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Monday, May 20
Updated: Monday, May 20, 10:55 AM ET
Lottery Day deals Warriors typical hand
By Ray Ratto
Special to ESPN.com
Good to see the NBA Lottery Show was of the usual high standard ... particularly those shots of Golden State general manager Garry St. Jean looking like he was trying out a new lockjaw serum.
|  | | Without Jackson or Jordan, former Bulls GM Krause, left, regularly delivered his team a seat in the draft lottery. |
After all, he knew what was coming, or at least suspected it. Being a Warrior, after all, means always having to say, "Oh, hell."
And Lottery Day means always having to find someone to look like he's just eaten some bad seafood. Otherwise, it's no show at all.
Sunday's little groin shot came when, confronted with holding the worst record in the league, the best chance of winning the first pick, and having a two-man draft before them, the Warriors got the third choice.
In the meantime, those two notoriously kindred spirits, Stevie Francis and Jerry Krause, shared the spotlight happily -- Francis, because he knows the Houston Rockets will be taking the artist formerly known as Jay/Son Williams only over his dead body, and Krause, because he knows he doesn't have to take the enormous risk known as Yao Ming.
This leaves the Warriors, unless they trade up, down, or out, with the less torturous choice of Drew Gooden or Mike Dunleavy -- neither of whom causes hearts to go arrhythmic, but also don't offer the choice of potential disaster the Warriors know all too well.
On the other hand, the local reviews of the Warriors' latest indignity were typically harsh, from "Predictably, the Warriors were the big losers in Sunday's NBA lottery," to "Warriors fans kissed their draft dreamboats goodbye," to "It was awful again," to "For the second consecutive year, the Warriors had an awful day at the lottery."
Well, in order:
No, the big losers were the Milwaukee Bucks, who ended up 13th.
Most Warrior fans are still more interested in agitating for radio chat jockey Rick Barry to be the team's eighth coach in seven years.
It's a lot more awful on draft day.
What would have been better, picking first?
Fact is, the Warriors have reached such extremes that the NBA ought to consider stepping in and running the operation, just to change the sense of paralyzing depression that squats atop the franchise like a myocardial infarction.
Maybe if the 40 remaining Warrior fans saw Russ Granik sitting in the hot seat and St. Jean dealing out the draft picks, they'd feel slightly less doomed.
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Warriors Draft History
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Yr |
Pick |
Player |
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'01
| 5
| Jason Richardson, Mich. St.
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'01
| 14
| Troy Murphy, Notre Dame
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'00
| 55
| Chris Porter, Auburn
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'99
| 26
| Jeff Foster, SW Texas St.
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'98
| 5
| *Vince Carter, North Carolina
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'97
| 8
| Adonal Foyle, Colgate
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'96
| 11
| Todd Fuller, NC State
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'95
| 1
| Joe Smith, Maryland
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'94
| 16
| Clifford Rozier, Louisville
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'93
| 3
| **Penny Hardaway, Memphis
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'92
| 24
| Latrell Sprewell, Alabama
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* = Traded for Antawn Jamison on draft day
** = Traded for Chris Webber on draft day
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Then again, maybe not. They've had two No. 1s in their post-Philadelphia history -- Joe Barry Carroll and Joe Smith. They've had a three -- Penny Hardaway, who became Chris Webber, who became damp dynamite. They've had two fives -- Vince Carter, who became Antawn Jamison, and Jason Richardson. They've had an eight -- Adonal Foyle; an 11 -- Todd Fuller ... and on and on and on. In the past decade, they've had three full-fledged mutineers (Smith, Webber, Marc Jackson), two intriguing but hardly guaranteed superduperstars (Jamison, Richardson), one give-it-time (Troy Murphy), one potential journeyman (Foyle) and a bunch of no-helps.
In other words, they've been everywhere, and yet they stay nowhere. So the reaction to their latest indignity ought to be, "Oh, OK ... I'm going to go mow the lawn."
This is one of those typical drafts in which teams that need massive amounts of help can't get enough picks to find that help, let alone actually select it with as many picks as you give them. The love affair with Williams has faded, at least as a sure-thing great player; Yao's workout in Chicago left more questions than answers; and everyone else has at least one hole in their games.
In other words, St. Jean had plenty of time to practice his enamel-grinding stare, and there is at least some comfort in knowing that he didn't have to waste it.
As for Francis, he got some free pub. Krause got to show off his timeless jumped-out-of-bed-with-his-clothes-on look, and the other 10 human props looked as useless as people in those chairs usually do. They fly into town, Granik tells them where they're picking in a month, and they fly home. Cleaning out the gutters is more rewarding.
But someone needs to look genuinely pained for the lottery show to work -- there needs to be an aggrieved party, and that's where St. Jean came in. With all the practice he's had the past several years, he came up big, as only a Warrior can.
Ray Ratto of the San Francisco Chronicle is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.
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