The Blake Griffin Suicide Watch Begins Now

With the Clippers winning the lottery tonight, they get the first pick in this year's draft -- one hopes they do better with it than, say, Micahel Olowokandi -- and while I don't want to depress any of the fourteen remaining Clip Fans in the world, I'm not seeing how consensus number one pick Blake Griffin is going to fix this mess. Not unless he's able to make Baron Davis younger and/or healthy, give Zach Randolph a heart and brain transfusion, and arrange to have Mike Dunleavy killed and replaced by an actual coach.

Seriously, there is no reason -- none -- to be a Clip Fan. The owner is the worst in the Association, the talent and cap situation is utterly beyond repair, and no ping-pong ball bounce is going to change any of that. As an Association fan, I'm actually bummed that he's going to go to NBA Siberia; he might put up fantasy numbers, but he'll play no games of consequence, and being a Clipper means that his chance of catastrophic injury just went through the roof. But if he's got any kind of sense, he won't sign anything beyond the intro deal, and get the hell out of town as soon as he can.

But hey, Griff, it could've been worse. You could have been going to Sacramento!

FTT Can Not Stop Touching The Rotting Tooth That Is Bill Simmons

Shorter Simmons, just now:

Everyone feel sorry for me and my team, because we didn't win the lottery, and we're really, really, really unlucky.

* * * * *

Actual Simmons (and after this, I'm taking this car straight to Rant Country):

Everyone believes Celtics fans get a free pass with this stuff because we won 16 titles in 30 years. Actually, it's the opposite. Long-suffering fans of perennial losers don't know what they're missing. After all, how would they know? You can't miss steak if you've never eaten steak, right?

This, in a nutshell, is why the *WORLD* hates the Red Sox even more than the Yankees right now (and for that matter, the Patriots more than the Colts) -- you won your World Series, and you are *still* crying for Lovable Underdog Status.

It's also why no one -- NO ONE -- feels bad that the Celtics are Clippers East now.

You know who would trade their Sports Misery with Boston's in a freaking heartbeat? Just about every town in America. You get a great old baseball park. You get the most successful franchise in NBA history. You get a championship - MULTIPLE - in this century, in two sports. You get a fan base that fills the seats and cares all the time, and if you move away from there, you can always find a bar filled with them.

You want a miserable sports fan experience? Settle back with some Kansas City Royal action, six months in a funeral home. Grab a paper bag and join the suicide watch in Detroit Lion Land. Suck on the poisoned crack pipe that has a Philadelphia 76er logo on it. My team has traded the best players in franchise history away so much, Julius Erving checks the newspaper every day, just to make sure it still isn't going to happen to him, too.

Believe it or not, We Poor Peons Who Rarely Eat Steak like it, too. The Royals fans remember 1985 like it's a child lost in a war. Lions fans close their eyes and think of Barry Sanders. In Philadelphia, we can still see Doc rising over Michael Cooper.

It's the way sports is for everyone. Or, at least, everyone but you, you spoiled child, you insufferable douche bag, you puling twerp. (Boy, it's hard to keep this under the Disney filter.)

Your tears are like sweet wine. Please cry some more for us. Please. Or, failing that, GROW THE HELL UP.

And if you don't believe me, spin around the sports blogosphere and check out the reactions of everyone but you and your boyfriends. It's a freaking national holiday out here.

Take A Dive. You Get Five.

And that’s how it ended up for the Boston Flopping Celtics. As I wrote yesterday, they tanked their way to the second worst record in the NBA in hopes of securing the first or second pick in the draft. The worst pick they could end up with was the 5th pick. And that is exactly what they got.

Bill Simmons blogged today about his definition of karma, the Celtics “bad luck” and why they were due. How does a team who purposely tries to lose games have this sense of entitlement of deserving the top pick? And I’ll save you some time reading his next blog about how unbearable it is, how even his buddy Hench couldn’t cheer him up and why the number 5 pick isn’t that bad. (You can look forward to 6 weeks of why Yi Jianlian is more polished than Greg Oden or how Mike Conley is the best PG coming out of the draft since AI)

Reading the Celtics message boards, their fans share this same sentiment. A lot of “It’s not fair, we had the second worst record. We deserve at least the second pick.” I think the Celtics got exactly what they deserved – you don’t play hard and try to win, get in the back of the line.

