That's why they play the games

Will we never learn our lesson? When is anything ever a sure thing? The only absolute, in my mind, is there are no absolutes - besides nothing ever being a sure thing.


Judgement has already been passed, Kevin Durant and Greg Oden are going to be studs. They'll each bring their respective teams multiple championships, you can't go wrong drafting either of them. Well, why not? Who's to say that one doesn't end up like Len Bias or just another Joe Smith? Wasn't Darko a "sure thing"? How am I supposed to be convinced of this Chinese guy's talent?

Wasn't Brady Quinn a sure Top 3 pick? If he fell past Cleveland, Miami was taking him, right? Yea, that ended well. Hey, Lawrence Phillips, Tim Couch, Tony Mandarich, Rick Mirer, Ryan Leaf, Heath Shuler, Brian Bosworth & Steve Emtman, how'd all your Hall Of Fame careers end up?

After the recent NFL draft betrayed so many mock drafts, it was labeled a "crap shoot", being so difficult to predict, yet here we go again. Not only will people guarantee that Team X will select a certain player, but by the end of the creation of these mocks so many authors will have spent so much time convincing themselves that their picks are correct that they won't be able to envision any reasonable alternative. Then they start making claims about how many titles someone's going to win, or how many MVPs a guy will earn all the while setting personal expectations for each individual.

Sure, it's fun to imagine LeBron bringing championships to his region, but the rhetoric & hype never allowed for anything less - there was only one possibility, LeBron was going to win, he was going to be good, crap, he'll be better than Jordan! Well, yes, he's good, but it isn't appropriate yet to name him one of the best ever. Talking about potential is one thing, sure, maybe he'll end up being great, but if he retires after these playoffs to concentrate on a football career, is he a HOFer? Hell no; the guy can be fun to watch, and with his stature & charisma and our preconceptions, it's easy to envision him on top of the world, but he hasn't accomplished nearly enough.

All I'm saying is let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Is the present so boring that we just can't wait to get it over with? Just slow down, savor what we know & don't know. Go ahead and dream about such-and-such a player achieving this or that, but presenting expectations as the only possible outcome is annoying and appears simple-minded. No one is making a breakthrough by correctly predicting when something does happen as they suggested it would - throw enough shit against the wall and something's bound to stick.