WRITINGS & NEWS
Alright, now that we've all seen the ads a million times: is the NBA's "Where Will Amazing Happen This Year" ad campaign the greatest series of ads a sports league has ever produced? Is there even anything else in the running?
Also, which one of those ads is the best? Outside of the Celtics ones, I'm partial to Kobe's game-winner, myself.
I was reading an article the other day where they offhandedly mentioned Andrea Bargnani, and said "it's all very disappointing for a number one pick." And I said "Bargnani was a number one pick?" That was only three years ago, but I'd already forgotten. That's how little impact he's made in his short career. Sad.
Weirder to me is that I'd so completely forgotten about Bargnani's draft position, a footnote in 2006 draft, one of five players selected before Brandon Roy. It seems we forget a lot about draft classes - we remember the strong classes (1999) and forget the weak ones (2000), we remember 
the truly horrendous picks (Atlanta picking Marvin Williams over Chris Paul, even though Paul - for reasons that escape us even now - wanted to go to the Hawks). But how often do we look back and study the patterns in NBA drafts? Players get traded so quickly and so often in the NBA that we lose who drafted who where, but it's fun to study and see who's been consistently good and who's never really been able to grasp what drafting is all about.
To be fair, sometimes there are regime changes - it's unfair to rail against the current Knicks for the crimes of Isaiah Thomas - but there are always organizations that make a study in futility late every June, regardless of who's in charge. Jets fans know exactly what I'm talking about.
I went back through and studied each draft from 1998 to 2008 for patterns, looking for organizations who had foresight and recognized talent. I graded well for every player selected who became a consistent starter and/or All-Star, and negatively for every player selected in a draft position where a far superior player was selected one to four spots later. Four spots was my limit (I occasionally stretched it to five or six spots if more than one superior player was selected following the pick) because it's only fair to judge teams according to how a player is rated by everyone. It's fair to ridicule the Wizards for drafting colossal bust Kwame Brown with the first overall pick in the 2001 draft instead of Pau Gasol (#3), it's less fair to knock them for missing future All-Stars Tony Parker (#29) and Gilbert Arenas (#31). A lot of other teams missed their chance, too - what's noteworthy is when you have two similarly rated players and you consistently choose the wrong one.
I graded especially harshly on teams that drafted a quality player and dealt him on draft day for a crummy player two spots down and a second round pick. This, I feel takes a special sort of lack of foresight. Occasionally, though, these trades are a steal: Dallas drafted the well-nicknamed Robert "Tractor" Traylor, then traded him for future MVP Dirk Nowitzki and a first rounder later in the draft. Even though the later round pick was Pat Garrity, that's still nice work.
Some of the results surprised me. First of all, for a team as successful as they were from 2000-2004, Detroit did not draft well. There was the obvious misstep: Darko Miličić with the number two pick over Carmelo Anthony (#3), Chris Bosh (#4), and Dwayne Wade (#5) in 2003, Rodney White (#9, who's now playing for Zhejiang Guangsha in China) over Joe Johnson (#10 by Boston, who traded him to Phoenix for Tony Delk, humiliatingly. Curse you, Rick Pitino!) in 2001, and Mateen Cleaves (#14) over Hedo Turkoglu (#16) and Jamaal Magloire (#19) in 2000 (admittedly, that draft class was a complete mess). White and Cleaves are now all out of the league and Miličić averaged 7 points a game for a less-than-stalwart Memphis team last year. On the flip side, with the exception of Turkoglu, all of those players they missed out on are All-Stars or All-NBA players.
On the flip side, some of the results utterly failed to surprise. Tops on that list? The sad and flailing Minnesota Timberwolves are just as bad at drafting as I had guessed. It's too early to judge the 2008 draft, but you've got to figure they've already got to be regretting dealing O.J. Mayo for Kevin Love, right? That's not even their worst pick. They drafted sure-thing Brandon Roy (#6) and - I hate this - traded him for Randy Foye (#7) in a five player trade that just moved flotsam and jetsam around. Who in the world is that excited to get Sebastian Telfair? Even in the worst years of pathetic Celtic ignomy, I never got excited about Sebastian Telfair, especially if it would've meant I would lose Brandon Roy. And I got excited about everyone. Even Tony Delk. And let's not forget 2005's pick of Rashad McCants (#14 - 2008 stats: nine points, two rebounds and an assist per game) over Danny Granger (#17 - 2008 stats: 26 points, five boards, five dimes, and an almost certain All-Star slot). Yeesh.
