WOTTA DRAFT: I'm really hyped for the NBA season now; the only basketball that can hold me over now is the occasional Storm or Sparks game (I saw them play each other a few nights ago, and now I'm convinced they're the only two watchable teams in the WNBA. Sue Bird and Lauren Jackson are doubly watchable, if you get my drift. HAH!) But you had all the hype for the three prospects who went 1-2-3 as planned, then you had the inexplicable turn against unproven European players--what, one Tskitishvili and you give up? And you had Lampe going first in the second round to the roars of the hometown crowd. What fun. Some thoughts:

--Yes, my two most hated teams, the Knicks and the Lakers, seemed to make out like bandits. The Lakers get the Big Ten player of the year and the billionaire's Mark Madsen, Luke Walton, who you know is going to make two or three crucial plays in the playoffs, if Sports Guy is to be believed. And the Knicks get Maciej Lampe in the second round because they went safe-yet-dumb and picked Georgetown's Mike Sweetney in the first round. He was supposed to be a lottery pick. The NBA invited him because he was supposed to be a lottery pick. And he had to sweat it out and almost started crying waiting there. Thank god he was the one the Knicks fans really wanted. Maybe Layden will be able to have his cake (Sweetney, the kind of guy the Knicks have like twelve of) and eat it too (Lampe, who could bust like Frederic Weis but could also be the Next Great European.) Everyone's rooting for Lampe now, including me--this is about the only way I could start liking the Knicks again.

--Tom Tolbert was busting on the Warriors for taking Mickael Pietrus and not getting a point guard. Apparently he missed the whole "Earl Boykins has arrived" saga, one of the better sub-plots from last season.

--At no point did Dick Vitale not convince me he wasn't protecting his little Dickie V. college basketball cottage industry with his constant--and I mean constant--harping on why this-and-that team was going to regret not taking whatever college great Dick had first sighted in 8th grade or whatever. I mean, just naked self-interest.

--I was thinking to myself, for no reason, "The Bulls are the blackest team in the NBA. They're taking a black guy." And sure enough, they took Kirk Hinrich over T.J. Ford. Diversity NOW! Or something.

--Just a fun draft that we're not going to learn the ramifications of for a while. I think LeBron and Darko are unproven, so we won't know how the Cavs and Pistons made out for a while. I think the Nuggets did well, the Lakers and Knicks did as well as they could and everybody else is wait-and-see. Looking forward to Lampemania hitting the streets of New York and Warsaw. That's it.