Sometimes, this sport sucks

Tatum's injury, Giannis, and the lottery made for a bleak day (unless you're a Mavs fan)

5/12/25 will go down as a dark day in NBA history.

I’m not a particularly reactionary writer. I’m not anyone’s primary source of basketball news, so I don’t usually write quick-hit opinion pieces. But sometimes, the sport’s cruelty forces my metaphorical pen in a different direction than I prefer.

A trio of basketball tragedies happened on Monday.

The lightest — but no less consequential — belongs to the half-dozen or so teams that desperately needed to win the lottery but lost. 29 franchises don’t draft #1 each season, but this year’s lottery was especially capricious. The reviled Nico Harrison and his Dallas Mavericks somehow snagged a dance with Lady Luck last night, earning the rights to Cooper Flagg despite a 1.8% chance of doing so.

Imagine being a Wizards fan and enduring 82 games of rookie-driven madness only to end up with the sixth pick, the lowest possible. At least Washington had the second selection last season; the Jazz were even worse this year, have fewer interesting young prospects, and earned just the fifth slot in the coming draft. The Brooklyn Nets, who have just a handful of players likely to be on an NBA roster in two years, will pick eighth!

Of course, I’m excited for Mavs fans, who didn’t deserve the Luka trade (or subsequent Kyrie Irving ACL tear). Selfishly, I also love Nico Harrison; my Luka Doncic trade piece was Basketball Poetry’s biggest moneymaker of the year. Chaos is good for business, and fittingly, Harrison is its biggest agent. Give him all the luck in the world so I can profit when he next squanders it.

But happiness in the NBA is a negative-sum game: one team’s pleasure is always multiple other teams’ pain. I’m sure this draft will have other studs besides Flagg, but right now, he’s the only consensus surefire star. Nearly a dozen other franchises’ fans (not you, Philly and San Antonio) feel something between disappointment and clothes-rending rage at the universe’s callousness.

The second tragedy was of a completely different breed. Giannis Antetokounmpo all but announced that he will not be a Milwaukee Buck next season via Shams. That’s a gut punch for Bucks fans. Antetokounmpo has been the ultimate ambassador for the city and brought them a hard-earned championship. That banner hangs forever, and all the moves required to get it were worth it.

Unfortunately for Milwaukee, the new collective bargaining agreement has made it nearly impossible for teams to keep their title contention window open for longer than a few seasons (and, to be fair, the Bucks have done themselves few favors). Damian Lillard tearing his Achilles in Round 1 of the playoffs doomed whatever faint hopes they had of shocking the world this season.

Eventually, the reaper comes for every would-be contender; at least the Bucks actually have a title to show for it. Milwaukee has strip-mined its team of draft picks, young prospects, and really, NBA players of any caliber; it makes sense for the organization and Antetokounmpo to part ways. They need restarting, and he needs refreshing.

That won’t make the inevitable departure any easier for Milwaukee denizens! Giannis has stayed loyal to the Bucks despite amorous, borderline pornographic advances from every big market in the league — that’s rare, and makes his impending parting an even bigger bummer.

But the least predictable and saddest event of the day happened in New York.

The Knicks were on their way to a monumental win, ready to go up 3-1 against the dreaded Boston Celtics. Then, Jayson Tatum, playing a tremendous game, went down with a non-contact injury with three minutes left in the fourth. I’m not a doctor, but it sure looked like another Achilles tear.

I feel terrible for Tatum, the Celtics, and their fans. On-court quirks aside, Tatum has always been a stand-up citizen for the league. Few superstars have comported themselves as well. I hope his recovery is swift and complete.

The ripples will breach the continent’s shores. The Celtics were already facing a massive offseason of uncertainty, and a loss in the second round would have likely meant major changes to avoid a luxury bill literally the size of the Marshall Islands’ GDP. New ownership takes the wheel in the summer; keeping this core together or breaking it up would’ve been their first test.

If Tatum has an Achilles injury, he’ll almost certainly miss all next season. As presently constructed, Boston will be good without him, but not great. Given their staggering luxury costs, at least one and likely several big moves await the team.

I’d certainly be morbidly interested in how Jaylen Brown looks as the season-long alpha dog, among other things. But Tatum is a fresh 27. The Celtics theoretically could use this as a gap year to jumpstart the next championship-level squad to put around him when he returns. That might even be the prudent thing to do. Besides Tatum, most of Boston’s core pieces will have aged out of their prime by the 2026-27 season.

But that’s a conversation for a different (albeit fast-approaching) day. Right now, all NBA fans should be dejected to lose a top-five player squarely in his prime for at least a year — and who knows what he looks like when he comes back?

An Achilles tear is the most devastating injury in basketball. I don’t want to gloss over the Bucks’ Lillard here — about to turn 35 and facing a roughly 18-month recovery period, it’s hard to imagine he comes back as much of an impact player. I hate seeing a Hall of Famer go out like this. Tatum, at least, has the capacity for a full recovery — but it’ll be a while before it comes to fruition.

Sport lovers know there can be no joy without despair, the night is always darkest before the dawn, etc. Sometimes, things suck. It’s part and parcel of the game. But right now, there are too many fans of too many teams feeling sad, and there’s no real solution but time. Here’s to brighter days ahead.