OT - Raffle for Darko 2004 Ring, Belt, etc.
I must get some of these tickets, it's for a good cause, maybe you need to try too.
Rumor has it that LBJ has bought the most tickets.
http://www.celebritiesforcharity.org/raffle/Darkos-2004-Detroit-Pistons-NBA-Championship-Ring-Raffle
I thought he was doing it pryor style when I read your post title....
Who knew former (and deceased) President Lyndon Johnson cared so much about the NBA. I just assumed that his one true passion was a nice fitting pair of pants:
I guess it's cool that he's raising money for charity, but it's sad that he doesn't mind giving these away. I hope he doesn't regret it.
Any time I see stuff like championship rings getting auctioned off, it always elicits at least a mild "yikes..." from me. Agreed, here's hoping he knows what he's doing.
Totally different circumstances, but it reminded me of the story about The Fridge Perry getting his ring back.
My guess is that he wants to distance himself as much as possible from those Pistons teams under Larry Brown, even if it costs him a ring. And it is for a charity, so at least he isn't hawking it to pay off his mortgage on a yacht or something.
Interesting fact - Darko has been in the league for 7 years and is only 25(!). Jimmer Fredette is going to be nearly 23 by the time he plays a game in the NBA, and that blows my mind.
He certainly didn't earn any of the stuff...
I'm pretty sure he went to all the games, practices, meetings etc. for nine months, just like everyone else on the team. It's not his fault he didn't get much playing time. The Pistons had a logjam in the frontcourt and Larry Brown likes to make rookies pay their dues, anyway.
Its entirely possible that that ring, belt, etc are nothing more than reminders of a really bad time for Darko. Getting rid of them could be cathartic. I personally have some memorabillia along some very similar lines and have thought about pawning it for years. While most people would jump at the chance to have something like this, if its a reminder of a bad time and disrespect, then there's nothing to regret by getting rid of it.
And then Darko will fuck your mother.
That was either Joe's most arrogant or dumbest move. I can't figure out which. Maybe both.
at that time, almost every GM would have made that selection. A 7 ft post with game. That second part wasn't as much true, and hence the decline of drafting europeans in the lottery
.....but yeah, the way the draft lined up that year and the way certain players were hyped or, indeed, no hyped, Darko was a pretty sensible selection at the time. The funny thing about drafts is what Darko turned out to be....you don't know. We can sit here now and say Anthony or Bosch would be the no-brainer pick, but you don't know this at the time. So, Nate, hindsight is 20/20, right?
I just can't stand it when people say, years later, that Player X should have never been drafted, and it might be true given what we know now, but seriously people, don't attribute clairvoyance to talent scouts.
Yes hindsight is 20/20 but the day of that draft my thought wasn't that it was a sensible pick but that it was a high risk / high reward pick, and most of those don't yeuild the reward.
I had thought Anthony would be the pick, and I'm not convinced Bosh is all that great even to this day. Best thought I could come up with that day was, "I hope Joe Dumars knows something I don't, he should after all." I'm certainly know expert but I preferred the known Anthony whom we could see had talent vs the unknown skethcy highlight reel of Darko.
Also, all we really gave up to get that pick was Otis Thorpe, then we had to wait a few years as the picks each year were high enough to be protected. In this draff only the #1 pick was protected that would have had us wait 1 more year, so there was no way the Pistons could get Lebron. So the high risk really, we didn't have much on the line that we paid for that chance and that balanced out the risk some.