The NBA Draft was last night. Unless your team has one of the top 10 picks, you can kiss that new guy goodbye. If your team is the 76ers you can enjoy another first pick for each of the next 8 seasons. If you remain a 76ers fan, you must enjoy paying the withholding tax and think the IRS is quite a cool group. I enjoyed the Rockets drafts of '83 and '84 when somehow they got Ralph and Akeem. Akeem would later add an H and two championships. 2002 WAS COOL TOO. Once again, the Rockets lucked out in the lottery deal and got YAO. He would later add sore feet.
Teams no longer with us have had the number ONE pick. The first draft was 1947 and the long gone PITTSBURGH IRON MEN took Cliff McNeeley of Texas Western. The very next year the top pick went to the PROVIDENCE STEAM ROLLERS. They rolled out of the league a few years later. Others no longer with us included the Milwaukee Hawks, the Cincinnati Royals, the Minneapolis Lakers, and the Chicago Zephrys. Throw in the Baltimore Bullets and the San Diego Rockets and the San Francisco Warriors and the name changes are complete.
The Rockets of San Diego to BIG E in 1968. That franchise would, of course, move to Houston and among other things had HOUSTON POST columnist Mickey Herskowitz as one of its general managers, no conflict there. I remember being at Hobby Airport with the Rockets front office as they flew off to luck out on Olajuwon. IT was the best coin flip ever. Now here we are a mere 32 years later with the franchise starting all over again. Like the PITTSBURGH IRONMEN once tried to do.