Re-ranking the 2003 draft class the only way I know how...

The NBA draft is tonight, which hopefully can only mean one thing: the Stephen A. Smith Heckling Society of Gentlemen will be on the prowl. Oh, and both Djmmm and your humble author's basketball teams of choice will make potentially franchise-altering picks. So there's that. But let's focus on the bigger picture here. And that bigger picture is, of course, the tiny, tiny screen of YouTube. But more on that in a second. Let's go back to the draft...way back.

After all, hypothetically redoing the NBA draft has been column fodder since time immemorial. And those links just cover the 2003 draft, which admittedly has the advantage of probably being the most important draft of this decade, perhaps even until 2015 (especially if Jermaine O'Neal can step things up big time in Toronto and make Chris Bosh a legit contender).

So how's about we also redo the 2003 draft based on that most all-important of factors - acting ability. After all, what's the true measure of Michael Jordan's greatness: the six rings or his fearlessly homoerotic chemistry with Kevin Bacon in those Hanes commercials?



(Hint...it's not the rings.)

For simplicity's sake (and also because no one has yet seen fit to have Chris Kaman shill for their used car dealership, which is really humanity's loss), we'll just stick with the top five of the 2003 draft. Oh, and because I willfully break my own rules whenever I feel like it, I think I'll go from 5 to 1. And why not?

#5 Carmelo Anthony



Carmelo takes a risk from the start by rejecting W.C. Fields's legendary advice: "Never drink water - fish fuck in it!" No, sorry, I mean, "Never work with children or animals." (And that one kid's buck tooth has to count as it own organism, so those are your animals.) Unfortunately, the definitive riff on little children picking professional athletes happened way back in The Simpsons classic "Homer at the Bat", anchored by the comedic genius of Wade Boggs.

I think I'm getting off-point. What my point is, I believe, is that Carmelo is merely adequate here, brings very little emotionality, and appears somewhat torn between playing it like an overgrown man-child or a "stop snitchin'!" hardass. Which is weird, because I believe he already is a combination of those two things in real life. So yeah, fifth it is.

#4 Dwyane Wade



Nothing wrong with the line reads here, but come on...this clip is pretty much all Sir Charles. All that Dwyane does is react and let the comedy happen around him, adding very little humor of his own. Which might admittedly make him suitable for the lead on Scrubs - hell, he'd almost certainly be a huge upgrade over the comedy black hole that is Zach Braff - but it can't really earn him higher than fourth in this insanely pointless (not to mention pointlessly insane) redraft I'm doing. Come on, let's see some passion!

#3 Darko Milicic



Ah, much better. Sure, some of you might cry foul here, claiming since that was, you know, real, that shouldn't count as proof of his acting prowess. Well, allow me to retort...

I am gonna come back and fuck your mothers to all of them. That is my massage to you. Pussies!

Seriously folks, the dude's a natural. (Even if he did, in the heat of the moment, somehow mix up "poruka", the Serbian word for "message", with "masaza", or "massage." Weird you'd mix up such different words, but I'm sure that can be coached so that, in time, it isn't a gigantic liability. Much like all other aspects of his game.)

Look, even if you won't grant me the obvious fact that he's the long-awaited heir to Al Pacino, you've got to admit his improv would put even mid-period Will Ferrell to shame...

I am gonna fuck their mother in her mouth!

[Swigs what I can only hope is Gatorade.]

I’m gonna fuck them all & if he has a daughter I’m gonna fuck her too!

That's just brilliant. I especially liked the part where he switched from singular to plural. That sort of thing just never occurs to me. Probably why I'm still toiling in the blog trenches.

#2 LeBron James



Sure, I could have gone with the timeless elegance of The LeBrons, but you know what? I just can't get over how legitimately good his acting is here. Not sure how huge his range is (although The LeBrons clearly showed him capable of such diverse emotions as "old" and "asshole"), but if nothing else, LeBron has got the part of "slick lawyer" down motherfucking pat. Can we get him a guest spot on Boston Legal? The thought of him arguing a case against a gleefully insane William Shatner and/or idealistically sleazy James Spader might just make for the most unbelievable television in recorded history.

#1 Chris Bosh



Hey, you guys remember Dr. Strangelove, where Peter Sellers played three different roles? Yeah...fuck that shit, because Chris Bosh just blew that dead British prick (at least if certain Geoffrey Rush TV movies are to be believed) out of the water.

Let me ask you this - did Peter Sellers ever put a basketball underneath his shirt to make himself look fat? No? I rest my case.