One of the unexpected joys of living in Southern California is that I’m constantly surrounded by people involved in sports. Everybody is located here, from coaches, athletes, players, trainers, to, well, you name it. For a sports nerd like me, living here is total nirvana; like giving a young musician an all-access pass to Coachella or something. You know, if the all-access pass was 24 hours a day, for 365 days a year.

Well, since I’ve gotten here, there has been this one guy that I’ve particularly enjoy hanging out with. I can’t give you his name, because unlike me he has a real job, with real responsibility and could get in real trouble if I ever put his name out in public (in the industry, I believe he’s what someone might call a “source.”). What I can tell you though is that the dude works at a major sports agency, with many major clients that you’ve definitely heard of. And the guy is plugged-in. He’s already told me a handful of epic stories that seemed to be too crazy to be true… until they were in fact proven true shortly after he shared them.

Anyway, he and I were grabbing beers and talking hoops one night when the topic of the Oklahoma City Thunder came up. Eventually Oklahoma City GM Sam Presti’s name arose and when it did, I will never forget the look on my buddy’s face. He stopped what he was doing, looked me square in the eye, got super-serious and said something to the effect:

“Dude, Sam Presti is a f***ing genius.

He’s got stuff planned out so far down the road you can’t even imagine.”

Those are some damn strong words, and I couldn’t help but think of them Saturday night after Presti made the boldest move of his career Saturday night, trading one of the league’s rising young stars in James Harden. More important than the player was the timing though, as it came just days before the Thunder were set to defend their Western Conference title.

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It was back in early May, when the idea for this article first came about. It came before the NBA playoffs had really gotten going, before the Miami Heat won the title and before Sunday’s Gold Medal basketball game. And interestingly, the whole idea, the whole concept of what is written below came courtesy of Kentucky basketball star Anthony Davis.

No, seriously.

At the time, Davis had just wrapped up what was unquestionably one of the greatest seasons in the history of college basketball. He led his team to a 37-2 record and a National Championship. He won every award imaginable, short of People’s “Sexiest Man Alive.” He was a shoe-in to be the No. 1 pick in the upcoming NBA Draft. And it was back in May when Davis also received his first real buzz as a candidate for the U.S. Olympic team.

That’s also where the idea for this article came from, and it came courtesy of a Twitter follower of mine. That follower asked me a simple question surrounding Davis, but one that made me think long and hard. The question: If Davis were to make the Olympic team and add a Gold Medal to all the hardware he’d already accumulated, couldn’t you make the case his 2012 season would be the best of any basketball player ever?

Wow, that’s a hell of a question, huh?

Interestingly, I couldn’t help but think of that conversation on Sunday morning, immediately following the United States’ 107-100 victory over Spain in the Gold Medal basketball game. This time though it had nothing to do with Davis (who, in his defense did nothing to disqualify himself from the argument) but instead everything to do with LeBron James. And after LeBron added gold to an already golden 2012 season that included an NBA MVP, NBA Finals MVP and his NBA title, the question had to be asked: Did LeBron James just submit the greatest basketball season of any individual player ever?

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When the news first broke late Thursday night that Dwight Howard had been traded to the Lakers, my initial reaction was a simple “Wow.” I was neither mad nor sad, upset or disinterested. I was simply wowed.

That’s right. Because after thinking about the possibility of Howard in purple and gold for two years and hearing never-ending rumors for the last two months, getting to the end of Dwight Howard’s “Indecision” was a lot like quitting a job that you absolutely hate: Yes, you’re thrilled that the whole ordeal is over, but in a weird way, you’re a little sad too. You start thinking things you never have before, like “Man, I’m going to miss Deb in accounting,” and “Wait, so I won’t be seeing Ric Bucher on Sportscenter at 3:45 in the morning? Damn, how am I going to fall asleep now?” That’s right, Howard is a Laker and now you’re back to a normal, Dwight-free news cycle. And admit it, you’re a little torn aren’t you? I know I am. Going to sleep without having to wade through 45 new Dwight rumors is going to be weird.

Now the trade is actually official, well, man, there are so many places to start. Why did the trade go down now? What were the Magic thinking? Does this make the Lakers the title favorites? And maybe most importantly…Yo, how freakin’ lucky are the Lakers!

I guess the best place to start is with that last one, and by saying that there is no other way to put it: This team is in fact lucky. Sure, they’re savvy yes, and seem to know how the game is played better than anyone in the league. Still, whenever you get Steve Nash and Dwight Howard in one off-season and all you give up are a couple lousy draft picks and Andrew Bynum (who is, in essence a worse version of Howard), there is really no other way to describe the whole scenario other than by using the word “luck.” Simply put, this entire Lakers off-season wasn’t just highway robbery; it was a crime so unspeakable that Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak should spend the next 15 years in prison. Can’t you just practically see Dan Gilbert typing out an angry e-mail in the dark as we speak?

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I’ll be the first to confess that if anything, I probably watch a little bit too much college basketball. While college football is the sport I write about the most, it was actually college hoops that was my first love. It wasn’t intentional, but instead the byproduct of who I am, and where I was born. When you happen to grow up in Connecticut, and UConn basketball is the biggest game in town, college hoops just happens to be in your DNA. Basically, I’m a prime example of one of Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers. Or something.

