The official story of the National Basketball Association is told in game broadcasts and box scores. The game's the thing, right? The finer details come from orchestrated segments conducted on airwaves controlled by the league's media partners. There is Jalen Rose, nonetheless likable, spouting platitudes and common sense about the NBA topic du jour on SportsCenter. Or they come from beat reporters who chronicle standard ups and downs, rarely wading too far into murkier waters. Sometimes these outlets traffic in transaction news and rumor. Aside from an occasional Charles Barkley vulgarity or implosion of a franchise, much of what we hear and see and read about the Lig draws vitality from a wheel of primary colors.
Basketball's real picture contains many more shades, though. Relying upon a fuller spectrum, fans of the NBA know far more than who scored what, who can't defend the pick-and-roll, who got traded, and who has been in a slump. To this list we can add which music Julian Wright is bumping; which players are most likely to be name-checked on rap radio; how Michael's latest shoe was designed; what really motivated Stephen Jackson to do what he did; who was with Eddy Curry when he was pulled over. Better yet, we can behold this richer tableau and discover cultural meaning, sociological purpose, and a host of truths. There almost always is a fuller account than that which is emphasized by official channels.
Annually, Draft night is an evening that demonstrates this duality. Commissioner Stern marshals his resources to compose a simple, hopeful, safe story about the Association's renewal. Players wear suits, then suits accompanied by officially licensed hats. No one dares dress otherwise, as this is not a place for too much personality. (The League even serves as its own Norman Rockwell, of sorts.) The players most likely to populate the lottery are vetted and washed and combed so that a recognizable origin narrative can be peddled. ESPN lobs softballs during interviews. In between these segments, its analysts regurgitate observations, compliments, and mild warnings that have become so tedious by draft night that muting the television would only deprive a viewer of Mark Jackson's unintentional humor. Booing is laughed away, certain underperformance is ignored, and anything bad is mostly obscured so that no one is turned off by something ugly.
We decorate our refrigerator with it, of course. It is a draft, a league showcase, and no one expects the Frontline treatment. The NFL Draft is two full days of this charade, not a relatively tidy five hours. Moreover, the NBA Draft is undeniably fun. Feeling excited, or maybe just suspending concern, is a welcomed diversion. The entire process can be sweet, as though the draft's many actors collectively opt for something with clean lines and vivid images, leaving no room for the intrusive sensationalism and skepticism which tend to complicate a canvas. But still, there is a creeping insincerity that the draft spectacle cannot escape because every person who truly cares about the NBA - or really, contemporary sports, in general - knows full well that this paint-by-number approach yields a picture with too many outlines left unfilled.
At this year's draft, no one threatened to color outside the lines with his fuschia crayon more than Brandon Jennings did. The academic and athletic radical from both high school and Europe complicated the picture. He attempted to co-opt the Ricky Rubio marketing machine, a commercial apparatus of which the league presumably approved given Rubio's global appeal, non-threatening background, and unconventional game. Jennings confounded teams by possessing the athleticism, skills, and savvy that scouts value above all, but offering them only in conjunction with a wobbly jumper, a failed first act, and a personal history which would not be immediately relatable among white ticket buyers. He was happy to court media attention. He didn't even have the courtesy to apologize for these foibles. Instead, he was brash and proud.
Jennings was treated by the NBA and its official channels in no special way, though. His story blended in among those of Blake Griffin, Rubio, and Stephen Curry. Nothing from the sanctioned annals of the League, to this point, fully accounts for what appears to be an outsized persona. On draft night, Jennings made a fleeting, spectacular entrance, and it was noted widely that he was originally not at the draft for fear of an embarrassing slide. However, that was the extent to which the charismatic and controversial young man was acknowledged in the Lig's official history of the draft. Surely, when Commissioner Stern recounts the 2009 lottery, he will not include what happened next.
On Saturday, two nights after the NBA's yearly fun-time show, the Baseline reported an exchange between Jennings and his friend, the rapper Joe Budden. In two YouTube videos that were later removed for fear of controversy, Jennings did what I always assumed of draft picks: he spoke explicitly and candidly about incumbent competition, negative coverage, and the general experience of draft night. The transcript portrays a 19-year-old black man being his teenage self, replete with the language one might expect. It was striking more for its authenticity than for its content.
The Jennings videos are a perfect example of the more complicated palate on which fans rely for basketball's full narrative. The videos provide a draft picture far messier and engaging and evocative than the official image. Meanwhile, the Association has always seemed somewhat ambivalent about recognizing reality. To wit, there is a dress code which mandates formal wear and forbids chains, but the ever-changing, ever-involved sneaker game runs along unimpeded. Hip-hop music may no longer be driving, but it is still riding shotgun. Tampering is not permitted, yet players can break transaction news on Twitter. Many more dichotomies illustrate the divide which one must straddle to appreciate fully the NBA. Oddly, no one seems to deny these divisions, not even Stern, who has spoken about social media, about player lives, about the many ancillary aspects of the Lig which contribute to the picture.
So perhaps the pertinent question is, why can't the draft be better? More accurate? Why can't it more openly take up so many of the topics that fans will invariably consider even if not shepherded toward them by the Association and its studio? If the League knows its history it will immediately undergo a revision so that the tale is richer, why not save some time on the front end and use more colors? There may be immediately available answers, but none satisfy an NBA fan who just once would love to hear Jay Bilas say something like, "He's got great length, but I don't think the fans will understand him. And to be honest, he's freaking me out. I saw him tweeting about his favorite porn movies."
[Joey gets it in on his website Straight Bangin', a place where he deposits thoughts about basketball, sports culture, rap music, crappy television, law school, and anything else on his mind. He is also a somewhat regular writer for the truly excellent FreeDarko. He'll tweet at you if you follow him here. To read more by Joey, check out his profile.]
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