Losing for losing, too

This might be a long one.

Let's start out with a word of explanation. I grew up in South Dakota. "We" had no professional sports teams, and so there was no real "home" team or city to root for (Minnesota/Minneapolis was as close as you could come, but it was both across state lines and 5-6 hours away [Minneapolis]). It's South Dakota, though, so there was really nothing else to do and sports became a big deal nonetheless. Who did "we" root for? Whoever we wanted. There WERE a good deal of Minnesota fans, but it was considered "fair" to chose whatever team you wanted. Using baseball as an example, I can name you people in my class (of less than 100 total) who were fans of the Twins, Mets, Cubs, Reds, Red Sox, Astros, Royals, Yankees, or Braves. What was NOT considered "fair," however, was to jump from team to team. Loyalty is a big deal to me, you see. My wife might gain 50 pounds, but she'll still be my wife. The spiciest tart in Louisville might bat her eyelashes, lean in suggestively, and whisper "I'LL bring you to the metaphorical Super Bowl, baby!" and as impressed as I'll be with her choice of words, I'm just not going to suit up. My heart belongs to another, and as Christopher Lambert taught us, there can be only one. That's the same way I feel about "my" sports teams, except that while my wife's still hot, it seems like all my teams have -- how shall we say -- REALLY "let themselves go."

Here's the most recent Ho-ho down the hatch -- last night's NBA draft lottery. Now like many of you, I'm not the NBA fan that I once was. I haven't actually watched a Celtics game in a couple of years, partly because the game's just not that engaging in the regular season, partly because they've been terrible, and partly because I don't have cable and the bad teams are never on network tv. That said, yesterday bore the promise of a return to significance for my boys, if only because they'd been so bad. They had the 2nd worst record, which gave them the 2nd best chance at the 1st or 2nd draft pick. The overwhelming consensus is that there are 2 absolute franchise-changing studs in the draft, and so 1 or 2 would have been HUGE, anything out of the top two is failure -- especially when you "deserve" the #2 spot. So what happens? The ping-pong balls conspire against the leagues proudest franchise and we land at #5. As the saying goes, we can't win for losing. We would have even taken 2nd for losing and called it a win, but no dice.

Now no matter what the media tells you, there's really NO "sure thing" in any kind of draft. We won't know what happens until the actual draft, and even then you can't REALLY evaluate what you have until a couple years later. Check out these examples: in '95 Joe Smith was taken at #1, and Kevin Garnett was #5. Armon Gilliam was a #2 pick when Scottie Pippen was taken #5. In 1989 Pervis Ellison and Danny Ferry were taken #'s 1 and 2, respectively! Kwame Brown and Michael Olowokandi are relatively recent #1 picks who just haven't produced; Keith Van Horn and Shawn Bradley were both #2 picks that didn't live up to expectations. Dwayne Wade was a #5 overall selection, Amare Stoudemire was taken #9, and Kobe Bryant slid all the way to #13! Yes, even my Celtics have themselves struck luck when Paul Pierce fell into their laps at #10 in 1998. So the lottery in itself isn't the end-all, be-all of remaining in NBA obscurity, but one stroke of bad luck never is. What it IS, however, is one more in an ever-elongating line of stomach-punches that has started to feel like a flogging for real.

Check some of this out. I'm a fan of the Detroit Lions, the Boston Celtics, the Philadelphia Phillies, and the Phoenix Coyotes. All different cities for different sports. None of them have won a championship since the Celtics in '86. What if, rather than cheering for one team from each city, I had picked one of those cities and ponied up with all of their teams?

Detroit: The Lions have won exactly 1 playoff game since the AFL was assimilated into the NFL and the Super Bowl was born. Recent history has been particularly painful, with the last 6 seasons producing a cumulative record of 24-72 with the highlight being 6-10 in '04. Wow. Three times in there, teams have won as many or more games IN THE POST-SEASON than the Lions have won in the 16-game regular season, and going along with the "losing for losing, too" theme, not once in that time did they even manage to slide into the #1 draft slot. In fact, their worst year, 2-14 in '01, they picked THIRD because the expansion Houston Texans were automatically awarded the #1 spot, and Carolina (yep, the same Carolina team that was in the Super Bowl a couple years ago) was bad enough to steal Julius Peppers at #2. Through all of this, however, I maybe could have handled the Lions perennially moribund ways if I'd have been able to cheer Detroit to: NBA championships in '89, '90, and '04 (sure, it would have cost my eternal soul to cheer on a team with Bill "I won't even write his last name", but how about '04, when the Finals MVP was a draft choice of the Celtics?), Stanley Cups Championships in '97, '98, and '02, and the World Series in '84. In other words, everybody wins in Detroit . . . except my team.

Philadelphia: No team in professional sports history has lost as many games as the Philadelphia Phillies. Seriously. They won a World Series in '80 (when I was 4), but not since. They haven't even been to the playoffs since '93, when Joe "I won't even write his last name" apparently set the franchise back13 years and counting with one fell swing. Recently, however, they've missed the playoffs by 1 game (out of 162!) in '05, 2 games in '01, and 3 games in '06 (they actually won MORE regular season games than the eventual World-Champion Cardinals). My only "solace" on this one is that none of the Eagles, Flyers, or Sixers have won championships either, but ALL THREE have been to the respective championships of their sports since '93.

Boston: The Celtics remain the greatest franchise in NBA history, and are actually the closest thing to a real "bright spot" over most of my pro sports-fan life. The only professional championship I remember winning was when they won the Finals in '86. More recently, we all *thought* they were going to the Finals (to get killed, but still!) in '02 before the Nets suddenly buried them, and they actually won their division as recently as the '04-'05 season, although they failed to win a playoff series. They are currently terrible, however, and don't seem to be moving forward at all. Yesterday's lottery gave a real chance for real hope, but the literal worst-case-scenario happened and they're left with #5. Of course, their recent (defined as within my memory) highest draft picks turned out as follow: Chauncy Billups as #3 overall was given up on and traded in the middle of his rookie year, only to turn into a Finals MVP in Detroit. Len "I won't even write his last name" was a #2 pick who died from a drug overdose hours after being selected. And, in keeping with the theme, #2 is as "high" as we've climbed. Losing for losing, too. Other Boston teams, however, have actually won for winning -- note the Patriots in '02, '04, and '05, as well as the Red Sox in '04.

Phoenix: Between the league shutting down for a year, moving from Minnesota to Kentucky, and "cheering" for a basically irrelevant team, I'm not nearly the hockey fan that I once was. That said, it was the Coyotes '99 playoff defeat to the Blues (I'd say that I won't even write their last names, but they all look like Norwegian black metal bands that I'd never get right, anyway) that brought me closer to swearing off sports forever than any other single event. Speaking of playoff defeats, the Winnipeg/Phoenix franchise hasn't won a playoff series since I became a hockey fan (although they HAVE blown 2 separate 3 games to 1 series leads), and the Coyotes haven't even been in the playoffs since the '01-'02 season, which is also the last time they finished the season at or over .500. Now Phoenix sports haven't exactly been blowing the roof off of the town during this period either, but the Diamondbacks did pick themselves up some rings in '01, if you recall.

All right, that was painful. Did you read all of it? If so, why? Do you feel like putting yourself out of your misery right now? Or how about putting ME out of MY misery? Hey -- don't bother with it -- sure I'm whining, but as I mentioned back at the start, my REAL wife is still hot!