Simmons commenary on Draft

[slinslin]

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/040625

The long awaited column is up...

 

[slinslin]

Possible No. 1 pick Dwight Howard on his changing fortunes: "I went from an '84 Crown Victoria that only goes up to 84 miles an hour to a new BMW that goes up to 160." Wow. You can almost hear the Orlando front office screaming, "Change of plans! Change of plans! Get Okafor on the phone!"

7:35 -- Just realized that I'm writing a column about a telecast that involves Dick Vitale, Stu Scott, Tom Tolbert and Stephen A. Smith ... and all of them are off-limits.

7:37 --The Magic are on the clock with the first pick. If they're smart, they take Emeka Okafor. If they're dumb, they take Howard. It's that simple.

7:39 -- They go with Howard. Of course they do. He's the third high schooler taken overall in the past four years, as well as the first top pick with braces since Pervis Ellison. Not a good sign. "Praise the Lord!" screams Dwight Howard Sr., who didn't realize that the Lord had Okafor going first in his mock draft.


:notworthy

7:59 - Bilas goes on a rant about Livingston, including the first "upside" comment of the night. Somewhere, Hubie Brown is beaming. That's followed by the Wizards taking Devin Harris at No. 5 -- he's headed to Dallas in the Antwan Jamison trade -- followed by Mike Tirico's revelation that Harris roomed with two females at college last year. Two women? What? He looks like he's about 14. Let's get the "Outside the Lines" crew working on this.

8:06 -- With the Hawks on the clock, ESPN cuts to Atlanta and shows all seven Hawks season-ticket holders watching the draft on the Jumbotron. All right, I made that up. They end up taking Josh Childress and his mushroom cloud 'fro. I was already on the fence about Childress, but Tirico just compared him to the other great California players in recent years ... then named the O'Bannon brothers and Jason Kapono. Bust alert! Bust alert!

8:43 -- Thank God ... the Sonics just took Robert Swift, the high school center who looks like a cross between Fred Weis and Eric Montross. Of course, the Celtics loved him. Talk about dodging a bullet. Any time someone is avoiding workouts, all-star games, even interviews ... is this ever a good sign? Now he gets to be tutored by the likes of Jerome James, Vitaly Potapenko and Cal Booth. Can somebody have "downside"?

 

[TigToad]

Great

Great reading. After watching the draft, the recap was even that much more funny... and accurate.