The next shoe to drop is the inevitable “Stern rigged this lottery to punish the Celtics.” I’m actually going to encourage the spreading of this conspiracy theory. I like the idea of Stern dropping the hammer on a team that doesn’t have the moral integrity to play hard. Why should an organization that has made terrible moves be rewarded for trying to take the easy way out to rebuild?

Danny Ainge is currently on step 1 of the 5 steps of grieving – DENIAL. "We've been saying all along that we think this is a good draft, and it's more than a two-player draft," Ainge said just moments after the results were revealed on ESPN. "I still believe that we're going to get a player who has a chance to be an All-Star caliber player." Step 2 is anger. I’m sure that came as soon as the reporters had left the room.

This is an organization in disarray. From the GM to the coach to even the marketing department. Need proof? Check out the photo at the top of this post. This came directly from the homepage of the Boston Celtics. It shows the worst possible outcome of tonight’s draft for them – the 5th pick. And right below the picture of the number 5 ball is a button to get season tickets. Now you tell me the Celtics didn’t get exactly what they deserved.

Thank you NBA for an outstanding evening.

Best Wishes, Danny

I don’t usually get excited about the NBA Draft Lottery. But I have to admit, I’ll be watching tomorrow. And not to see who gets Oden or Durant. Although, they are two of the best prospects the draft has seen in years.

Instead I’ll be tuning in to root against Danny Ainge and the Celtics getting one of the first two picks. Not only would it be sweet justice for a team who tanked their way through the season, the look on the Celtics’ representative at the draft (and please, please, please let it be Ainge) would be priceless. I picture a scene similar to the old Simpsons’ episode where Lisa tells Ralph she doesn’t like him on TV during a Krusty anniversary show. Ralph’s face instantly turns to horror - and like Bart, I will rewind and replay in slow motion over and over again if the Celtics get anything but the first two picks in the draft.



Look, I don’t have anything against the Celtics or their fans (well I am tired of Bill Simons whining about how they “have to get one of the first two picks” and that damn book he’s been peddling on his site for 2+ years). In fact I feel badly for their fans that they’ve had to endure poor decisions by Ainge and a pretty lousy product for years now. What I do have a problem with is rewarding a team for bad decisions and worse, in the case of the 2006-07 season, throwing games. Of course, Doc Rivers didn’t tell his players to let the other team score or miss shots on purpose. No, the Celtics decided to keep their best players on the bench during key parts (usually the second half) of games and not even play their key guys due to “injury.”

The most egregious part of this is that the Boston fans have paid good money to come to the games only to see their team try to lose. And for this, the NBA awards them with one of the best chances at getting Oden and Durant. It’s a welfare system for pro-sports. So let me make sure I get this right – your organization has made bad trades and poor free agent signings…. Last year you drafted and traded a prospect with a bright future for Sebastian Telfair and a firearm to be named later…. You screwed your fan base by making them pay full price for tickets to see games you had no intention of winning… Yes, yes, for that we (the NBA) will give you the second best chance in the league for this year’s top pick. Nice job, you’ve earned it.

That work ethic and poor results wouldn’t even fly in France (that goes out to our one French reader). I’ve read many different alternatives the NBA could adopt for their draft: Throw all the teams in and have a truly random drawing, split the season into halves and have some type of ratio that you are awarded more points for wins in the second half of the year to prevent tanking, adopting an English Premier League system of sending the bottom teams each year to the minor leagues (in this case the NBDL). But I propose one that could make teams try to win and prevent tanking – the bottom line.

Here’s how it could work. Lottery teams are chosen by attendance levels. Or I should say lack of attendance. Teams averaging the lowest attendance (it would have to be a ratio of their total seating capacity) would be placed into a lottery drawing. Owners would have to really pay if they wanted to tank because a bad product on the floor would lead to lower attendance levels. And maybe it’s a ratio that is compared to last year’s attendance. I don’t know. What I do know is this – you tie a financial figure to all of this and you’ll see owners less likely to let incompetent GMs screw the team and the fans, but more importantly to them, lose out on more money in their pocket, in order to get a better chance at a top prospect.

So tomorrow, please join me in wishing Danny Ainge and the Celtics the worst of luck. Danny, here’s to the number 13, black cats, broken mirrors, and walking under ladders.

And in case you were curious about the odds for the Celtics tomorrow, here they are with the percentage chance of receiving their spot in the top 5:

1st pick: 19.9%
2nd pick: 18.8%
3rd pick: 17.1%
4th pick: 31.9%
5th pick: 12.4%