I Think They Liked Their Picks…
4:00 p.m. — LaGuardia Airport, NJ — Gate A7
Wow. What a night.
Now, before I dive in here, I apologize for not getting to this sooner. You see, the thing is, I somehow found away to sleep thru my 10:30a flight this morning. Yeah, I guess those pints of Guinness really hit the spot after being up for 24 hours straight. Anyway, I’m at LaGuardia right now, eating some fish and chips, so I figure now is a good as time as ever to recap. I figure I’ll do this recap with bullets because, well … bullets kill.
Note: All the photos and video I took will have to wait till I’m home.
NBA Pre-Draft Party, MSG:
- Nothin’ to exciting. Basically just a bunch of rich dudes in suits, standing around, eating sliced beef and cheese tortellini. Oh, Ahmad Rashad rushed by me though. Yeah, he had a crazy piece of bling in his left ear. Must’ve won a big hand from his main man Mike.
- Oh, one cool thing about the pre-draft though: I met my first “fan”. Yeah, this one guy there was wearing a Charlie V Raptors jersey so I struck up a conversation with him. We got to talking and when I told him why I was down, and that I was ‘J.E. Skeets’, the guy genuinely got excited. OK, maybe not excited, but he definitely knew of the site/podcast. That, and he didn’t punch me in the face. So that was cool. Nice guy.
2006 NBA Draft, MSG Theatre:
- I had planned on live-bloggin’ the draft from my seat, but the WiFi didn’t work. It was probably for the better though, because it allowed me to get a whole lot of video footage. (I’ll I try to package that over the next few days with JD.)
- Our seats were dead center, maybe 20-25 rows back? Even though Chris disagrees, I was positive I was sitting next to poker star, Phil Ivey. The “green room” for the draftees was down front, stage left. The ESPN guys (Bilas, Stephen A. Smith, Greg Anthony, and Dan Patrick) were on the other side. Stuart Scott’s desk was a little up ahead of those guys. I couldn’t really see him though — yeah, even when I made my eyes go ‘lazy’ — because a camera crane was in the way. Oh well.
- Bargnani goes 1. No surprise there. I immediately thought of Wesley and his oil, water, and chocolate analogy. I hope he’s wrong.
- Oh, weird moment. After having Stuart Scott tell them weird facts about their moms and watermelon and shit, the picks were escorted along side the crowd, behind a rope. While Bargnani was leaving, fans near the rope started booing him and then started up a “U-S-A! chant”. Incredible.
Damn! I just found out my flight home has been cancelled. ARGH! I gotta go figure this mess out. More to come on the draft later. Obviously. This is getting ridiculous…
Comments
19 Responses to “I Think They Liked Their Picks…”
Leave a Reply
About
The Basketball Jones is a NBA blog and podcast, written and recorded five times a week by J.E. Skeets, Tas Melas and Jason Doyle. Comments, questions and cold hard cash are always welcome and much appreciated. Contact us.
Podcast
Latest Episodes
- Ep. 312: The Fix – Friday, May 16th
- Ep. 311: The Fix – Thursday, May 15th
- Ep. 310: The Fix – Wednesday, May 14th
- Ep. 309: The Fix – Tuesday, May 13th
- Ep. 308: The Fix – Friday, May 9th
Skeets I’m dieing here…I need to know the details!
hoooowwwww dooooo you liiiiike a-mer-i-ca, eh?
Good thing Bargnani wan’t drafted by Hotlanta.
You got an invite to do what now?
Seems like all the hassle coulda been avoided by watching this on tv…although the seat recap was interesting..and you wouldn’t have met that fan…so I take it all back.
I forgot to ask…is it true Marcus Williams stole your laptop and thats the reasont here were no updates?
I read that this morning.
Matt, Skeets said he had his laptop last night, but no connection. That said, I am now of the belief that Air Canada has lost his luggage and his laptop is winging its way to either Iqaluit or Sandspit.
Oh…so you’re saying Marcus didn’t steal it? Phew…glad that’s cleared up…boy is my face red.
I tend to get a lot of comments deleted…wha happen?
Hey Skeets, I enjoyed meeting you too. The pre-party was pretty cool although I thought there would be more players there. Man is David Stern a small little bugger.
Can’t wait to see some of the photos you took. There was some pretty funny stuff going on in the crowd.
If you stayed until the end you would have seen my buddy getting escorted out by security. He went up the front of the stage and started screaming “48 points! 48 points you punk!” at Steven A. while pointing at my Charlie V Jersey.
Classic moment.
MattB: You keep changin’ the e-mail address you put in. WordPress doesn’t remember you so your comments go to moderation.
L-Train: “48 points you punk!” Wow, that just made my day…
Andrea Bargnani is soft. There, I said it.
Erase them all…
Not only did I repeat a joke found in a prior comments field, then I began drunk commenting after the fact…
A sad day for commenting on my behalf.
Whew…I thought you were shot on the way there or something.
somebody needs to get skeets a hamburger stat
skinny boy
UM: I eat, but my metabolism has a 7′8″ wing-span.
And oh, more photo’s are coming… and I’m alive.
Your metabolism could start at center for the sonics.
are you still mad at brent barry for stealing your nickname?
Skeets: You should have pried yourself away from the bar and hit the buffet table at the pre-party. Ahmad Rashad was chowing down and Mike Curry went back for two plates. He actually woofed the first one down while he was standing in line for the second.