By Jeff Moss
January 30, 2012
DetroitSportsRag@gmail.com
There aren’t many topics that sports fan across the country can almost unanimously agree upon, but the awfulness emanating out of Bristol, Connecticut is one of them.
When organizing a list of ESPN’s greatest transgressions, it is difficult to know where to begin.
I guess the pairing of Skip Bayless and Waab Parker on “First Take” would be a good place to start. I’d rather watch a documentary on how sausage is processed than listen to those two lobotomy candidates debate sports.
Then you have the Craig James debacle in which “Worldwide Leader” executives decided to side with a right-wing wackjob who hired a freaking PR firm to assassinate former Texas Tech coach, Mike Leach’s, character instead of a longtime respected journalist (Bruce Feldman) because the fledgling GOP Senate aspirant didn’t like how Leach treated his kid.
Another fine example of the Mothership’s tone-deaf behavior is the horrid content you can find on ESPN.com’s spin-off website, “Grantland.com.” I live-and-breath sports and pop culture to the point of overkill and yet I can only get through about five percent of that site’s articles.
But, hey, who doesn’t want to read a 15,000 word article about what Ty Cobb means to Detroit? Oh yeah, that’s right, NOBODY in Detroit!
Bill Simmons’ creation might be the worst sidequel since Dan Hedaya’s character on “Cheers” moved to Las Vegas with Casey Kasem’s wife to open up a TV repair business.
But none of the above is my beef with ESPN today. Nor is it their disgusting obsession with Tim Tebow, their enabling of that race-baiting piece of shit, Colin Cowherd, or the awful watering down of “Sportscenter.”
Nope, my problem is they have been hiding one of my favorite features on ESPN.com, “The NBA Mock Draft Lottery Machine.”
For weeks I have been perusing the site for their lottery simulator accompanied by Chad Ford’s mock draft to no avail.
(And please people, no Chad Ford/Darko jokes. Hasn’t the Statute of Limitations on that line of “humor” expired?)
Look, there isn’t much joy the Pistons have brought to us in recent years unless you count the comedic value of Tom Gores’ introductory presser as happiness or Debbie Schlussel’s insane accusatory blogs that the new Pistons owner is a member of Hamas.
Pretty much ALL WE HAVE is the ESPN Ping-Pong ball simulator. Well, that and performances of “Jungle Love.”
And trust me, I scoured ESPN’s NBA page in hopes of unearthing the simulator for DAYS. I even Google searched “NBA Lottery Mock Draft Machine” and discovered the link for the 2011 Draft.
(And yes, like the fucking loser that I am, I hit the “Play Lottery” button six times before the
Pistons got Kyrie Irving.)
Anyway, the domain address for the 2011 machine was the following:
espn.go.com/nba/lottery2011/mockdraft
So out of utter desperation for some Detroit basketball entertainment, I decided to throw a Hail-Mary and change “2011” to “2012” thinking I was surely going to get a broken link page.
Lo and behold, the next thing I know, the Charlotte Bobcats are picking Anthony Davis and Andre Drummond of Connecticut is the Pistons selection.
I am not exactly sure why the hell ESPN is hiding this yearly gem like it is a Mark Schwartz story from 2003 regarding Bernie Fine and potential molestation charges, but I dare you to find a link to it anywhere on their website.
Of course, like a kid in a candy store, I hit the “Play Lottery” button again to see if the Pistons could move up to the #1 pick. You see, they currently have the second worst record in the NBA and a 19.9% percent chance to land the freak of nature power forward from Kentucky.
The results of the simulator resulted in the Wizards moving up to get the Lexington freshman. Then the Hornets. And the Bobcats again. And then the Sacramento Kings. It took me TEN FUCKING TRIES before the Pistons landed on number one.
And while I wasn’t a math major in college that is TWICE as many times as it should have taken based on their current odds.
All of which is a nice segue to my next point regarding the draft and the Pistons. They need to continue to lose at this rate because landing one of the top two picks is an absolute necessity.
And the effort they put in last week when they almost beat the Heat and then needed a Joe Johnson three-point buzzer beater to force an overtime in which they eventually lost to the Hawks scares me shitless.
The last thing this team needs to do is start WINNING games thus costing them precious position in June’s draft.
For over a year now we have heard that the 2012 Draft is going to be one of the deepest in years. Mainly because a bunch of kids who might have come out last year stayed in college because of the impending NBA lockout.
And that conventional wisdom remains today even though it is looking more and more like you’ve got two elite prospects and then everybody else.
It is no secret that the Pistons are in desperate need of a dominant front-court presence. Hell, even Gores probably knows that and I’d bet he couldn’t tell you where Ben Gordon went to college or the proper pronunciation of Jonas Jerebko’s last name™ (Eric Chase.)
And if the Pistons want to get someone to play alongside Greg Monroe they almost assuredly will need to get the first or second pick overall so they can select between Wingspan Unibrow and Mr. Drummond.
After those two, the odds of getting a legitimate impact player will drop precipitously.
You think Harrison Barnes is going to change this team’s fortunes? An unathletic SMALL forward who draws comparison to Luol Deng?
And I like Kansas’s Thomas Robinson and I am sure that after all of the heartbreak the kid has gone through in the last year he will be extremely motivated at the NxT LvL. That doesn’t change the fact that he is undersized for a power forward.
Perry Jones has the size, but a questionable heart and it sounds like he is as excited about playing in the low blocks as Rasheed Wallace.
Jared Sullinger looks to me like a rich man’s version of Corliss Williamson. Pass.
And Cody Zeller is freaking white for [Verlander’s] sake.
There is only ONE way for the Pistons to ever compete for a title again and that is to have some lottery success and hope that selected player is more Kevin Durant or Russell Westbrook than LeBron James or Carmelo Anthony and he doesn’t mind spending his entire career in the Midwest dealing with black ice and frigid weather.
And this article is being written at a crucial time in the Pistons season. Yes, they have been atrocious so far with a win percentage of .190 that puts them on an anemic 12.54 win pace.
But in the next two weeks they play Milwaukee twice, the Nets THREE times and the Wizards, Bobcats and Knicks once each.
If they can get through this stretch with a record of 2 and 6 they should have clear sailing the rest of the way towards a historically abominable season.
You people really need to hunker down and root against this team extremely hard over the next eight games if you desire the best chance to select the human shot-block machine with an improving offensive game or the UCONN big man who draws favorable comparison to Amar’e Stoudemire.
Or maybe the idiot fanbase of this team can hope the Pistons continue the improved play they exhibited at the Palace last week and maybe they can even get on a winning streak against their fellow lottery hopefuls.
If that happens don’t come crying to me on June 28th when the team ends up with the seventh pick and is left to select Michael Kidd-Gilchrist.
I mean, you know how well the city of Detroit has done over the last few years with a draftee that had a “dash” in their last name.
As this column comes full circle, I will leave you with one of ESPN’s other tragedies, the continued employment of Matt Millen as an analyst and ….
Ikaika Alama-Francis, the Hawaiian Hyphen.
Please keep losing.