I guess before going any further, I should admit something to save your time and energy, if you are coming here for real, actual news and analysis.

I don’t know what I am talking about.

I really enjoy watching basketball – this past year I bought a partial ticket package to the Nuggets and tickets for the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament. All winter and spring there is a 78% chance that I have a basketball game on TV on any given night.

But watching and enjoying is not the same thing as understanding and analyzing.

When I watch a football game, I note the defenses being played, I mentally look for plays that would work based on what the defense or offense is doing. I can scout talent relatively well (for the record, I wouldn’t have drafted Tim Tebow in the first round – but you knew that). I even won my fantasy football league last year, which makes me, at worst, the 2,563,798^th most qualified person in America to be an NFL GM.

But basketball? Nope. I am strictly a fan. I don’t watch to see if the zone or man defense is working better. I know what a pick-and-roll is, but you won’t hear me yelling at my TV “pick and roll him, damnit!”

I did note in a Nuggets/Lakers game last year that Ty Lawson was running around Steve Blake so easily that Blake looked to be moving about the speed of the plot of The Killing (or Rubicon, though I like Rubicon more, so I don’t want to bad-mouth it) and said Lawson should just keep driving until Blake was yanked or Andrew Bynum pulled an Andrew Bynum and clothes-lined Ty in the lane.

Sure enough, after three straight un-contested Lawson lay-ups, Blake was sent to the Adam Morrison memorial last seat on the Lakers bench.

That is really my only claim to fame for basketball knowledge.

So, with that lead-in it is time for my NBA draft preview!!

If you are really still reading at this point, then, after you are done can you send me the name of your company so I can short the stock? Productivity and morale like this, can’t be good for profits.

Anyone, without any basis for measuring each player’s “up-side” or “length”, I am resorting to the only way I know how to analyze players.

By creating a simile.

Like describing The Killing as similar to Rubicon without any plot progression and only one interesting character (who, strangely, had his best episode in the worst episode of the season).

If real estate agents can use comps to determine the value of a house, then why I can’t use them to measure players? I mean, the valuation process of real estate has never had a negative effect on our economy right? This has to work!

Note: I am not dissecting every player, just the ones I watched to form an opinion of.

Note #2: I am not saying, necessarily, that the comparison point is their exact career trajectory, just the player whose game they most resemble. So if (for example) I say someone’s comp is Kevin Durant, I don’t mean he will be an unstoppable scoring machine putting up 30 points per night while single-handedly trying to make children’s backpacks a desirable accessory for a man. I am just saying, he is a long, skinny player that can get open and score easily.

Granted, it is a baseless opinion. But this is America, when has that ever stopped someone?

2011 NBA Prospect Comps (in expected draft order)

Kyrie Irving = O.J. Mayo. I haven’t seen much of Irving play, but then who has? When your post-high school career totals 11 games, there isn’t much to go on. Of course Kobe Bryant played 0 college games and he turned out fine. On the other hand, Kwame Brown also played 0 college games. Irving reminds me of Mayo, not because his last name is a delicious condiment or because I had a wonderful glass of Kyrie juice this morning (gross). It may partially be due to their vaguely similar looks but mainly it is because they are both good-sized, shoot/drive-first point guards. So, if your team is in need of a 6^th man who can get you 11 points and 2 assists per game and you possess the #1 overall pick this year – then Kyrie is just what the doctor ordered.

Derrick Williams = 50% Lamar Odom / 50% Blake Griffin. Williams isn’t quite the athletic beast that Griffin is, but anyone that watched the Arizona/Duke tournament game remembers that Williams does have some dunking ability. He also can hit the 3-pointer a little better than either and has yet to marry a Kardashian or star in a Subway commercial but he is still young so there is still hope.

Brandon Knight = Monta Ellis. Small, quick guards that can get their shot. I don’t expect Knight to match Ellis’ tattoo prowess, but I do expect to exceed him in mo-ped driving ability.