Anyway, while my love affair with college hoops does little to help my social life from November to April, it does come in handy right around draft time. While everyone else is scratching their heads, looking at Chad Ford’s 72nd mock draft, and cracking their first ever Anthony Davis unibrow joke, I’m well ahead of the curve. I’ve been watching these guys for six months now, and have strong opinions on just about all of them.

That’s also why I decided to do something nice today, and put together an “Idiot’s Guide to the 2012 NBA Draft.” I know that while I spent the winter watching hoops, a lot you chose to instead do other stuff, like go skiing, focus on your careers, or even… hang out with your families (blasphemy, I say).

Because of it, I’m here to help. Here is everything you need to know about tonight’s draft…

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As we get set for one of the most anticipated NBA Finals in decades, for Heat vs. Thunder, LeBron vs. KD, the 20-something’s taking over the league from the 30-something’s, ironically, it’s Wilt Chamberlain that I’m thinking about this morning. Yes, that Wilt Chamberlain. For a man best known for both his basketball prowess, and his ahem, social prowess too, Chamberlain was actually an incredibly well-educated, well-spoken and intelligent guy. And as we get set for Game 1 of the NBA Finals, I can’t help but think about one of Chamberlain’s most famous quotes as it pertains to the game today. The quote:

“Nobody ever rooted for Goliath.”

So simple, so to the point, so applicable even now in 2012, 50 years after Chamberlain first uttered the words.

Nobody ever rooted for Goliath.

And there certainly aren’t many folks rooting for 2012’s Goliath, the Miami Heat in the lead-up the NBA Finals. As a matter of fact, with Game 1 now hours away, I’m stunned at how much of the chatter surrounding Miami sounds almost exactly identical to what everyone has been saying about them for the last two years. You know the storylines, but in essence, they all boil down to some variation of the following: Nobody likes the Heat. Everybody hates LeBron. Miami has no heart. They’re not tough. LeBron is a choker. Wade is a whiner. Bosh is an ostrich (ok, so maybe I just threw that last one in there for good measure). The Thunder are more of a “team.” Oklahoma City is more likeable. Blah, blah, blah. At this point, it really is all white noise.

Last year things weren’t nearly this easy. The morning after the NBA Draft lottery order was selected, we got the answer to the question “Who’s drafting No. 1?” but unfortunately had to follow it up with an entirely different question completely: “What the heck are the Cleveland Cavaliers going to do with the pick?”

In hindsight it seems almost laughable to think that the answer was anything other than “Take Kyrie and run.” Only at the time, it wasn’t nearly so easy. The Kyrie in this case (Irving, of course) was coming off a major toe injury, had sat out most of his only season at Duke, and when he did return to action in time for Duke’s first NCAA Tournament game, looked pretty average. At this time last year, Irving appeared to be the best of a flawed group of players, no better or worse than the undersized Derrick Williams, the position-less Kemba Walker, Enes Kanter (who hadn’t played competitive basketball in a year), and a bunch of foreign guys no one had ever heard of. Granted, I personally liked Irving more than virtually everyone else, but to most other basketball experts, drafting him No. 1 overall was like grabbing a bag of bruised apples and trying to figure out which one was “best.” If they were all bruised, did it really matter which one you took?

But as we get back to 2012 and back to Wednesday night, once the ping pong balls stopped bouncing, the questions about the No. 1 pick became completely different than they were a year ago. None of them centered on who the No. 1 pick would be, but instead, what would happen when he got to the Crescent City. They all sounded a little something like this: What neighborhood would Anthony Davis live in? What dealership will he pick up his white Bentley at? Will he learn the saxophone in the offseason and join a jazz band? You know, all of life’s truly pressing issues.

All bad jokes aside, we do now know that unless truly absurd happens, Anthony Davis will be a New Orleans Hornet in a couple weeks. Mark it down in permanent ink. Chisel it into stone. Shave it into your eyebrow if you please. Behind the Harlem Globetrotters, Davis-to-New Orleans is the safest bet in sports right now.

So with that, the real question on the 2012 draft isn’t “Who’s No. 1” but instead, “Who’s No. 2?” While the NBA would tell you that the Hornets are on the clock, it’s really the Charlotte Bobcats who are up to bat, and if they don’t get a talent infusion ASAP, someone might have to bring in a priest to read them their last rights. The Bobcats are bad, really bad, but they’ve got a chance to change that. In the watered down East, the right selection could put them on the path towards the playoffs within a few years.

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Regardless of whom you listened to prior to Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals Monday night, all the experts pretty much had the same opinion on how things would go down. In essence, their “analysis” basically boiled down to this: “Yeah, the Celtics have no chance.” In Boston’s defense the overwhelming sentiment for the Heat prior to Game 1 had little to do with the actual Heat themselves, and more to do with ancillary stuff that was out of Boston’s control. Things like their age, the quick turnaround from Saturday night against Philly, and the brutal seven game series they just finished up less than 48 hours prior against the 76ers. Again, Boston’s underdog status entering Game 1 had little to do with their actual opponent.

