The worst show in the history of sports television had barely begun, yet it was clear that no level of noise-cancelling earphones would make it tolerable.
The NBA Draft, as presented on ABC, was 15 minutes old and it essentially had become not so much a basketball program as a chance for about-to-be-professional athletes to be planted on a couch with their parents to answer useless questions.
As if prompted by a chatbot, the draftees would mention how difficult the journey was to get there, as if the enlightened didn’t know the truth. That is, every one of them had been coddled since sixth grade, invited to travel to appealing destinations to compete in AAU tournaments, fussed over as recruits and treated like royalty in college, many even receiving substantial – and legal – NIL money.
Yet on and on it went, with the players too often ending up in tears. And if any of the interesting questions were tried, they were few, if at all. What questions? Try these: What was it about your college experience that prompted you to leave so early? What was the difference in NIL riches you could have made at (name the college) as opposed to the NBA? Were you ever so team-first-minded that you would have liked to have stuck around and help win an NCAA championship? Villanova freshman Cam Whitmore wasn’t even asked how it felt to drift about 15 spots deeper in the draft than expected. And exactly what was the point of asking parents what they thought of their kids, like it was a rain delay during the Little League World Series?
The ESPN alternative was better, with the panelists — among them J.J. Redick and Jay Bilas — offering reasonable and learned critiques of the student-ath … err … the players. It wasn’t their fault that there couldn’t have been two viewers who knew much about any second-round pick.
* The whole ABC-ESPN carry-on was not without its revelations. The biggest: That the king-makers have decided that top pick Victor Wembanyama shall be slam-dunked on sports fans in the style of, among others, LeBron James and any NFL quarterback. It’s how it is done. They decide who is important and keep it up to the point of comedy. It’s why Wembanyama was interviewed, featured, interviewed some more and rolled onto the screen more often than Adam Silver.
* At 7-foot-4, the Frenchman apparently played well in some less-than-NBA-quality pro leagues. Eh. It would have been more telling to have seen him on a Tuesday night in February on the road in a packed Power 6 college arena, with the refs on his back, the coaches on the refs’ backs, the students badgering him about personal things and the opponents banging on him like mixed martial artists as he fought for an NCAA bid.
* There is nothing in sports with a more natural appeal than a draft. It’s the only night when every fan of every can claim their team was better off afterward than it was when it started. As for the NBA Draft, it has become a chore, not a treat.
Too few of the draftees were in college long enough for even the most obsessed draftniks to have firm opinions. Too many of the players came out of G-League Elite programs, which is to say they were never on TV and, if they were, the games likely had worse ratings than those Larry King vitamin-hustles. The fans on-site at the Barclays Center seemed to want to cheer, but the second round ended after midnight in Brooklyn and few had the energy left to react to Oklahoma City — using a pick that originally had gone from Dallas to Memphis to Boston to Miami — to select Some Guy From Kansas State at No. 50.
* All that said about the newest Spur and ABC – which did present a strong, pre-draft feature – the good man might be onto something with his fixation on strengthening his feet. Could it be possible that the modern basketball shoe is so cushioned as to be counter productive? Might there be fewer stress fractures, ankle-wrenchings or even knee injuries were basketball to retreat to less complicated footwear better resembling the structure of the human body? Should some of the elements of Wembanyama’s foot exercises be incorporated into all sports fitness regimens?
That’s for scientists to debate, and good luck with swirling any of that past the $200-pair-of-shoes lobby. In the meantime, good for Wembanyama for taking things into his own hands – or lower. And may his plan prove more valuable than load management in maintaining his health.
* And was it all an hallucination or did the directors of the draft telecast really cut to some H-list celebrity wearing jorts and cowboy boots dancing around the floor in San Antonio is some goofy celebration of a pick everyone saw coming? Had to have been an hallucination. No other explanation.
Contact Jack McCaffery at [email protected]
