Pick: a half-finished cloning machine
Good pick, considering even one clone of LeBron James would make this team unstoppable. But who's going to finish building the machine? Ben Wallace?
20. Denver Nuggets
Pick: books
If there's any NBA team that needs to learn how to read, it's the Nuggets (and maybe the Knicks). In my opinion, they should draft a tutor. You can't just open a book and learn how to read. Plus a good tutor could probably back up 'Melo at the 2.
21. New Jersey Nets (from Dallas Mavericks)
Pick: the same soda from before
No surprises here. After finishing that first soda, New Jersey's GM is heard to remark, "That soda was pretty good." The pick is announced to much applause, but because of the strict rules of the draft, no refill is delivered, as "that soda" technically refers to the soda picked originally.
22. Orlando Magic
Pick: Alexis Anjinca
Orlando, one of the least creative teams in the NBA, selects an actual basketball player. However, this particular basketball player is French, so I'm sure that the pick will end up being as worthless as the rest.
23. Utah Jazz
Pick: Season Two of Big Love on DVD
Though technically no one on the Jazz is Mormon, is married to more than one woman, or owns a DVD player, they go for the home town pick with HBO's Utah-based show. I bet Big Love will only play well with Andrei Kirilenko, who won't even be with the Jazz after this season.
24. Seattle Supersonics (from Phoenix)
Pick: The Portland Trail Blazers
Just in case picking themselves doesn't hold up, they'll back themselves up with the other team from the Pacific Northwest. Hopefully Commissioner David Stern's head will explode as contemplates how two franchises could actually be the same franchises while still somehow being different franchises though actually having been the same franchise all along.
25. Houston Rockets
Pick: a mechanical spine
It's time the Rockets come to terms with it--Tracy McGrady's back just doesn't work. You have to replace the whole darn thing. Yao, on the other hand, needs so many new parts that he'd take another 2-3 drafts to take care of.
26. San Antonio Spurs
Pick: a different cactus
Last year I predicted the Spurs would pick a cactus. I was wrong, but the guy they did pick decided not to join the NBA after all, so it turns out a cactus would have been better. However, the cactus from last year is now dead, so it's time to pick a different cactus.
27. New Orleans Hornets
Pick: a lifetime supply of whipped cream
They're going to fill their arena with this stuff. Look forward to the greatest 41 games of basketball you'll ever see--this year at wherever the Hornets play now.
28. Memphis Grizzlies (from LA Lakers)
Pick: Hank Williams
It would have made more sense for Memphis to draft the present, what with drafting the future and the past. But now they've got a long year ahead and a dead country singer to exhume.
29. Detroit Pistons
Pick: Al Gore
Kind of ironic, when you think about it. I mean, why would a team pick a vice president when there are so many regular presidents still on the board? But I guess that's not really irony, is it?
30. Boston Celtics
Pick: Al Gore
Didn't he just get picked? Or are they picking a different Al Gore? Seriously, though, why not Zachary Taylor?
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