On draft night, ESPN gets fired up -- for trades

It was a weak draft to begin with, quickly written off as Blake Griffin and a cast of dozens. But then let ESPN move in its crew and cameras for the day, let Shaquille O'Neal get traded to Cleveland, let Vince Carter get traded to Orlando, and you don't need to guess where ESPN's draft coverage is going to head in a sprint.

"Let's talk," anchor Stuart Scott told analysts Mark Jackson, Jeff Van Gundy and Jay Bilas. "Shaquille O'Neal. LeBron James. A lot of people think they'll be picked to win the NBA championship. Jay, do you agree with that?"

Bilas said he liked the move but didn't mention anything about a championship.

Jackson said he liked the move provided it comes with the future acquisition of a shooting forward. "I don't like the move by itself," he said.

Scott, sounding incredulous: "You don't like it by itself? How can you have Shaq and LeBron and not think . . . I mean, it can be Shaq and LeBron and the three of you guys -- wouldn't that be a championship team?"

Jackson corrected Scott on the Cavaliers' marquee pecking order. "First of all," he said, "it's LeBron and Shaq."

Regardless of the trade, Jackson said the Cavaliers "have the same problems. They have to have a shooting forward alongside Shaq."

Over to Dick Vitale, sounding very excited about the trades involving O'Neal, Carter and Richard Jefferson, who moved from Milwaukee to San Antonio.

"Draft day has been dominated by Jefferson, Shaquille and suddenly Vince Carter!" Vitale shouted. "I think right now Santa Claus came early and we're going to have Cleveland and we're going to have San Antonio play for the title and Cleveland's going to celebrate, baby!"

Note to Vitale: The Lakers have yet to secede from the NBA.

There was so much talk about stars and star power -- ESPN is addicted to both -- that Scott was moved to interject, "Oh by the way, there's a draft tonight. Right here in this building."

Eventually, ESPN retrained its focus on the process of NBA teams restocking their rosters with American collegiate and European professional talent. That included placing a camera inside the Clippers' draft headquarters. Remarkably, the camera did not reveal any dartboard on the wall or any Clippers official flipping a coin.

Because the options were so limited, because the pick was so obvious, even the Clippers were able to write Griffin's name on their draft card.