Simmons Draft Diary

[jthig32]

I highly recommend the whole thing: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2...simmons/060629

But I found his paragraph on the Mavs' pick very fitting:

10:20 -- The Mavs take Maurice Ager at No. 28. He puts his head in his hands and starts sobbing hysterically as his entourage congratulates him. It's about time we had some emotion tonight, dammit. Ager walks up to the stage in a triple-breasted, oversized beige suit, goes to shake hands with Stern and immediately gets whistled for a foul on Dwyane Wade.

[ocelot_ark]

I freakin' LOVE Bill Simmons.

[Big Boy Laroux]

that is priceless.

[Drbio]

8:20 -- Here's why you have to love the NBA draft: It's the only show where you could ever see a graphic like, "WOULD MOST LIKE TO MEET: HIS PARENTS."

hahahaha


Man that column is chalk full of greatness.

[MavKikiNYC]

Bennet Salvatore is David Stern's Luca Brazzi.

[Arne]

Oh my goodness. This was such a great read. I love Simmons, best sportswriter ever.

9:31 -- After Washington takes a giddy Ukrainian dude who looks happy just to be on national TV (never a good sign), Patrick interviews Larry Legend (looking disgruntled, like he spent the whole night trying to unsuccessfully trade Stephen Jackson and Jamaal Tinsley) and the Kings jump on Rutgers gunner Quincy Douby (one of my sleepers in this draft), followed by DP joking, "He can really light it up." And that brings us to our featured attraction of the evening ...

"THE KNICKS ARE ON THE CLOCK!"

ESPN wisely works the MSG crowd into a hostile frenzy by showing the obligatory "KNICKS UNDER ISIAH THOMAS" graphic. Has there ever been rioting at an NBA draft before?

9:34 -- Stephen A. on the No. 20 pick: "I'M A BORN AND RAISED NEW YORKER, OK? YOU HAVE GOT TO GET A DOG ON THIS ROSTER, I DON'T CARE WHERE YOU FIND HIM. I DON'T CARE, YOU GOT TO GET SOMEONE WHO WILL BE IN PEOPLE'S FACE, SOMEONE WHO'S HARDCORE. YOU LOOK AT ISIAH THOMAS AND HIS DRAFT HISTORY ... YOU KNOW THAT HE KNOWS TALENT ... THIS PICK HAS GOT TO WORK. IT'S GOT TO WORK!"

(Translation: The Knicks need to pick someone good.)

9:36 -- There are those moments in sports when you expect something great, and then it actually happens. And then there are those rare moments in sports when you expect something great, and something even greater happens. This was one of those moments: The Knicks on the clock, the crowd pushing for Marcus Williams, and then ...

--Stern: "With the 20th pick, the New York Knicks select ... Renaldo Balkman."

(Crowd explodes in horror.)

--Stern (over the boos): "Renaldo is not here."

--Patrick (without missing a beat): "And it's probably a good thing."

(Shot of a beaten-down Spike Lee laughing hysterically.)

9:36 -- That was fantastic. Everyone kept e-mailing me to write about Isiah and the Knicks last week ... what else was there to say? OF COURSE Isiah was meant to coach this team as his final job in the NBA before retiring to a life of greeting people at casinos and doing informercials. If somebody clogs your toilet, you ask him to clean up the mess. That's just the way life works. I'm telling you, we're going to remember the Isiah/Knicks Era the same way we remember things like Enron, the Hindenberg and the Bay of Pigs. It's reached that level. I don't know what else to say. Honestly. I have Knicks fans e-mailing me every day asking me if it's OK to root against their own team. What else can you say at this point?

(Wait, I know ... Renaldo Balkman!)

9:37 -- A stammering Bilas sets off three minutes of Isiah-bashing by saying, "This to me is a stunner, I'm stunned. This is a second-round player. Nobody else would have taken him in the first round," followed by Greg Anthony using the word "befuddling" and Stephen A. (maybe for the first time ever) admitting, "I'm almost speechless."