Kemba Walker = Darren Collison. It is all about speed. After Kemba single-handedly led UConn to a national title (since it was UConn, his other hand was most-likely busy carrying a big wad of cash), he has fallen a little off the national radar in the pre-draft hype surrounding Irving. Much like Collison turned a successful UCLA career and quick feet into a successful NBA career, Kemba’s speed and ability to make shots should mean a decent NBA career. Even while dealing with a massive post-UConn pay-cut.

Jimmer Fredette = 75% Adam Morrison/25% J.R. Smith. This is why I can never be an NBA expert. I don’t get the Jimmer love. After watching him for 2 full days this spring, I just don’t see how his game translates. Without elite athleticism (i.e. he is a slow, white guy), I don’t know how he will do anything but crank up 27 foot 3-pointers. Much like Morrison dominated sub-par college competition but couldn’t translate that in the pros, I think Jimmer has the same problem. His best case scenario would probably be Goran Dragic – that ‘other guy’ that played behind Nash for a couple years in Phoenix whose most redeeming quality was a long running feud with Sasha Vuajcic. I throw J.R. in here because that is Jimmer’s ceiling: a guy with no fear of jacking up a shot from anywhere and depending on the night will either swish it or air-ball it. The other 75% of JR’s game however,(freaky jumping ability and fondness for skin art) were not bestowed on The King of Utah.

Chris Singleton = Shane Battier. Ahh, my boy Singleton. Rumors continue to swirl around Denver of the Nuggets trading up to get Singleton. While the Nole in me loves this, the Nuggets ticket holder doesn’t. The Nuggets play good defense, they need a scorer. Singleton to me is a dead ringer for Shane Battier. A good-sized guy who can stick closer to the other team’s best player than a pair of cushioned compression shorts and make the occasional 3-pointer or driving dunk on the offensive end. Yes, the FSU offense flowed through Singleton and he was the leading scorer and rebounder last year. But that offense was ranked #154th in the nation. And it felt lower than that to its fans.

Matt Howard = Matt Bonner. March Madness darling Howard will probably get very little love tonight in the draft. For me though, anyone that drags a mid-major to 2 straight championship games (admittedly, with some help) has a place on an NBA team. Howard’s destiny in life is to play the Matt Bonner role for some team. Bonner is that annoying guy on the Spurs bench who looks like an insurance salesman but always seems to find a way to make a dagger basket just when the Spurs need it. Howard can absolutely play that role – make the occasional high-stake shot, fight for rebounds and foul 6 times. I will take a proven winner on my bench any day. In fact, the team that could use Howard the most might be the Heat.

So, there you go. A short-hand guide to tonight’s NBA draft. Sure there will be a bunch of guys from Europe drafted whose name sound like a new form of bacteria and some one-and-done prospects who attended as many classes as I did this year, but we don’t care about them.

A casual fan only needs to know 2 groups of players:

1 – Superstars – of which there are none in this draft

2 – Former college stars – that allow you, when bored in the 2^nd quarter of a 30-point mid-December blow-out, to win a $1 off your buddy while playing ‘where did he go to college’.

It’s not like you are going to be too busy to play because you are diagramming the home team’s in-bounds play.

It is only fitting that at the dawn of the month of my 34^th birthday I am feeling old.

NOTE: I know that some portion of you just said something along the lines of ‘oh, bite me. You aren’t old’. Well, sorry. Get over it. I can’t do anything about you being older than me. Think of all the cool stuff you got to live through that I didn’t –  the Vietnam War, Watergate, Super Bowls I – IX, Deep Throat, the UCLA dynasty and…well, that other Deep Throat.

NOTE #2: To the other portion of you that just said ‘wow, he is old’. Bite me.

Anyway, it isn’t just my completion of another trip around the Sun making me feel old, it is the world of sports. When I hear about the latest sports news, I inevitably end up sounding like Statler and Waldorf when responding. Damn kids these days.

It wasn’t always this way. It used to be I would cheer for teams based almost solely on them being the new, young up-and-comers. I adopted the New York Mets back in the mid-eighties in part because I was fascinating by this young phenom pitcher named Dwight Gooden. I even went out and put a Gooden poster on my wall and bought all the rookie baseball cards I could find. Until, of course, my mom threatened to ring the nose on my poster with White-Out.

