You Wanted To Go To The NBA Draft?

If you wanted to get tickets for tonight's NBA Draft at the WAMU Theater at Madison Square Garden - all you had to do was go to the box office and pick up tickets when they went on sale at 11am this morning for the tiny fee of $15. Sounds great, right? Oh, I forgot the part where you had to get in line before 7am or you would miss the sale. During the morning, as the crowd of several thousand die hard NBA fans strung out into a long line halfway around the entire block that MSG covers in a light drizzle, most had no idea that they would be spending 3-4 hours waiting patiently for the right to walk away empty handed.



It was much like being outside at a college stadium before a big game, at first just a smattering of die hards (the line started at 1am!) wearing jerseys and face paint and trying to stay awake. Slowly the line continued to stretch out, a collage of every possible NBA jersey and hat and chants and shouts as various fanbases began to eagerly talk about their favorite players in the draft and their merits. General consensuses were hard to find, outside of the widely held belief that Brook Lopez is going to be a stiff and a huge bust. I didn't hear from a single person who would have been happy to have their team pick him.

Unfortunately for the vast majority of that line, they were going to be shutout of tickets. Michael Beasley's aunt and uncle up from DC? They were hoping selfishly that the Wizards would end up picking him, and they were left at the front of the line when tickets ran out. I met a father and son who had traveled all the way from Portland to watch their Trailblazers pick a key piece or two in what could be a championship roster soon ... and after several hours of standing on the pavement they too had to make alternate plans - "maybe we'll watch it at the ESPN Zone".



Zach, James, Andrew and Jake hopped on the LIRR early this morning and trekked in from Long Island hoping to get tickets and cheer for O.J Mayo to slip to #6 (or for the Knicks to trade up and select him). They spent over 4 hours in line and ended up frozen out as well - though they took the news much better than most.



From what I saw this morning, the NBA Draft is far too popular with the fans to continue to be held at such a tiny facility as the WAMU Theater at MSG. The NFL Draft is now held at the much larger Radio City Music Hall and has a terrific fan turnout, and the NBA should look into doing something similar. The MSG staff wasn't prepared for such a large line to form as early as it did, and the security staff were often quite rude to the fans in line. The people out today were the truly hardcore NBA fans, and many felt disappointed and jerked around when it ended. That's never good PR policy.