I mean, when Stephen A. is almost speechless ...

9:39 -- Who's going to be the first one to make the obligatory "Is it possible that Isiah thought he was taking Rolando Blackman?" joke. Screw it, I'll do it.

[alexamenos]

simmons is a riot.

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.
.

I was gonna cull out some choice quotes from the Simmons article and paste them here, but I'd just have to copy the whole damn article.

anyhoo, random line....

9:00 -- Dan Patrick is gunned down in cold blood by Bennett Salvatore.

[Dirkenstien]

The guy is a comical genius.

[nashtymavsfan13]

This column is great! LOL

[#1MavsFan]

That was one of the best articles I've ever read on espn. simmons is a genius

[Five-ofan]

Renaldo balkman was not on the list of ONE HUNDRED that is 100 players that was sent out by the nba before the draft as probable picks. This is just comedic genius. Is there any chance isiah is just doing what ratner did to xmen? This is my last shot so im gonna eff it up so bad no one else could conceivably fix it?

[EricaLubarsky]

Ratner may have tried to screw up Xmen but he failed-- it was a pretty good movie.
If Isaiah wanted to screw up the Knicks....

he did a MUCH better job than Ratner

[Five-ofan]

Its been out for a while if you wanted to watch it that bad you should have seen it by now, plus its already written somewhere on this board, i do however apologize. Sorry i spoiled it for you guys.

[EricaLubarsky]

Originally Posted by Five-ofan

I dont know killing off 3 of the most prominent xmen does kinda screw it up for the future.

ummm Jean Gray is alive. Didnt she also die in xmen 2? Class 5 mutants are immortal for all intents and purposes. She can take people apart and remake them and bring life to them again-- what really makes you think getting stabbed would kill her?
Professor X changed bodies-- they had that on the movie. He put his mind in a comatose patient
Magneto's mutation was not completely wiped out, and there are signs that the cure is only a suppressant- so mystique could be back too.
Even Cyclops isnt really dead or so I hear, and even if he did die, he could be brought back somehow for ep 4. We saw nothing of him other than his glasses. Phoenix can swallow entire personalities whole and spit them out later or so I read in the comics.

Besides, its all about Wolverine, Rogue, Gambit, Nightcrawler and Iceman. Those were my ofavorites from the cartoon.

And Kitty is finally starting to be useful, Iceman finally went Iceman. We got to see Beast, Juggernaut, Colossus-- Pyro had a leading role. Oh! and they introduced Angel who becomes another class 5 mutant, and fits into the series when it really gets good with Apocalypse, silver surfer, archangel...

[Five-ofan]

Silver surfer wasnt part of the xmen and archangel wasnt ever a class 5 but yeah they should be good. I dont like wolverine as much as everyone and i absolutely hate the level they make him in this movie. As for the others excluding xavier if they arent dead its gonna be almost as bad coming up with crap to bring them to life as just leaving them dead would be. As for xavier i kinda figured he was alive and wondered if this was gonna allows us to bring in the shadow king. Overall i do want to see x4 but i thought x3 was at most 1/10 as good as it could/should have been.

[SaltwaterChaffy]

Originally Posted by Five-ofan

I dont know *EDIT* does kinda screw it up for the future.

I suggest you do what I did to your post, or at least mark it with spoilers. That way others won't have the movie ruined like it now is for me.

[dude1394]

Too weird that this simmons draft diary has turned into an x-man review. )

[EricaLubarsky]

Buh-zing, I've been nerd-pwned.

anyway, angel has the power to bring people back to life, and heal the mortally wounded. He is also transformed by Apocalypse into Death, one of the horsemen and a creature of unspeakable power and evil although rogue sucks the evil out of him and he returns to his previous self.

