Would Be A Real Shame If Woj And Shams Lost Their Phones On Draft Day
by Boobie
Yesterday, Awful Announcing reported that several prominent basketball media outlets, including ESPN and Yahoo!, had agreed not to report whicih player each team was selecting in Thursday’s NBA Draft before the selection was made on air. Adrian Wojnarowski and Shams Charania, respectively of the aforementioned outlets, have “tipped” picks on Twitter prior to their announcement for the past couple years, a practice that has taken away from the viewer experience of watching the draft live, so heading into what is expected to be a relatively unpredictable and transaction-heavy draft, this was welcome news.
I say “was” welcome news because, from the looks of things, Woj just went ahead and exploited a loophole about the agreement applying to tipping picks on-air and announced the order of the first six selections. While this amounts only to an incredibly well-sourced six pick mock until the picks are actually confirmed, and the beginning of the draft is necessarily far more predictable then the rest because their are fewer variables, the first couple picks of this particular draft have a couple major inflection points that would have been more fun to watch in real time.
The second overall pick, held by the Sacramento Kings, is interesting because the Kings are a shitshow of an organization, and all indications point to them taking someone who isn’t widely considered the second best prospect in the draft. Is it a smokescreen? Will they trade down? Will they just pick Buddy Hield again somehow? Who can say! Tune in to find out! Well, it turns out Woj can, and will, say. Additionally, the fourth pick, held by the Memphis Grizzlies, is heavily rumored to be on the move, as teams interested in moving into the top five may be willing to take on handsome albatross Chandler Parsons for the right to do so. That’s still in play, as Woj (notably?) didn’t list a team that would select at number four, just a player. Still, two of the most important and intriguing spots in at the most important part of the draft being mostly settled hours before the broadcast starts sucks.
I get why these guys do it. ESPN let go of a bunch of basketball writers in the Great Pivot To Video Purge of 2017, and the general assumption is that part of the reason they did so to such a great extent was so they could afford to bring Woj, the NBA’s most prominent newsbreaker, back into the fold from Yahoo! While his breaking news ahead of the broadcast could hurt the broadcast, it’s also a bad look for him and by extension for the network to get flexed on by Shams, his former protégé and current newsbreaking rival. So, he preempts that. It makes sense, but it really benefits exactly one person, and that’s Woj himself.
Look, I would never advocate for any sort of crime to be committed. It’s simply not something that I would ever do, and I resent your implication.
HOWEVER.
WITH THAT SAID.
If Woj and Shams were to lose track of all of their phones on draft day, thus rendering them unable to tip picks, would it be the worst thing in the world? If they were then to both accidentally get lost someone and then accidentally lock themselves in a basement for the duration of draft, who would complain? They would probably complain about their totally legal and no-one’s-fault-but-their-own misfortune, but how would anyone know about that, given that they are accidentally locked in a basement and phoneless? What if this happened every year?
It would be a real shame if that scenario were to by pure chance occur and we, the draft-obsessed viewing public, were able to enjoy the festivities without every single moment of the broadcast being an out-of-date anticlimax. I can’t even imagine how terrible it would be for people on social media to have symmetrical information and all react in real-time, without one or two people holding all of the power to control the narrative. I shudder to think of the implications of an unpredictable and potentially league-altering live event, one of the rarest commodities in entertainment, being truly live and truly unpredictable. Please make sure that Woj and Shams don’t lose their phones and accidentally get locked in a basement. I’m begging you.
