More draft lottery night drama
And you thought the only drama during the NBA Draft Lottery was who would get the No. 1 pick.
Let me introduce you to Jacketgate.
Around 9:45 on Tuesday night, my cell phone rang. I’d just finished my first edition column, and when I saw that the boss was calling me on deadline, I knew something was up.
Mike Sherman, our sports editor, asked if I’d seen the number sewn into Clippers president Andy Roeser’s jacket. I told him that I’d heard he had a No. 1 sewn into the lining, but he told me that he saw more than that. He swore that he saw a No. 23.
Blake Griffin’s number.
I told him that I’d check around the Internet and see what I could find.
For the next 15 or 20 minutes, I searched YouTube and Google and Yahoo and just about any other search engine I could think of. I watched a couple videos. Nothing. I read a couple stories. Nothing.
Then, I stumbled across an Associated Press story that mentioned not only the No. 1 in the jacket lining but also the No. 23. It was the only story reporting that the No. 23 existed, and without some visual proof, I had a hard time adding that information to my column.
So, I e-mailed Lisa Dillman, who covers the Clippers for the Los Angeles Times. About 10 minutes later, she e-mailed me back and said she hadn’t seen anything or heard anything about it.
My boss insisted that she must have missed it, but he, too, could find no visual proof of it.
I sent more e-mails. To the entire Clippers media relations staff. To the entire Clippers broadcast team. To the AP writer who had the story about the jacket lining.
Less than five minutes after my e-mail to AP writer Brian Mahoney, he e-mailed me back. He said he didn’t see the jacket lining but that another AP writer did.
I asked him if the other writer was sure and told him that I thought it was weird that we couldn’t find any photos of it.
Maybe, I suggested, Roeser was trying to hide the No. 23.
After a few minutes, Mahoney replied that my theory seemed right. He’d asked around the press room there in Secaucus, N.J., site of the draft lottery, and the reporters said that Roeser seemed to be trying to hide the No. 23 lining. At least one other writer saw it, though, when Roeser adjusted his jacket.
I wrote up an addition to my column and sent it in.
Almost as soon as I hit the send button, though, I got two e-mails from the Clippers PR staff. Joe Safety and Seth Burton wrote to say that, yes, Roeser’s jacket had a No. 1 and a No. 23 in the lining but that those numbers referred to current Clippers Baron Davis and Marcus Camby.
Safety, the team’s head PR honcho, even said that Roeser had owned the jacket for years, so the fact that he was wearing it and that Griffin wore No. 23 was just coincidence.
Fun stuff, eh?
I don’t know if Roeser really owned the jacket for years or not, and frankly, I’m not sure we’ll ever know for certain. But I do know that the whole Jacketgate saga was a grand side drama to night already filled with nail-biting, heart-pounding moments.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment