NBA prevents "Basketball Bastille Day"... Greg Oden goes to the Celtics

Here’s why I’m confident proclaiming this at 5 pm Mountain Time: it’s just too good a storyline for the cosmos to deny it. Given a second chance to tank their way to success it ends up working out for Boston. I just can’t see Greg Oden anywhere else. He’s the next Bill Russell. In the same way the next Chamberlain (Shaq) found his way to the Lakers, and the next Mailman (Boozer) made his way to the Jazz, the next Russell will end up in green and white. Look, if the Celtics don’t get one of the top two picks they will have a storming of the Bastille on their hands and Bill Simmons' next book will be titled, "Dead and Unhappy: How Ping Pong Balls Destroyed a City." And who wants to see that? Nobody, not even David Stern. The NBA can’t afford to lose one of their best markets for another ten years. If there was ever karmic tolerance for a rigged ping pong ball, there is this year.

Memphis gets the number two pick because historically that’s just how things seem to work out for the worst team in the league …oh so close. Fortunately for the Grizzlies it’s Durant this time around. How appropriate would it be for Jerry West to announce his retirement and then have the next great perimeter player come along. A guy who is a cross between T-Mac and Kobe falls into his lap and he already said, “No thanks.”

You know how they say truth is stranger than fiction? Well, it truly is. Hubris, poetic justice… irony. Fate just has a way of making things fall into place. Barkley may not be have been conscious of it, but I’d bet this type of reasoning went into his decision to switch his WCF prediction last night. I just can’t see another Pistons/Spurs rematch. It would kill the NBA. Lebron faces his Judas on basketball's biggest stage. Now that’s a story line I can see happening. Can you imagine the ratings? The league needs it, that’s why these things will happen.