THE PRO ATHLETE GENUS

One thing that sticks out about this draft: By my unofficial count, five of the top eleven picks are related themselves to former pro/Olympic athletes:

No. 3 pick Al Horford's dad, Tito, played in the NBA for three seasons.
No. 4 pick Mike Conley's dad, Mike, was an Olympic gold medalist triple jumper.
No. 9 pick Joakim Noah is the son of former tennis pro Yannick Noah.
No. 10 pick Spencer Hawes' uncle, Steve, played ten seasons in the NBA (his dad played at U-Dub).
No. 11 pick Acie Law IV is the great nephew of Hall of Famer Ernie Banks.

As the generations pass, and the pro athletes keep marrying superdupermodels and Miss Universe runner-ups, well, it's as if there will be a new super breed of humans. It's only marriages such as Kurt Warner's that can give the rest of us any hope.

The picks, since we left:

No. 12....Philly takes Thaddeus Young, giving the Ga. Tech the opportunity to be the best Thaddeus the NBA's ever seen.
No. 13...New Orleans selects Julian Wright of Kansas. Athletic player, but I wonder how assertive he'll be.
No. 14. ...L.A. Clippers take Al Thornton of Florida State, everyone's No. 1 all-underrated dude. The Clippers made a smart pick?
No. 15....Detroit takes the first small school player of the draft, Rodney Stuckey of Eastern Washington. You think a player is coming out of eastern Washington, you guess it's gonna be from Gonzaga. But no. Stuart Scott asks him, "Who's Rodney Stuckey?" and he answers, "It's me." I like this guy already.
No. 16....Washington selects Nick Young of USC

The Knicks just traded Stevie Franchise and Channing Frye to Portland for Fred Jones, Dan Dickau and, oh, Zach Randolph. Don't let anyone tell you different: this was all about the Knicks bringing a player of Dan Dickau's star power to the Big Apple.

Great move for the Blazers. That frees up the middle for Greg Oden and they get an athletic young four in Channing Frye, who's going to be happier out west anyway.

Meanwhile, the Knicks get another toxic malcontent. Dickau, I mean.

The New Jersey Nets, not to be outdone, have just selected Sean Williams of Cheech & Chong State. Williams is the dude who, well, you remember former NBA guard Dave Bing? Williams is Dave Bong.

I cannot believe that's the best weed joke I can come up with. But I do hear that Williams is stoked about playing at a place that's known as "The Meadowlands".