On a scale of one to basketball: How to get the NBA Draft Happies
Oh my gosh. It’s here. Think extremely carefully before answering the following question: can you believe it? After years and years of waiting, the 2018 NBA Draft is finally tonight, brought to you by the concept of love and this hit song by the band “Mo Bamba No. 5”
It’s like the ice bucket challenge, except instead of getting covered with cold you’re covered with joy on a metaphysical level. I’d like to add to this joy with a game I’ve invented called The Draft Happies.
Before we do that, though, we need to establish some ground rules. There are ways to make this night not happy, and I simply won’t have it. Avoid thinking about the following things.
The Suns have a history of trading draft picks for cash considerations, and now that they have the No. 1 pick Sarver is probably salivating. Ryan McDonough can only put Sarver straight to voicemail so many times before Sarver calls the police non-emergency line for a wellness check. Let’s hope he’s hungover today.
The Kings have the second pick. That means one of the many players we’re excited about is likely going to play for the Kings. It’s hard to have your career end before it starts, so put that out of your mind entirely.
Draft evaluation is about as reliable as throwing pudding at the wall and finding the shape of a cartoon dog’s head in the splatter. Some people are better than others at finding cartoon dog heads, but even they sometimes mistake a cat for a canine. Cat splatter simply doesn’t bear thinking about.
These are young adults who are about to have a huge change in lifestyle for which no amount of training or warning can fully prepare them. Money, attention, fan passion, everything gets multiplied by a factor of seven if not more. Most of us are fully capable of making bad decisions with much firmer ground under our feet.
Adam Silver’s head is shiny and at the right angle to the stage lights can cause temporary blindness.
We all like to have fun, right? Right. As such. we’re going to ignore these potential pitfalls. All of them. Put them out of your mind.
I have an exercise for you. Picture a 4 x 9 plywood raft covered in lighter fluid. This raft is at the side of a gentle river. Around you are trees. The trees are nice. They sway in the wind, and they look like they’re waving at you. It’s nice.
You walk up to the raft, and you pull out a paper grocery bag. Inside this bag are all your traumatizing draft thoughts. The bag is snoring. Good. You stayed up all last night thinking about them so as to tire them out.
You gently lay the bag down on the raft so as not to wake the thoughts up. Some of you may have thought ahead to lay down a bed of dried leaves, but if you didn’t that’s okay. Maybe next year you will. It’s not my fault for not giving you advance warning that it would have been helpful. I can’t do all the work for you.
Now, using a hockey stick or broom, push the raft into the river. Once it gets about three feet away from shore, you’re allowed to scream. The thoughts might jump awake and scurry to the side of the raft, but it’s no matter. Bad thoughts don’t like water. This is why all your best ideas come to you while you’re in the shower.
With any luck, all the scurrying may have caused the lighter fluid to splash up on the thoughts themselves. This will be important later.
In fact, it will be important right now. This is when you take out your bow and the flaming arrows you prepared earlier. That’s right. You’re going to burn this m-fer down.
“But Matt. I’ve never shot a bow and arrow before, and fire makes me nauseous.” It’s okay. You’re not actually touching any fire or arrows. This is in your mind. Shoot that arrow at the raft, and watch as the bad vibes turn to charcoal and sink to the bottom of the river.
You did it. You’re free to enjoy the draft without damnable distraction.
This is both good and bad. The good thing is there aren’t any negative emotions left. The bad thing is that without negative emotions, there’s really nothing left with which to process what happens on draft night. If you can’t react to picks with “That GM is an idiot for picking Player X” or “That writer is a moron for not predicting that Player Y would be taken here,” or “I’m stupid and ugly for having any hope that we wouldn’t pick Player Z,” what is one to do?
You play Draft Happies. That’s what. Somehow it’s even more fun and better than it seems.
Step 1: Download this picture
"View post on imgur.com"
I realize I may have already lost you. Don’t abandon me yet. Not again.
To some, this image might seem puerile. At a glance I would probably agree, but I’ve consulted the twin pillars of science and self-delusion, and they disagree. In every test I’ve run, proximity to this picture for a period of two hours has significantly improved the subject’s temperament and job prospects. It starts stupid, remains stupid for a while, but at about the 113 minute mark that changes.
You’re going to have to trust me.
Step 2: Print this picture tiled wallet-sized in a 3×3 grid on A4 paper six times for a total of 54 Draft Happies coupons
These are your happiness tickets. Do this for yourself as well as each of your friends who are coming by to watch the draft with you. Make sure they too have set their rafts on fire. If you don’t have any friends, make them, and then invite them over to watch the draft.
You can do this with your online friends as well, but it doesn’t work quite as well.