Before I reveal the worst drafting team of the past ten years, let me just point out a particular draft that's worth remembering: in 2004, the Utah Jazz - never good drafters to begin with - had perhaps the worst draft in NBA history - or in the history of sports in general. They had three first round picks (#14, #16, and #21) and they made just truly outrageously bad picks every time. At #14, they picked Kris Humphries (averaged 3.5 points in two season) and #15 was Al Jefferson (2008 stats: 23 PPG, 11 RPG, 2 blocks). At #16, they picked Kirk Snyder (now playing in China for the Zhejiang Horses), which was immediately followed by Josh Smith (#17), J.R. Smith (#18), and Jameer Nelson (#20). At #21, they picked Podkolzin, Pavel Pavel Podkolzin, and five picks later, Kevin Martin (24 PPG and rising) gets picked. To sum up, in the eight picks between #14 and #21:
a. four stars were selected
b. the Jazz had three of those picks
c. they got none of those stars, nor in fact any usable players. Ouch.
Still, they can take heart because: they are not the Atlanta Hawks. For a team with as young and talented a starting five as Atlanta has - Mike Bibby is 30, Joe Johnson 27, Josh Smith 23, and Al Horford and Marvin Williams are 22 - they've drafted remarkably poorly. Take a look:
In 2006, they drafted Shelden Williams over Brandon Roy. Williams (who has a career total of 4.8 points a game) is now basically only famous for this fact and the fact he's married to Candace 
Parker. If you're overshadowed by a player from the worst-paying major sports franchise in America, you're in trouble. That's not even the worst of it, though, the worst was taking Williams over Paul: Williams is averaging 14 points, 6 rebounds and one and a half assists per game, whereas Paul is the best point guard in the NBA and in competition to finish up as one of the top five guards of all time.
Plus, there's a consistent pattern of just missing out on the good players. They barely missed on Chris Duhon (#38 and top-six in assists this year) in 2004 for Royal Ivey (#37 with 3.4 points per game in three seasons). It's unsurprising though, since the year before, with the exact same pick, they went with Travis Hansen (lasted half a season before flaming out) over Steve Blake (starting at point for the playoff-bound Blazers) one pick later.
Two years before that, they drafted Pau Gasol with the number three pick and traded him to Memphis for Shareef Abdur-Rahim (admittedly, even now this is a defensible choice). But that wasn't the only problem they had that night. They later drafted Jamaal Tinsley with the 27th pick (who ended up packaged in the Abdur-Rahim trade), missing out on stars Tony Parker (#28, with 21 points and 7 assists a game this year - plus, three championship rings) and Gilbert Arenas (#31 and All-Star starter). Then, with the 34th pick, they selected Terence Morris (now playing for CSKA Moscow in the Russian League), missing out on Mehmet Okur (#38, an All-Star center averaging 17 points and 9 rebounds).
But even that's no bigger than the year before, when they picked Hanno Möttölä (#40, the first Finnish player in the NBA! He lasted two years - Wikipedia doesn't even have his stats and nobody noticed. A sad day for Finland, to say the least) instead of Michael Redd (#43 and a Redeem Team gold medalist).
But that's nothing compared to the year before, when, in possibly the strongest draft class of all time, the Hawks managed to select zero players of any impact. They picked Cal Bowdler (#17, bounced around the Italian leagues for a few years) over James Posey (#18 and one of the best sixth men in the game). They had three picks between 17 and 21 and never picked Andrei Kirilenko (an All-Star and First Team All-Defensive by 2004). Not to mention missing Manu Ginóbili at the end of the round. And the year before that, they did it again! Roshown McLeod over Ricky Davis (alright, fine, I can't blame them either, but McLeod's now an assistant college coach while Davis is still scoring points in bunches).
Struck by this alarming pattern - nine consecutive bad drafts - I decided to keep looking back further. In '97, they picked the disastrous Ed Gray (#22) over Bobby Jackson (#23). In '96, they picked the wonderfully named and minutely talented Priest Lauderdale (#28) over a number of better options. In '95 they pick Alan Henderson (#16) over future All-Stars Theo Ratliff (#18) and Michael Finley (#21). In '94 they didn't even pick 'til #34, when they foolishly selected Gaylon Nickerson over rebounding beast Michael Smith (#35). Nickerson decided to play in the CBA instead of joining the Hawks at all. You really can't blame him.
