It's the moment I feared...It's officially time for the people at Sporting News to make up a new cover and draft lottery story. These two poems by two legendary poets best describe my state of mind the day after the 2007 NBA Draft Lottery:
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?-Langston Hughes
Ay yo, I shatter dreams like Jordan, assault and batter your team
Your squadron'll be barred from rap like Adam & Eve from the garden
I'm carvin' my initials on your forehead
So every night before bed you see the "BP" shine off the board head
Reverse that, I curse at the first wack nigga with the worst rap
Cuz he ain't worth jack
Hit 'em with a thousand pounds of pressure per slap
Make his whole body jerk back, watch the earth crack
Then hand him his purse back
I'm the first Latin rapper to baffle your skull
Master the flow, niggaz be swearin' I'm blacker than coal
Like Nat King, I be rapping and tounges packing
The ones, magnums, cannons and gatling guns
It's Big Pun! The one and only son of Tony...Montana
You ain't promised manana in the rotten manzana
C'mon pana! We need more rhymers
Feel the marijuana snake bite anaconda
A man of honor wouldn't wanna try to match my persona
Sometimes when rhymin' I blow my own mind like Nirvana
Comma, and go the whole nine like Madonna
Go try to find another rhymer with my kinda grammar-Christopher “Big Punisher” Rios
This look on this dudes face for the first 10 seconds of the clip says it all for me:
Last night as 8:30 approached, I was doing what damn near every other Bostonian sports fan was doing, switching back and forth from the Red Sox game on NESN to the Draft Lottery coverage on ESPN (Thank God for the Last button on Comcast Digital Cable remotes). Julian Tavarez was in a jam in the 4th inning, and they had just begun the lottery on ESPN. Right around 8:30, he got out of the jam and only gave up one run so I switched to ESPN, in anticipation of what could be the #1 or #2 pick in the upcoming NBA Draft and the Boston Celtics instant return to relevance. Five teams in total had the best chance to land the top pick. The Memphis Grizzlies had a 25% percent chance, the Boston Celtics had a 20% chance, the Atlanta Hawks had a 12% chance, Seattle had slightly less than a 9% chance and the Portland Trailblazers had slightly more than a 5% chance to land the #1 pick. There was a post on CelticsBlog.com that warned NBA Draft Lottery viewers that some teams jump during the 14-4 drawing and if a team jumps, it will kill the Celtics chances at the #1 or #2 pick. The festivities were taking long as hell to jump off so I switched back to the Sox game...great, Tavarez was in another jam in the 5th. I began switching back and forth between pitches and picks. Everything was all good up until I saw the Bucks appear at #6. “Aw shit” was the first thing that came out of my mouth. I switch back to the Sox game and Tavarez is out of the jam. I switch back to the lottery. Then they picked up the #5 envelope and pulled out the square with the Celtics logo on it. All of the air left the room at that very moment. I fuckin’ lost it right then and there.
The VCR remote got spiked into the bed (no DVR yet, thank you very much!) and I let out a loud ass holler from the depths of my tortured Celtics fan soul “FUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCKKKKKKK!!!!!” My primal scream of pain was drowned out by “Fuck!”’s and “Bullshit!”’s screamed in all of the different languages that are spoken by the denizens of Boston all around me at that same time. Spanish, Cantonese,Mandarin, Cape Verdean Kreyole, Portuguese, French, Italian, Gaelic, Greek, Polish, Russian, Arabic, Hebrew, Swahili, Amharic, Tigrinya, Somali, and good ‘ol American English. We were all united in our grief at that very moment despite our differences...the Celtics would have to languish in mediocrity for at least another year and there would be NO savior forthcoming (or a draft pick that could immediately be packaged with existing players on our roster and traded for a savior).
It turned out that the #4, 5 and 6 teams in the lottery all leapfrogged the Celtics and Grizzlies to attain the top 3 pick in this draft. Some say it was karmic payback for Memphis and the Celtics (who at one stretch lost 18 straight games last season) who “tanked” last year in hopes of landing either Oden or Durant. Now these players will more than likely be playing in the Pacific Northwest as opposed to one of the media centers and biggest markets in the United States. Fantastic. Since when does karma trump bad luck? I mean DEAD PLAYERS bad luck. After a stunned audience turned back to the Red Sox game and watched the Sox stretch their lead out to 7-2, they still couldn’t believe what had just happened. They did the math and figured out that the odds were 1 in 555 that those three teams would all win the lottery and leapfrog the Memphis Grizzlies and Boston Celtics.
1 in 555. Those are the same odds that an American woman has in having any multiple birth higher than triplets. 1 in 555. The average American has a better chance in dying after being assaulted by a firearm (unless they’re named Curtis Jackson) since those odds are 1 in 325. 1 in 555. The rate of passage of HIV/AIDS through a random sex act to the average American citizen is 1 in 200. 1 in 555. The odds of having your identity stolen in America is 1 in 200. 1 in 555. The odds of the average American suffering a severe stroke this year are 1 in 550. 1 in 555. The odds of catching a baseball in a Major League ballpark during a game is 1 in 563. The Celtics had a 40% chance to grab one of the two top picks in the 2007 NBA Draft and were instead trumped by a 1 in 555 occurrence. Are the Boston Celtics cursed?
There’s no way they can be! Why would I even think that? What the hell is wrong with us Bostonians? We think we’re so goddamn important that whatever higher power is out there actually cares enough about our sports teams to CURSE THEM? Damn, we're an arrogant bunch! We thought the Red Sox and Patriots were cursed too, remember? It just turned out that they both needed new ownership, better management, a solid infrastructure and people with deep pockets and a commitment to excellence. The formerly cursed New England Patriots have now won 3 Super Bowls since 2002 and were within 1 game of going back last year. Since 2003 the Red Sox have been in the postseason 3 times, in the ALCS twice and won the 2004 World Series.The Celtics won 16 of the first 40 championships in league history and even the bench players from those championship teams are in the Hall Of Fame! We need to stop crying and realize how lucky we are to have such a storied franchise in our backyard in the first place.
Look at all of the other cities that have NEVER won shit. Some cities have never had a winning team...shit, mad cities don’t even have teams! They gotta drive to another city or state just to see a game. So what, the Celtics have the #5 pick in the 2007 NBA Draft. This draft is a crap shoot from #3 on down to #20, anything can happen. The Patriots got Randy Moss for a 4th rounder in the NFL Draft so ANYTHING is possible. Besides, Junior Seau resigned with the Patriots, and the Red Sox spanked the Yankees again. That’s all that really matters anyways...right?
One.
1 comment:
Funny thing, I was actually at a sports bar waiting for the Jazz/Spurs game to start and watching the Spankmees and Sox game on another TV and at the same time they had the lottery on. When I saw the Celtics get the 5th pick, I thought of you. I figured you'd be pissed
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