Heading into tonight's NBA draft, Kansas forward Drew Gooden has simple goals. He wants only to get one of those snazzy caps from the team that selects him, then move on to shake hands with commissioner David Stern in the now-standard photo op.
If recent history is any indication, the cap Gooden puts on may not be the cap he keeps, because picks get swapped on draft nights like trading cards.
"It's kind of up in the air, because you've got trades," said Connecticut forward Caron Butler. "If anybody told you they would take you right now, they'd be lying, because so many things can happen on draft night. You've just got to wait and see. You won't know until the minute your name is called."
Time was when NBA teams held onto their selections like mama bears to their cubs, but in each of the past seven drafts, a first-round choice has been dealt on draft night.
The deals take place for a variety of reasons. Sometimes, a team will deal to acquire the rights to a player it covets at a particular slot in the draft. Sometimes, a team doesn't like what's on the table in its draft spot and wants to cut its losses while still getting value for its pick.
Perhaps the biggest reason for the trading of draft choices is because veteran players are so tough to deal, thanks to the salary cap, which requires that trades include salaries that match within 85 percent.
"You talk to people and they talk to you," said Washington Wizards coach Doug Collins, who was coaching the Chicago Bulls when they dealt the rights to Olden Polynice to the Seattle SuperSonics for the rights to Scottie Pippen on draft night 1987. "People want to change their teams, but it is so hard to do, to match money so that people get what they want, so that it meets within the salary cap, so that both teams are happy with what they get in return. It is so hard to make a deal today."
Whatever the reason, it pays for both the seller and the buyer to bring a shopping list, so long as it's written in pencil, not ink.
"You have to be flexible, but it's a Catch-22," said New Jersey Nets president Rod Thorn. "You're flexible, but you have to put a value on what you would like to get. Maybe it's a starter and a pick, or maybe it's a player that you think can play in your rotation and a pick. Particularly high draft choices are very valuable, so you don't want to just give them away."
Thorn, who drafted Michael Jordan for the Bulls before becoming the NBA's deputy commissioner, engineered one of the bigger draft-night deals last year, selecting Seton Hall forward Eddie Griffin with the seventh overall pick, then trading him to the Houston Rockets for three first-round choices.
Though the last of those picks, former Pepperdine guard Brandon Armstrong, played sparingly this season, Stanford center Jason Collins and Arizona forward Richard Jefferson were important contributors to the Nets' first appearance in the NBA Finals.
Thorn said he started talking with the Rockets and the Boston Celtics, who also had three first-round picks last year, a week before the draft. The Celtics dropped out of the bidding, leaving the Rockets and Nets to deal, provided Houston was willing to part with all three picks.
"We wanted to get three picks if possible," Thorn said. "Houston would have made the deal with two picks. Would we have made the deal with two picks? I don't know. We would have just taken a player if that was the case."
The Rockets are in a different position this year, possessing the first overall pick, which is likely to be turned into center Yao Ming, the 7-foot-5 Chinese national who comes with a significant number of strings attached, but has the size that NBA general managers covet.
The Bulls are expected to take Duke point guard Jay Williams with the second pick, leaving his Blue Devils teammate, forward Mike Dunleavy, to go to the Golden State Warriors with the third pick.
From there, the draft is a crapshoot, with the Memphis Grizzlies reportedly considering several players, including Gooden, Butler and Memphis guard Dajuan Wagner, or a trade to the Los Angeles Clippers for the eighth and 12th picks.
The Denver Nuggets are thought to be pondering taking 7-0 forward Nikoloz Tskitishvili, a native of the former Soviet republic of Georgia, who did not start for his Italian team but could be an eventual replacement for power forward Antonio McDyess, who was traded to the Denver Nuggets from the Clippers on draft night 1995.
Locally, the prognosis for four Maryland players available in the draft is mixed. Sophomore forward Chris Wilcox is expected to be taken midway through the lottery, going perhaps as high as sixth to the Cleveland Cavaliers or seventh to the New York Knicks. Guard Juan Dixon has reportedly worked out well enough to be chosen somewhere in the second half of the first round. Center Lonny Baxter, a probable NBA forward, and forward Byron Mouton, who would likely play guard in the pros, are believed to be late second-round picks at best.
NBA draft
When: Tonight
Time: 7:30
Where: New York
TV: TNTInside Wizards deal Alexander for 17th pick. [Page 10D]
Kent's mock draft. [Page 10D]