In '93 they selected a player named Doug Edwards at #15, who'd already been nicknamed "Doughboy" for a) his soft play on the court, and b) his love of Tim Horton's doughnuts (how does this not come up in a scouting report?). Edwards averaged 2.4 points a game for the Hawks, who missed their chance to draft Sam Cassell, Gheorghe Muresan, and Nick Van Exel. In '92, they selected Adam Keefe (#10, a career 5 PPG) over Robert Horry (#11, nicknamed 'Big Shot Rob' for his clutch play on the seven (!) championship teams he's been on).
In '91, they had a vague success in Stacey Augmon (#9), a defensive wiz who averaged a career 8 points a game, but they missed out on All-Stars Terrell Brandon (#11 and once the best point guard in the NBA), Dale Davis (#13), and Chris Gatling (#16). In '90, Rumeal Robinson (#10, a career 7.6 PPG) over All-Star Tyrone Hill (#11 and weirdly, now assistant coach for the Hawks).
Incredibly, we're still going. In '89 they selected Roy Marble with the 23rd pick (he scored a total of 51 points in 24 games in his NBA career) over - you guessed - another future All-Star, Vlade Divac (#26 and now a government advisor to Serbia on humanitarian issues. This guy got traded for Kobe, and if you think that trade's unfair, at least think of how bad Kobe would be as a humanitarian advisor). In '88 they didn't draft until 44th yet failed to notice the dominant streak shooter (Vernon Maxwell, #47) the NBA's all-time best 3-point shooter (Steve Kerr, #50) or - hey! - a future All-Star and All-NBA player (Anthony Mason, #53). Instead, they picked Anthony Taylor, who never made the team and lasted one year, total, in professional basketball.
We have gone back 21 years, covered 19 consecutive bad drafts, and we are still not done. In '87 they picked #20 (the wonderfully named Dallas Comegys, who never made the team), and #21 was future All-Star Reggie Lewis (who had the potential to be a Hall of Famer before his tragic death). In the disastrous '86 draft they took Billy Thompson with the 19th pick, missing All-Stars and All-NBA players Mark Price (#25) and Dennis Rodman (#27). In '85, 
they used the #5 pick on Jon Koncak, missing All-NBAers Chris Mullin (#7) and Detlef Schrempf (#8), not to mention Hall of Famer Karl Malone (#13). The Hawks mistakenly gave Koncak a giant contract, handcuffing them from being able to be players in free agency for years (Koncak - later nicknamed "Jon Contract" - had a higher salary than Magic or Bird).
And finally, in '84 - widely considered the best class ever drafted - our search draws to a close, as the Hawks selected All-NBA player Kevin Willis with the 11th pick.
So, to sum up: in the 24 years since Willis, the Hawks have not only managed to not draft any worthwhile players, but shown a penchant to colossally misread talent without ever even accidentally getting it right. Now that says something.
What exactly it says is a story for another day. I accidentally hit "Publish" on this a while back, so I've got to stop here and have another crack at it tomorrow, when we'll cover what exactly it looks like when a team drafts intelligently. Such a reality does, apparently, exist.
Final Score: Boston Celtics 131, Los Angeles Lakers 92.
And it wasn't even that close.
I have seen dozens and dozens of championships, in multitudes of different sports, on the professional, college, and high school level, and I have never, ever, EVER seen a happier team than this one.
How many times have you seen the Gatorade dump at a basketball game?
(the answer, by the way, is never)
How many times have you seen a seven-foot superstar so overcome that he gets down on his knees to kiss the parquet floor?
I've rooted pretty hard for some teams, and while I don't think any championship will mean as much to me as the 2004 World Series, this one came pretty close. Watching the team during the fourth quarter as they celebrated on the sidelines, even as their bench continued the domination on the court, and then seeing that bear hug between Pierce and Rivers as the final seconds ticked away, it all gave me goosebumps.
But it was seeing Garnett at the end as Michele TaFoya tried to interview him, unable to look up, unable to speak, too choked up to do anything that really got to me. Garnett has been in a zone all year, his head totally dedicated to this one goal that's eluded him the entirety of his storied career. And tonight, getting it, he looked like it was all worth it.
And then Pierce, holding that MVP trophy over his head, standing on a bench in the middle of the parquet and yelling at the crowd, too excited and proud to even notice the microphone ABC was trying desperately to hand up - that's when I got the lump in my throat. Pierce has been the face of the Celtics for 10 long, tough years, and we've always loved him for sticking with us. For years, the Pierce moment that defined his toughness was the day, two weeks after he got stabbed 11 times in the chest by a crazed fan, where he went out and played in the Boston's first exhibition game. That was when we knew we had someone special.
Bill Simmons has written a great piece about seeing the Celtics finally take home this championship, and of course it talks about this being the 17th championship for the Celtics. That's been the focus of all the articles written in the past 24 hours, but to me, it's not the 17th championship, it's the first. I've grown up with a Celtics franchise completely lost - I've followed them for 12 years with barely a hint of any kind of hope. I don't have a golden era to look back on; this is my golden era.
Almost exactly a year ago, after the 2007 lottery when our bad luck turned on us again and we only got the number five pick in a draft we'd specifically been losing to get Kevin Durant or Greg Oden, I wrote a post giving up on the Celtics. We'd just thrown an entire season on what proved to be the false hope of landing a superstar, and there was no light at the end of the tunnel. We were going into another season with a collection of young guys who'd combined to win 24 games the season before, plus one more raw, unpolished talent like Yi Jianlian in the mix. One more year of wasting Pierce's prime. I was done with the Celtics, I was done with waiting for someone in the front office to wake up and say "y'know, we're never going to compete with this bunch of kids." I've been a diehard NBA fan since I was in the sixth grade, and I'd seen teams rebuild their way into contention, and whatever it was we were doing, rebuilding wasn't it. I gave up.
And then, suddenly, the front office did wake up. We traded the #5 pick and pieces to Seattle for Ray Allen, then managed to send 7 different players to Minnesota for Kevin Garnett, and suddenly - we were a real team again. We had players who wanted to play hard, who wanted to win, who believed that they could. And for the first time in my life, I got to root for a team that I could actually believe in.
And for the first time in my life, I got to see them win it all.
And it feels good.
I was watching the NBA Finals tonight, and one of the announcers laid out his Top-Five list for the best power forwards of all time, which I instantly committed to memory for its pure ignorance. The list looked like this:
1. Tim Duncan
2. Charles Barkley
3. Karl Malone
4. Kevin Garnett
5. Kevin McHale
I shouldn't be surprised at this, I suppose; ESPN did a similar poll of ten sportscasters a few years back and came up with virtually the same result. There's a human instinct to quickly forget the players of the past, to believe that what we're seeing now is the best that's ever been. But it's just not the case.
After overpraising LeBron's overdue 48-Special against the Pistons, Bill Simmons hearkened back to his youth, and wrote an illuminating article last week about how quickly our memories fade. He was dead-on. We want to believe that everything before us is history being made - and in some cases, it is. Duncan's quest for his fourth ring in nine years is just one more trophy on one of the most distinguished careers in NBA history. Tim Duncan is not one of the top-ten players of all time, but he is most likely the greatest power forward to play the game. Unlike most sportscasters these days, I think the matter's still up for debate.
Though if you asked me to cast my vote today for who that would be, I would unquestionably pick Duncan. I think it's still up for debate, but I do know who I think should win the debate. I just wish more people were legitimately asking the question, "where does Duncan rate among the greatest power forwards of all time?"
Here's my answer to that question: "Not one notch above Charles Barkley." Barkley is not the second-best power forward in history. Garnett is certainly not the fourth-best power forward in history. Let's look at the stats of these players, the first four of whom were playing NBA ball within the last ten years:
1. Tim Duncan - 21.8 ppg, 11.9 rpg, 3.2 apg, 2-time MVP, 3-time Finals MVP, 9-time All-Star, 9-time All-NBA First Team, 9-time All-Defense First or Second Team.
Those numbers aren't stunning, but they've been consistent year in and year out. And a 3-time Finals MVP, with possibly one more on the way this year (though Tony Parker's probably going to nab this one). Remember, the following three players have zero rings between the three of them
2. Charles Barkley - 22.1 ppg, 11.7 rpg, 3.9 apg, 1 MVP, 10-time All-NBA First or Second Team, 11-time All-Star
3. Karl Malone - 25.0 ppg, 10.1 rpg, 3.6 apg, 2-time MVP, 13-time All-Star, 11-time All-NBA First Team
4. Kevin Garnett- 20.5 ppg, 11.4 rpg, 4.5 apg, 1 MVP, 10-time All-Star, 6-time First or Second All-NBA, 8-time First or Second All-Defense.
