Not that odd

I don't care.

About what? I don't care that the Boston Celtics didn't get the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft. It's the top story on ESPN.com right now-no, not that Portland did get the draft pick, and that its team and fanbase could be set for a decade. No, the big story is that the Celtics didn't win.

Not to turn into that guy, but how is that news?

The whole front-page billing is just an intro to Bill Simmons' article about the Celtics not winning the draft lottery. (At least I think that's what it's about. Haven't read it.) Hey, that's fine. That's the sort of thing the Sports Guy writes about, and he's more interesting than the straight news most of the time. And I understand that ESPN.com's top story section has to link to something. But there's really no reason to feel sorry for the Celtics.

According to ESPN.com itself, the Celtics only had a 19.9% chance of winning the top pick anyway. What were their chances of grabbing one of the top two? I don't freakin' know, but it's still less than fifty percent. (Um, I think.) In other words, the Boston Celtics probably weren't going to get Greg Oden or Kevin Durant. And believe it or not, the probable thing actually came to pass. That's the whole point of the lottery: to randomly reward some weak teams and punish others. No, that's not it-it's to discourage tanking, and the Celtics would be wise to remember that.

Of all teams, the Celtics should have learned this lesson already. Who can forget the weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth coming from Boston after the 1997 draft lottery? The prize that year was Tim Duncan, who lived up to billing as a franchise cornerstone. (Duncan's only been the best player since Michael Jordan left the Bulls. He's MJ's true successor as greatest champion in the league, though Shaq was even more dominant for a brief stretch. (Turns out big men still are the key to basketball-Jordan didn't revolutionize the game in that particular sense, he was just that great. But that's a story for a different day.)) Remember? The Celtics had the best chance to land Duncan, who instead went to San Antonio, which was rewarded for not rushing center David Robinson back from injury.

In an article I actually did read yesterday, Simmons whined about the Celtics not getting Duncan so long ago. Well, the Celtics had a 27.51% chance of winning the lottery that year. Yes, that's a better chance than any other team had. But, you see, that means they had a 72.49% chance of not winning the top pick. Even though the Celtics had the best odds of any one team, all the other teams combined had a better chance than the Celtics. That might seem obvious to you, but some people don't get it.

Simmons also argued that the Celtics somehow deserved to win in his pre-draft article, even though he mentioned in there that Boston once won sixteen championships in a thirty-year stretch. (That includes eleven of thirteen during Bill Russell's career.) In other words, if you didn't know, the Celtics were the Yankees of the NBA for three decades...but to like the tenth power. More than half of a league's championships in thirty years? That's just insane. I can't imagine living through even part of that stretch as a fan...and then thinking I somehow deserved more. He knows there are thirty teams in the league, right, and that one title in three decades might be fair? He also claimed that Boston's been through a lot, but I think it only feels like that because the Celtics are such a high-profile team. Or am I supposed to believe Rick Pitino really was so much worse than, say, Bernie Bickerstaff?

The only argument a Celtics fan can make is that the lottery fails to reward the truly crappy squads who, in a sport like football, would have received a high pick based purely on record. Why does the NBA do it differently? Because its season is way too long, and they don't want a team to tank for thirty games. In other words, the NBA is trying to protect the fanbase by giving teams a reason to actually try. Good for them.

Simmons, whose writing I usually like, openly rooted for the Celtics to lose this year. I don't think I could do that for one of my favorite teams. I've been upset enough not to care much one way or the other, but I've never outright wanted them to lose. (The lone possible exception is if a late-season loss would mean a more favorable playoff matchup.) I think it would be jacked to want your team to lose, though I can't quite articulate why. Sounds to me like the Celtics and their fans got what they deserved.