Intangibles come with sense of deja vu

By GREGORY HARDY - Sports Guesspert

IF THE NFL draft is a highly anticipated chess tournament featuring a room full of Grand Masters, the NBA draft is a Rubik’s Cube contest at an elementary school picnic.

You can imagine a handful of youngsters being able to solve the puzzle with ease; everyone else will be bumblin’ and fumblin’, and generally acting clueless.

College freshmen dominated this year’s opening NBA draft choices. After that, can anyone say that a team got someone who will help in the short-term?

Can anyone say for certain that these kids know that the orange bouncy ball is supposed to go through that hoop with the net on it?

Here are some of the descriptions of potential first-round draft choices that appeared in Thursday’s editions of The State: “Needs to mature as a player and a person” ... “forward is a serviceable low-post presence” ... “is not ready right now, but after another year or two playing professionally overseas, he could be a contributor” ... “stock has sunk because of his work ethic” ... “could emerge as he learns” ... “a project, but he has potential” ...

In the NFL draft, these are the words we hear about players pegged for the fifth or sixth round. In the NBA, this is what’s left after the top half-dozen picks.

Here is one of the mid-first-round prospects where something nice could be said: “A great pick because of his shooting ability, defensive mentality and the intangibles he can add.”

Ah, there’s that word — “intangibles.”

In the NFL, the reason you pick the Colts to win a playoff game is because “Peyton Manning has all the intangibles.” By that, we mean a demonstrated track record of achievement.

In the NBA, management says a draft pick has “intangibles” because it doesn’t want to be embarrassed into conceding that they’ll be lucky to get four minutes a night off the bench from the guy.

It reminds me of when Elaine Benes tried to get a “New Yorker” editor to admit their cartoons make no sense:

Elaine: “Why is it that the animals enjoy reading the e-mail?”

Mr. Elinoff: “Well, Miss Benes, cartoons are like gossamer, and one doesn’t dissect gossamer.”

Elaine: “Well, you don’t have to dissect if you can just tell me.”

In the NFL, intangibles are used to describe the teams chasing the gold standard, not the ones chasing gossamer. In the NBA, gossamer is something their draft picks just stepped in.

He’s a winner. Congratulations to Fresno State’s baseball team, the nobody-had-them-to-win-it-all winners of the 2008 College World Series in Omaha, Neb.

Well, almost nobody had them winning it all. My brother Nick, who lives in Omaha, went on the record in last week’s Guesspert column that Fresno State would get things done. Man, he’s such a good gambler, I’m sure he’ll be able to afford to buy me steaks next time I’m out that way.

Unless I lose a future bet and have to pick up the tab.

Next week. July 5 is the two-year anniversary of The Guesspert Blog! My evil twin brother Orville says everyone should light off lots of fireworks the night before to celebrate.

ORVILLE’S LAST WORD

“Tonight, SNL will show its debut episode; George Carlin was the host. His first routine is ‘Football-Baseball.’

I can almost hear him say, ‘Baseball has intangibles! There’s a mystique you can’t quite put your finger on! ... Football has a 10-yard penalty for holding.’” Should a robotic pitching arm be planted in the middle of the infield of the new USC baseball stadium? Discuss the merits of the idea at the Guesspert blog. Go to the thestate.com/guesspert for more such notions.

“Hardy Vision” appears every week on CBSSports.com’s SPiN on Sports.