5. Kevin McHale - 17.9 ppg, 7.3 rpg, 1.7 apg, 7-time All-Star, 6-time First or Second All-Defense. McHale's stats are lower than the players ahead of him since he was one of a number of great players on one of the greatest teams in NBA history, with a number of other scorers: Bird, Parish, Ainge, Johnson, etc. As a result, he's got as many championships as Duncan.
Now, take a look at some of these challengers. Can you think of any reason for these players not to be on this list other than the fact that they played 20-30 years earlier than these five players?
Duncan's going to win another championship in a couple days. When he does, we'll see him hoist that giant awkward looking trophy over his head one more time, grinning through the shower of ticker tape. When he does, the announcers are going to say something like "the greatest power forward in NBA history takes home yet another championship." And I think they'll be right.
I just think that maybe it should still be up for debate.
My dad is a stats man. Since he doesn't have a television at the house, and he probably wouldn't watch it much even if he did, he doesn't ever end up watching any of the Celtics games each year. But he follows it online, seeing how the young players are improving, figuring out where the team will end up in the draft, dissecting all of Danny Ainge's baffling front office moves.
Whenever he gets the notion, he'll put down his current thoughts about the Celtic's status in an e-mail and send it along, and I'll write back with my interpretation, along with what I'd seen on Sportcenter and the glimpses of Celtics games that I'd caught that year. But each season it finally reaches a point with me where the team has just made so many bewildering moves and trampled on my hopes so much that I just can't take it anymore. And when my dad sends me one of those e-mails, I'll write him back and just say "I'm done." I just reach a point where I simply can't spend any more precious time thinking about a Celtics team that has done virtually everything to convince their fan base that they have no idea what they're doing. Around the time the lottery rolls around, I perk up and join back in, researching likely picks for the team and trying to figure out if they have the players to make the leap to the playoffs this year. Each year, my hope returns, a little bit diminished from the time before, but it returns.
But this is it. I can't root for this team anymore, I can't wait for this team anymore, I can't do it. I'm done.
I first got into NBA basketball in the fall 1995, after the Rockets had just won their second championship. I was just starting 6th grade, and my dad handed me an issue of Sport magazine that someone had left behind at work. It was the NBA preview for the coming year. I don't know what happened to me - maybe it was just the time in my life or some part of my personality, maybe I just needed a new interest - but it just took. I read that issue over and over and over, hundreds of times, dog-earing the pages, memorizing their player rankings - Hakeem Olajuwon and Michael Jordan were the only "A+" players, but there were lots of "A" players: Shaquille O'Neal, Penny Hardaway, Clyde Drexler, Mitch Richmond, Chris Webber. In some ways, I've never shaken those rankings from my mind - 12 years later, Juwan Howard is still a "B+" player. I'm quite sure I'm the only one who thinks so.
Eventually I cut out all the player pictures and stuck them on the wall around my bed with sticky tack. I would lay there at night, looking at them: there was KJ, grimacing as he drove into a crowded lane. There was cocky Nick Van Exel, disdainfully beating his man off the dribble. There was young Glenn Robinson, gliding to the hoop. There was Karl Malone, lofting a two-handed set shot. I would stare at those pictures and dream of that grace and skill. It was that next year, with no skills, no knowledge of the actual rules of basketball, and absolutely no talent, that I joined the school basketball team for the first time. It was those pictures that made me believe I had it in me.
The issue declared it a virtual lock that the Rockets would three-peat, beating the Magic in the Finals again. They figured that high-school draft pick Kevin Garnett was going to be a huge disaster for Minnesota. They figured the return of Jordan would be dramatic but wouldn't be enough to launch his team to a championship. And it figured the Celtics weren't going anywhere fast. On this matter - and this matter alone, I think - they were quite correct.
I began rooting for the Celtics that season. Sure, I followed the whole league - I knew every player in it for those first three or four years - but it was the Celtics that captured me. They were the hometown team, with this grand history of awkward white guys who played with tenacity and fluidity and success. That year they went 33-49, and drafted a young forward from Kentucky named Antoine Walker whom I believed would be the savior of the franchise. My mom photocopied me Dan Ryan's Boston Globe article about the Celtics selecting Walker, and I hung it on my wall next to the pictures, where Walker's picture smiled out at me, his arms still raised in victory from the stock photo they used for the article: a picture of him celebrating on the court after Kentucky won the national title that year. I was sure that would be us, soon.
