It would be a monumental error of judgement if the first thing I did was anything other than thank Bill Kozdron at Luckyfish Media for all of his hard work and creativity in first, getting the site off of the ground, and second, designing a wonderful blog site.

My name is Michael Randall, my friends call me Mike, or Randall and I have a love for the NBA. I am, at the heart of things, a Detroit Pistons fan for better or for worse. Through the ups of the NFZ Pistons of 2004 and the downs of the Soft Teal years; I always root for my team and loathe their mortal rivals (Chicago and the Lakers). In the late 1980’s I watched my first basketball game, which ended in Larry Bird stealing an in-bounds pass that never should have been thrown and passing it behind his head in one excruciating motion to Dennis Johnson for a game winning layup. The next year I watched my first full playoff series where, through the magic of television, I witnessed the greatest small player in the history of the NBA score 25 points in the third quarter of game six on a near-broken ankle. The result of that game (and series) still torments me beyond any rational comprehension. The next year Hoops released its first set of basketball cards and thanks to a friend giving me a Mark Aguirre card and later a James Edwards one, I was hooked.

The cards opened me up to a bevy of information such as stats and of course: draft position. I found the correlation, or in some cases the lack of one, between draft position and on-court performance interesting. I also wondered how some teams came to be so much better than others on such a consistant basis. I started to learn about how trades and poor drafting can affect a team’s fortunes not only in a given year but over time. The research that has gone into this website has been a hobby of mine since high school and the site itself (formerly NBA Draft Etc.) has undergone many different aesthetic changes over the years. One thing that I have realized along the way is that in order to accomplish a project as large as this there are two things that someone needs a great deal of: 1.) a passion for the NBA, 2.) a lot of time. While time is always at a premium, I have not had any loss of passion for The Association.

For the last 22 years I have scouted each draft, ranked my own prospects, conducted my own mock drafts, researched past trades (bought the last 25 years of Sporting News NBA Registers), researched player salaries and contract information (nod to Patricia Bender), educated myself on the rules of collective bargaining agreement as they pertain to free agency and the draft (thanks has to be given to the one-of-a-kind Larry Coon), and enjoyed the game that I love, nearly everyday single day.

Along the way I have fashioned my own philosophy on how to build a team and the types of players you should look for. Among other things, I firmly believe that you should always take the best player available, that a player’s position is determined by who he can guard, and that moves made in desperation only breed more desperation (Grant Long and Stacey Augmon…).

My goal for this site is that I can compile all of the information out there into an aesthetically pleasing place so that people can use and peruse it as they fit. I want to be able to document the past so that it can be applied to predict and understand the future. I think of it as its own science: draft-ology. As I complete this undertaking I will write articles on the current state of the league that I hope you find to be entertaining and enlightening, as well as informative. So finally, I hope that you enjoy what is here and please feel free to contact me if you share my passion.

Thanks for looking at the site,
Michael Randall
mikerandall33@yahoo.com

PS. On a personal note, if you happen to be Joe Dumars or another NBA front office executive and you find yourself feeling overwhelmed or undermanned, or if you just want another resource in your office. I am the guy you are looking for – you won’t be sorry.