No one would have blamed incoming Bucks owners Wes Edens and Marc Lasry if they had made Tuesday night's draft lottery all about them. After all, when you pay $550 million for a basketball team, you're entitled to put your face on TV as much as you want.
But instead the Bucks' new owners made Tuesday night all about family--the Lasry and Edens families, as well as their new extended Bucks family that included members of the Bucks' front office, point guard Brandon Knight and 19-year-old talk-of-the-town Giannis Antetokounmpo.
While Edens watched from the audience with the rest of his family, 18-year-old daughter Mallory Edens rocketed into the nation's collective conscience as the Bucks' representative on stage (yes, there are now songs about her), instantly making Milwaukee a more appealing destination for the college-aged prospects the Bucks will now choose from. Mallory wore an old school Bango pin (excellent choice) as well as a Partners in Health pin for good luck, all while holding her own next to some old guy named Dr. J. Eat your heart out, Philly.
Still, the quote of the night had to go to Alex Lasry, Marc's son who was the Bucks' representative during the closed lottery drawing. A UPenn grad who previously worked at the White House, Alex had a strong incentive to survive the week: aside from his dad buying an NBA team, he's also about to graduate from NYU's Stern School of Business.
"When the first one came up and it was Cleveland, you knew it was shuffling a bit, so everyone's heart started racing. Finally, luckily we got off the board at number two, and I could calm down, breathe deeply and know my dad wasn't going to kill me in my sleep that night."
Lottery luck with a sense of humor? Yep, we're going to like these families.
Check out a bunch more lottery videos from Jim Paschke at the Bucks' official Youtube page, including reactions from John Hammond and David Morway below.
For the conspiracy theorists, here's video of the actual lottery process (8-6-11-1 were the Bucks' lucky numbers):