Draft Week Begins

By Sam Rubenstein

Ah… draft season. And you thought the NBA was going into hibernation. Before dealing with this year’s draft, let’s take an amusing look down memory lane.

2007…
Here is Khalid’s draft recap, with some hilarious in-hindsight reading.

We’re (the 76ers) surely the worst team in our division. At least on paper we are on track for next year’s lottery. My initial anger was caused in part in seeing how other teams were getting better with trades and how the Sixers always seem to get it wrong when it comes to that sorta stuff.

From Lang “Ray is a great player and he’ll fit in perfectly in Boston, but is this a team that can win a title? No.”

Um, that was before the KG trade though. I like taking things out of context.

And this too:

ATLANTA HAWKS — I’m pretty disappointed by the way the Hawks ended up handling this Draft. First of all, it became obvious that there is a divide between the remaining owners and the front office. The owners wanted to take a chance and draft Yi Jianlian, while Billy Knight wanted to play it safe and take Al Horford, who plays power forward just like Josh Smith and the guy BK drafted in the first round last season, Shelden Williams. 

Ben wrote about Greg Oden. Just pretend that’s new this time around.

Here’s my contribution. I was VERY EXCITED about Zach Randolph coming to NYC. Not for basketball reasons though. A friend of mine kept texting me for a month how he wanted to “burn one down” with Z-Bo. Then the “honeymoon period” wore off. Here’s a weird self-quote:

Can Z-Bo stay out of trouble in a city with this much temptation? Of course not! This is going to be fun.

Oddly enough, he did stay out of trouble minus one or two, you know, alleged shootings outside a strip club. Good job Z-Bo!
Russ was angry as always. Let’s go back to the Boston out of context excerpt well once again:

Talk of Seattle trading Ray Allen to Boston for the No. 5, Delonte West and Wally Szczdnhdjfsfrnvbk. I HATE that trade for Boston (and I like Ray Allen). Does it make them a contender in the East? Not really. 

I have literally no memory of this rumor mentioned.

The Amare-KG-Hawks deal is turning out to be one of wild speculation. Or is it? Was it?

But apparently it was a “real” rumor. Again, no memory of it.

Believe it or not, Ryan was obsessing over the Kobe drama, dragging Neon Deion into his hatepit.

Some of us, including the enigmatic Ben Collins, went to an NBA Live event featuring Gilbert Arenas and Kevin Durant. I picked up some crucial beard grooming inspiration that night. Changed the shape of my face forever, sort of, kind of. Ben Collins brought a girl there!
And this seems to be the genesis of KG leaving Minnesota, if you want to see where the happy story began.

So here we are one year later. All the mock drafters are mock drafting, the rumors will start a-flying, the Rose/Beasley argument will ramp up even though everyone knows Chicago is taking Rose. And we go from there.