Add Category
Updated
"With the first pick in the 2017 NBA draft, the Philadelphia 76ers pick Markelle Fultz from the University of Washington."
As those words ring out in the Sports Illustrated newsroom, there is a sense of vindication.
If you think there is an unhealthy obsession with the AFL draft, think again. The NBA draft is in another league altogether.
The Barclays Center in Brooklyn is packed for the event. All the top prospects are there — loud suits and bow ties are in.
Payday for these 18-year-olds will be about $5 million in their first year.
The editor of SI.com, Ryan Hunt, says it is the biggest news day of the NBA season.
It's all about the future.
"For every fan there's hope. This is about belief that this is the player that's going turn our franchise into a championship team," Hunt says.
It's bigger even than the NBA finals.
"There's only two teams in the NBA finals [but] everybody is a part of tonight, so every fan has a vested interest in that. This is where it turns around," he says.
Sports Illustrated's analysis and vibe an advantage
Sports Illustrated has morphed from a magazine into a fully digital news organisation complete with four TV studios.
The site has been preparing mock drafts since January. On draft day, they are up to version 11.
"There's an insatiable hunger for mock drafts," says the site's NBA editor, Matt Dollinger.
All day they have been posting rumours on the site, updating stories, getting the latest information.
The site has 40 stories ready to roll as well as graphics such as a picture of Fultz mocked up in a Philadelphia 76ers uniform.
Maggie Gray, the presenter of the site's daily TV show, SI Now, has prepared her notes on manila folders for a special five-hour show tonight.
It looks like a crazy scrawl, but on closer examination it is a breakdown of all the teams, their picks and the likely players they'll take.
ESPN is broadcasting the draft on TV, but Hunt thinks Sports Illustrated has an advantage.
"It's the analysis, it's the vibe, it's a little bit looser than what you'll see on television — we're not trying to replicate what they're doing. We don't have commercials," he says.
"There's one thing I'll say," adds Gray, "which is even if we don't have the production of a 24-hour news network, I'll put our people up against anyone's people."
"We have a lot of boots-on-the-ground people too, and they have relationships with the people we're talking about."
The TV show is loose; it's relaxed — casual clothes instead of suits; wrinkles instead of pressed seams.
This is a website after all. In a room upstairs SI.com producers, writers and editors are sitting around a table.
Each of the nine 20-somethings has a laptop; there is more pizza than you can imagine.
'The draft is more fun than the play-offs'
The mood ahead of one of the biggest events of the year is jokey and relaxed.
They are discussing the numbers of people on the site, what they should tweet, what meme they should put out.
"The draft is so much more fun than the play-offs," Dollinger says.
"You've only got two teams in the play-offs but you've got all thirty teams in the draft."
For the first time in months, the site's draft tracker is rising, but Hunt is worried that it is not showing up on searches.
7:30pm rolls around and Philadelphia gets its man. Straight away the site has posted its analysis piece.
With pick two, the LA Lakers take Lonzo Ball. Jayson Tatum goes to the Boston Celtics with pick three.
Ryan Hunt spins his laptop around and shows me the graphic of the top three picks in their new team's uniform. It's ready to go online.
"The tracker's working well," Dollinger says.
Hunt responds: "Yeah, I just adjusted the SEO head to see if we can get some pop in there."
SEO head? Search engine optimisation headline.
Tailoring headlines and predicting search terms are the new dark arts of the internet.
Websites have teams trying to crack the Google algorithm so their story will be the top item on a search.
Dollinger is flicking between tweets and Sports Illustrated's TV program.
"I think we have the best draft show, I really do," he shouts out to the room.
"Should I change the headline?" "What's the CBS tracker saying?" "Jake got a name wrong in the crossover tweet."
The pizza boxes are building up. The picks are falling into place. The tweets are coming and going. Cookies arrive. The show goes on. It's going to be a long night.
Topics: sport, journalism, internet-culture, basketball, united-states
First posted