Step 3: Get some paper, and write down some things that could happen tonight that would make you smile
Here are a few examples to get you started:
- Someone from Duke embarrasses themselves
- A hat looks silly on someone’s head
- Mom makes pizza rolls
- No news about America’s steady erosion leaks onto your Twitter timeline for at least three minutes
- Someone posts the GIF of Alonzo Mourning shaking his head before changing his mind
- The word “motor” is said in a self-aware, wink-wink sort of way
- Mom makes bagel bites
- The crowd cheers at something off screen
- Adam Silver winks at you
- Adam Silver winks at the person next to you
Be creative. Let your inner child guide you. Pretend you’re a fish.
Step 4: Cut out the individual happies into slips and put them in a hat
Yes. Any hat will do, unless the hat has a hole in it. Sometimes hats have holes.
Step 5: Everyone take turns pulling out the slips
Share which ones you have because sharing is important. Happiness is not a zero-sum game.
Step 6: Put all the happiness tickets in a big pile in the middle of a table
You can put them in a bowl if you like. Maybe a pizza box. The only limit to the possibilities is you.
Step 7: Congratulate yourself on a job well done
Good. Now you’re all set up to play Draft Happies.
Rules:
Every time something on one of your happiness slips happens, pull a happiness ticket out of the happiness ticket pile/bowl/box.
If something happens that fulfills two of your slips at once, take an extra ticket because you’ve earned it.
If two people try to take the same happiness ticket at the same time, that ticket goes into Happiness Limbo. The two people must then compliment each other back and forth. The first person to blush gets the ticket. The person who makes the other person blush gets a different ticket plus a bonus ticket for being a nice person.
If three or more of your slips start with the letter B, take the number of happiness tickets you most associate with the letter B.
If two of your slips say the same thing, glue them together so as not to be confused.
If one of your slips is upside down, turn it around so it ease readable, then take a ticket for making things easier on yourself. Work smart, not hard.
Eye contact must be maintained with somebody at all times. It’s not a staring contest, but it’s not not a staring contest. The person who breaks eye contact must forfeit a happiness ticket into the happiness ticket pile/bowl/box but can take a replacement ticket if noone is watching.
Every time the Orlando Magic are mentioned, everyone gets a happiness ticket because that’s the only way anything good comes out of their existence.
If your amount of happiness tickets is a prime number greater than 13, exchange a happiness ticket with the person sat to your right. Mark your new ticket by drawing the lips around Adam Silver’s smile with a red marker. This is your “Super Ticket” until the time it is replaced. You can have up to six “Super Tickets,” but this has never happened before.
When Mo Bamba is drafted, everyone takes the number of happiness tickets equivalent to the number of Bamba’s draft position. If Bamba is drafted by your favorite team, say “Bamba Bomb” under your breath. If someone hears you, put your happiness tickets upside down in a separate pile until someone gets a Super Ticket. If/when that happens, you may flip those tickets back over and put them in your normal pile. However, people will know you did this.
The first person to reach 25 happiness tickets must make this known to the group by saying “It’s a jungle out there” and pointing to a predetermined spot on the wall. You may mark this spot on the wall with painter’s tape.
Happiness tickets can be traded, but only in sets of three. The difference in happiness tickets cannot exceed six.
If you’re bored, feel free to leave. We didn’t want you here anyway, Trevor. Who even invited you?
If your pile of tickets arranges itself into a smiley face, take as many tickets as needed out of the pile/bow/box to give the face sunglasses.
Anyone caught licking Adam Silver’s face on a ticket must forfeit this ticket to the person who caught them.
If Grayson Allen is drafted on an even number, switch ticket piles with the person across from you. If Grayson Allen is drafted on an odd number, pretend to switch piles but then deem it too difficult and retain your original pile.
Turn the lights off between picks 16 and 18. This is quiet time. Hold your tickets to your heart and contemplate the good in the world.
Happiness tickets can be redeemed for prizes at any time, provided prizes are available.
If at any point two players say a word or phrase at the same time, avoid saying jinx. If a person does say jinx, they forfeit three tickets. If both players refrain, they are to give each other light elbow nudges. The quality of the nudge will be rated by the other players on a scale of 1 to 10. If the nudgers agree with the rating, they may take two tickets from the middle. If they disagree, they may take three tickets, but must place them in their Under Protest pile.
If at any point, your Under Protest pile is larger than your main pile, apologize to the other players for making things harder than they have to be. They may take as many happiness tickets it takes to make them feel better. You may then switch your piles.
If a happiness ticket is bent or poorly cut, discard it.
If you stand up, make sure you ask “Can I get anyone something to drink?” All players must respond with “I’m fine, thanks.” The last person to say “I’m fine, thanks” is in time out for three picks.
There are a lot of other rules, but they’re pretty intuitive. After the 59th pick, each player counts up their accumulated tickets. No matter what the number is, you are to say “I have 19.” That way everyone has the same amount, and everyone is happy.
No one is to pay attention to the 60th pick. You’re to spend that time discussing what a good time you had and revealing what it was you learned about yourself. If all goes well, you should have been self-absorbed and distracted enough not to have completely missed that the Grizzlies traded the fourth pick to unload Chandler Parsons’ contract and the Warriors somehow ended up with Luka Doncic. At least free agency starts soon.