But it wasn't us. Chicago won another title that year, on their way to a second three-peat, and our general manager, M.L. Carr, decided to try his and at coaching. The Celtics went an abysmal 15-67, almost an NBA record, and an embarrassment to a fan base used to failure from the hard-luck Red Sox, and the laughably incompetent Patriots, but not from their proud, resilient Celtics. Radio call-in stations were flooded with fans who spewed hatred at Carr, and publicly pleaded for run-and-gun college coach Rick Pitino to come up and save the franchise. People even wrote comic songs about it, I still remember one playing over the radio. "Oh, Rick Pitino, come to Bos-ton. 'Cause M.L. Carr's killin' me..."
And Pitino came. And I waited for it to happen. I knew it was going to happen. And then the NBA draft rolled around.
It was the year of Tim Duncan. Admittedly, there were other players that people were looking forward to - a lanky senior forward from Utah named Keith Van Horn. A flashy playmaker from Colorado named Chauncey Billups. A versatile swingman named Tim Thomas. Some people were even talking about taking a risk on this high school kid from Mount Zion named Tracy McGrady. But was Duncan everyone wanted, and everyone knew it. And the Celtics fans knew we had him all but locked up. I'd watched our team tank all season, waiting for Duncan to come and save us.
Because of unusual trades and the addition of two different expansion teams the year before who weren't allowed to receive the top pick, the Celtics had an astronomically good chance of getting the top pick. In addition, they were also receiving another pick from Dallas, to whom they'd quite brilliantly traded Eric Montross for the rights to, in addition to the getting to move up and select Walker the year before. You can't blame Dallas, of course, for moving down in the draft that year. After all, there were loads of players still available: Derek Fisher, Pedrag Stojakavich, Jermaine O'Neal, Steve Nash, even Kobe Bryant. Dallas, naturally, selected Samaki Walker. I'd like to bet they eventually regretted that.
I bring all this up so that you can see that things weren't all that black-and-white right then. We didn't know who was going to hit big and who was going to bust. I thought maybe all these high-school kids could work out, but they seemed to be too big a risk, I didn't know then who would be big, except for this: I knew I wanted Tim Duncan. I knew he was going to change everything. I knew that it was the dawn of a new era.
But it never happened. The ping-pong balls bounced differently than they should have bounced, differently than they were supposed to bounce, and we ended up with the 3rd and 6th picks. We picked up Chauncey Billups and Ron Mercer, both of whom the team quickly decided weren't going to pan out and started shopping them around. Tim Duncan joined David Robinson on the Spurs and led them to a championship two years later. Pitino came, traded all our players for fresh blood, traded those players again, and then left after it became quite clear that no fresh blood, least of all his, was ever going to change our losing ways.
We drafted player after player so uninteresting that every detail about them has already faded from my memory: Jérome Moïso, Josip Sesar, Joseph Forte, Darius Songaila, Dahntay Jones. Jim O'Brian came and left. We traded Chauncey Billups for Kenny Anderson. We traded away Joe Johnson for Tony Delk. Paul Pierce got stabbed in a bar by a random fan. I knew how he felt. We traded Vitaly Potapenko and Kenny Anderson for Vin Baker, who promptly went crazy. I knew how he felt.
Danny Ainge arrived, and promised fresh blood and more talent. We traded Antoine Walker for Raef Lafrenz, then traded again to get him back, then traded him away again for literally nothing. Then we traded Raef Lafrenz, too. We traded to get Ricky Davis, then traded just to get rid of him. We traded desperately, treating each move like a blackjack hand, waiting for that lucky hand that would let us bust the dealer. We kept adding more young players and subtracting the young players we'd traded for the time before, waiting for that one who would take us there. Take us back where we belonged, on the top of the heap. Take us to the place I'd dreamed about, lying on my bed, staring at a grainy black-and-white photo on the wall. I just kept waiting. And I wound up back here again on lottery night, 10 years later. Waiting for Greg Oden. Waiting for Kevin Durant. Waiting for that player to take us there.
But Oden's not coming. Durant's not coming. No one is coming, no one is going to show up and save us, save me from all this waiting, all this hoping, all this dreaming that someday my team will get it back again. And I'm through waiting.
I'm done.