Also there is a conflicting system between the comics and the film. In the comics there are only a few level 5 (Phoenix, Iceman, Elixer) because level 5 is literally limitless, unlimited power. Apocalypse and some other galactic mutants are level 4, Magneto would be one of the strongest mutant on the planet but he's still a level three (although he tells the counsel that he's the only one there above a 3). Wolverine would be a 2, etc...

[FINtastic]

This write-up by Simmons was absolutely brilliant, especially this nugget:

Allow me a quick tangent ...

It's April 19, 2006, the final day of the season. The Celts have the sixth-worst record and plays host to Miami; Minnesota is at No. 7 and plays host to Memphis. The C's do the honorable thing, play hard at home and whup Miami's third-string with their kids. Going against Memphis' third string, Minnesota does the dishonorable thing and completely tanks the tail end of the game. I mean, COMPLETELY. To the point that Mark Madsen plays 30 minutes, goes 1 for 15 from the field, misses seven 3-pointers (yes, you read that correctly), conveniently "forgets" to guard Brian Cardinal on the game-tying 3 in the final 20 seconds of regulation, then misses three straight 3s to kick off the second OT (check out the play-by-play if you don't believe me). Mark Madsen basically shaved points in this game.

I'm telling you. I have never seen a professional team throw a game this blatantly, in any sport, at any level. Even the 1919 Black Sox would have been mortified.

So what was the end result? They moved into the No. 6 spot, Boston slid to No. 7.

Look at the box score. Seriously, take a look. Before this game, Madsen shot nine 3s TOTAL during the first six years of his career. Did he get suspended after this tank job? No. Did anyone get suspended or fined? No. Does anyone remember this other than me and my dad? Apparently, no. And then the T-Wolves get rewarded with a better pick? What a joke. I don't know where the WWE ends and the NBA begins anymore. And yes, I've been waiting to rant about that for two months. So there you go.

He may have a point...

[jthig32]

Originally Posted by FINtastic

This write-up by Simmons was absolutely brilliant, especially this nugget:



He may have a point...

Well, his newly adopted Clippers did the same thing, for different reasons, and he brushed it off with a "it was the smart thing to do".

So he doesn't really have much room to whine about it.

[ocelot_ark]

For those of us who HAVEN'T seen Xmen3, could you perhaps post a:

_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^
SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


...next time. Dammit.

[Big Boy Laroux]

yeah, seriously, this isn't an x-men thread. make sure people know you are spoiling something.

that being said... since when can angel bring people back from the dead? the dude can fly, that's it. when he becomes archangel, he can now shoot things from his metal wings, as well as fly. oh, and he has blue skin.

and i'm not a nerd, that's pretty laid-back comic knowledge.

i even had to laugh at the silver surfer thing... is that from the x-men cartoon?

[EricaLubarsky]

xmen vs Galactus/Silver Surfer-- one of my favorites growing up, mostly because I had the bound book so I could read it all at the same time.

"As the result of a secondary mutation, Archangel also developed a "healing factor" and can heal others by mixing his blood with theirs, provided they have a matching bloodtype to Warren's... he can actually raise the newly dead."

"While Archangel possessed the metal wings given to him by Apocalypse, he had the ability to fire metal feathers at his opponents. The feathers were laced with a neural inhibitor chemical that induced temporary paralysis. These bio-mechanical wings also enabled Archangel to fly at much greater speeds than his feathered wings. With his bio-mechanical wings, Archangel was known to fly at the speed of sound, roughly 770 miles per hour."

anyway. Simmons deserves his own thread.

[Big Boy Laroux]

never in my life have i heard that first quote about archangel. and i knew they "fought" silver surfer. I thought you were saying he was part of the x-men.

but yeah, i agree, i'll take this to PMs.

[Big Boy Laroux]

for the purpose of making erica look smart (which she is), she's right. angel has healing powers. apparently got them in 2003, looooooooooong after i stopped reading comics. not trying to derail this any more, just wanted everyone to know she was right. he can heal people, and bring back people that are just dead (just slightly dead), not terminally wounded.

[dude1394]

Not completely dead, just mostly dead.