Later, as the Lakers, Celtics and Bad Boys of Detroit ruled the NBA, I had a soft spot for this young kid playing in Chicago who seemed to have a little talent.

Now, when I hear about LeBron James, not shaking hands with the Magic after losing Eastern Conference Finals and then skipping the press conference, I think he sees himself above the every day requirements of being a professional. Do you think anyone that lost a playoff series wants to go in and face the press? No, but when you get millions of dollars to play a game, there a few obligations you have. You have to practice, you have to show up at charitable events for long enough to be photographed for those NBA Cares commericals, you have to do whatever your shoe company tells you to do and you have to talk to the press after games. These are especially true when you are the greatest player on the planet. An excuse that ‘you are a winner’ and you aren’t happy about losing doesn’t fly. You think anyone in the NBA is ok with losing? Other than Shawn Marion of course. You don’t become a pro athlete unless you are a fierce competitor who wants to win at any cost. But being a professional (or even being a man) means sucking it up and facing the music when things don’t go your way.

Of course, if you were given a Hummer in high school and were never held to account for it, why would I expect you to understand what responsibility and accountability means?

And it’s not like David Stern is going to call out his meal ticket of the future. Sure, Phil Jackson gets fined $50,000 for correctly pointing out publicly what we all know (that the NBA refs are slightly less incompetent than Sling Blade), but LeBron can act like the biggest baby this side of the Cutler family ranch and never get a slap on the wrist.

LeBron isn’t alone in making we worry about this entire generation of athletes. In the same week that LeBron took his ball and went home, Brandon Marshall appeared on Outside The Lines to explain why (yet again) he has been accused of domestic battery. While I don’t know the details of this charge, I have had enough. Less than a year after being suspended for three games (reduced to one) for a multitude of offenses to the extra-touchy NFL, Marshall found a new woman and more trouble. Is it so hard for a guy to find a stable woman and not get in massive fights with them? B-Marsh (as I call him) is entering his fourth year in the league and he has seen a team mate get shot and killed, shouldn’t it be about time he realizes that professional athletes are always targets? Whether by women or thugs, athletes are always going to be in the sights of those seeking money and fame. Understanding that and learning who you can trust should be the first thing that pro athletes learn.

Actually make that the second thing. The first thing is that no player is above being traded. No player. Especially not players that haven’t had a winning season since high school. Get it, Jay?

I won’t go into my feelings about B-Marsh’s contemporary, Mr. Cutler. I think I have sufficiently beat that story into the ground. What can I say, I am to Jay Cutler as Skip Baylees is to T.O. 

I don’t mean to say it is just the off-the-field antics by the players these days that I don’t understand. I know that athletes have gotten in trouble for as long as there have been sports (or at least as long as newspapers have been willing to report it) but the growth of the me-first sports celebration drives me nuts.

When I was young…I can’t believe I just used that phrase, just shoot me now…the best known celebration in the game was the group high-five by the Smurfs on the Redskins. Now, we have the celebration dance of the week by a ridiculously overrated wide receiver on an awful team who legally changed his name to the incorrect translation of his jersey number. Maybe if his team had, you know a winning record and wasn’t just the punch-line of every joke about football teams with legal problems, his self-serving attitude might not have worn thin about 4 years ago.

Even on my teams, there are players who I don’t understand. Look at J.R. Smith. We get it J.R., you are a great athlete and made a great play. You know if you consistently did that rather than once every other game maybe you wouldn’t need to celebrate when you make a great play. It would happen so frequently it wouldn’t be worth going nuts every time.

Wow, just look at all that ranting about the players above. I am not sure what makes me sicker, how these guys act or my old man, holier-than-thou, things-were-better-in-my-day attitude.

It’s funny because my least favorite TV Sports opinionater is Skip Bayless and this is the exact reason why. He hates everyone and everything in sports and is so sure about what he thinks, he makes Bill O’Reilly’s opinions seem balanced and considered. Now I am starting to sound like him. When did this happen? What happened to the happy-go-lucky kid I used to know?

Getting old sucks. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go have some warm milk and go to bed.