Well, with the Heat winning 93-79 Monday night, the experts were both right and wrong with how Game 1 shook out. Sure they were “right,” because the younger, fresher, home-court advantaged Heat cruised to an easy victory, exactly like most had predicted. But what most of the experts got wrong was how the Heat won Game 1.

And it’s that how which was not only the story Monday night, but potentially of the series.

Because while the box score will tell you the game was a blowout, what the naked eye will tell you is that it was much closer. Sure Boston’s age was an issue and Miami’s youth prevailed, but if you actually plopped yourself on the couch Monday night and watched, what you’ll realize is that for a time the game was much closer than most expected. Boston used a big second quarter to tie things up at 46 right before the half, making us momentarily forget the pre-series storylines and wonder aloud, “wait, the Celtics can’t really win this game, can they?” Somewhere I’m sure Skip Bayless was foaming at the mouth just thinking about the possibility.

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Admittedly, I wasn’t paying particularly close attention to the early stages of Tuesday night’s Pacers-Heat Game 5. It was one of those nights where stuff kept popping up; e-mails that needed to answered, phone calls, unexpected paternity suit paperwork. Ok, maybe not that last one. But we all have “those” nights, and for me, Tuesday night was exactly that.

Again, I was only kinda, sorta watching, but when I looked up early in the second quarter and unexpectedly saw blood trickling down Dwyane Wade’s face, well, I wasn’t surprised. As a matter of fact, my first thought was “Here we go again.” From the first minute, of the first game of this series, the Pacers have been trying to play the role of tough guys and trying to physically intimidate the Heat at every turn. Some nights it’s worked and some nights it hasn’t, but the idea that Indiana was trying to be the bully again was like hearing Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are now “dating.” Frankly, it didn’t shock me in the least.

From that point on I started paying a bit closer attention, and it also didn’t surprise me when a few plays later, Udonis Halsem came down the court, and threw down an equally hard foul on Tyler Hansbrough, Wade’s assailant on the previously mentioned play. We’ll get to why I wasn’t surprised in a minute, but the fact remains, the play didn’t catch me off-guard at all.

What did surprise me however, was the reaction to Haslem’s foul.

Yes the foul was hard, and yes it was unnecessary, but the way that most people reacted, you’d have thought Haslem pulled a knife on Hansbrough and shanked him on the way to the foul line or something. At that exact moment, Twitter blew up, and everybody pretty much had the same reaction: Haslem needs to be ejected! He needs to be suspended! Send him to Riker’s Island and throw away the key!

On late Thursday afternoon, a small, yet kinda big news nugget hit the wires, when USA basketball announced that they had officially extended two new invitations to try out for this summer’s Olympic team. The first, James Harden, should surprise no one (well, unless you’re surprised that USA basketball would consider letting someone who looks like a Batman villain represent our country in London this summer). But the second guy? Well, that’s where it gets interesting, as it was announced that along with Harden, Anthony Davis would be trying out for the team as well.

In case you’re wondering, yes, we’re talking about that Anthony Davis. The one who was a no-name high school recruit at this time two years ago. The one who was just learning his first low-post move six months ago, in the same gawky way teenagers first learn to parallel park. The one with the world’s most famous uni-brow. That Anthony Davis.

That guy may be representing our country against the world’s best this summer. And you know what? I absolutely, positively love it.

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Incase you hadn’t heard, Dwight Howard is apparently ready to take his talents to Chicago. Or something. On Sunday, when asked about Chicago Bulls superstar Derrick Rose, Howard told the Chicago Tribune:

"If I could play with Derrick right now and God wanted that to happen, it will happen," Howard said. "It has nothing to do with me not wanting to play with Derrick Rose. I love him. That's my brother."

Now, taken in a vacuum, those comments aren’t all that bad. Howard didn’t intimate that he was desperate to play in Chicago, or even necessarily wanted to, per se. All he said was that if the opportunity presented itself, he’d love to play with Derrick Rose. Honestly, who wouldn’t?

Of course with Dwight Howard, the problem is that you can’t his comments in a vacuum, but instead have to line them up into context with everything else he’s said over the previous few months. And for those you who haven’t been paying attention, what’s he’s basically said are the following: That he’d love to play with the Celtics. Or the Lakers. Maybe even the Mavericks or Nets. Possibly even the Clippers or Knicks.

This would all be well and good of course, except, well, Howard plays for the Orlando Magic, and there’s a pretty good chance that he’ll continue to do so for another five months. And as long as he does, he seems set on continuing to make obnoxious comments like he did Sunday, and continue to fuel the most annoying story, that-isn’t-really-a-story in sports. That topic? Where will Dwight Howard end up at the end of this season?

That’s right, if you haven’t been paying attention, since the lockout ended, Chris Paul got traded and the season began, the Dwight Howard sweepstakes have taken center stage in NBA discussions. Where will he end up? Who will he play for? Is this his last season in Orlando? These talking points seem to literally lead every Sportscenter debate about the NBA, and could quite possibly blow up the sports talk radio medium as we know it.