2022 NBA Draft Running Diary

The first round was full of intrigue, trades and moms

It’s draft night in the NBA and there are few things I enjoy making fun of like a draft in any sport. It’s the combination of terrible clothes, overwrought analysis, obsessions with wingspan and trying to guess Joe Buck style who in the entourage is the girlfriend, wife or grandmother.

ESPN’s preshow features Malika Andrews as the new host (excellent choice, by the way ESPN), Adrian Wojnarowski’s iPhone, Kendrick Perkins (for some reason) and Jay Bilas. If you’ve ever watched a draft, you already know that Jay is very impressed when a player’s wingspan is greater than his height. Jay, a very smart person, has apparently never learned that the average human has a wingspan that is exactly as many inches as their height, which means 50% of humans have wingspans greater than 1:1. Jay, buddy, I am 6’2 (74 inches) and my wingspan is 78 inches, and I can assure you, nobody had me rated higher than Jerry Stackhouse, Rasheed Wallace or Kevin Garnett the year we came out.¹

Woj bomb! - Just 25 minutes before the Draft officially starts, Woj is reporting that the Magic are still considering Paolo Banchero over Jabari Smith Jr. I would take Paolo first because he has a cooler name than either Jabari or Chet Holmgren.

As much as draft coverage has improved over the years, three things will never be improved upon.

• With Jerry Krause no longer around, there are currently zero general managers who rank their prospects on the basis of how big their mother’s hands are. That was a real thing that Jerry obsessed over. That and crullers.

• With Rick Pitino off coaching at Iona or wherever, the telecasts are almost completely devoid of having anyone describe a player as “multi-versatile.” Rick loves that poetic redundancy.

• Way back when the draft was on TBS (not even TNT) and during the daytime, Rick Barry was one of the analysts and because he’s a prick he would obsess over the things he thought each player couldn’t do. It was great. Especially when one of his criticisms of every player was that they shot their free throws “overhand.”²
  

So the draft is just minutes from starting and they are introducing the players who are going to be hanging out in the green room. At least one of these guys is going to be sitting there for the entire first round. My guess is MarJon Beauchamp for no reason other than I think that’s a really cool name. And we are going to be on MarJon Beauchamp watch all night! Whoo!

Chet Holmgren is wearing all black, which makes him look even more like a push broom than normal.