Draftee Already Acting Like a Grizzled Veteran

Maryland guard Steve Francis had just realized nearly every college basketball player’s dream when he was selected No. 2 in the NBA draft.

But he was picked by Vancouver, and he was treating it as a nightmare.

“As soon as I can take it off, I will,” he said of a Grizzlies’ cap he was wearing. “Hopefully, when I wake up tomorrow, I’ll be happy.”

Francis wanted several things he didn’t get, among them being chosen No. 1 by the Bulls.

Chicago “took a big gamble not picking me,” he said, adding, “no doubt” he would show the Bulls their mistake by being the NBA’s rookie of the year.

Later, he had calmed slightly.

“I’m just thankful for the opportunity to be drafted and to play basketball for the rest of my life,” he said, which presumably sent shivers through any company wanting to insure him.

How did the Clippers miss this guy?

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Trivia time: Who hit the longest golf shot ever?

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Oh, that’s how: Baron Davis was wondering how he came to be drafted by the Hornets, and Charlotte Observer writer Tom Sorensen was happy to answer the question.

“Charlotte is a safe city,” he wrote. “It does not take unnecessary risks. I tell you, buddy, you aren’t going to see a lot of green hair here. Point us in the right direction and we’ll make the proper and prudent decision, and we’ll make it every time.

“The Charlotte Hornets . . . could have taken Lamar Odom, the talented and disturbed forward from Rhode Island. But that would not have been safe, and that would not have been Charlotte.”

No, that would have been the Clippers.

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Entry-level salary: According to the NBA’s rookie scale, Davis will be paid

$2.26 million for his first season, $2.43 million for his second and $2.599 million for his third, presumably enough so he won’t need to buy a car from his coach.

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Perspective: In the Dallas Morning News, Blackie Sherrod offers, “Next time you study Inverted Economics, consider all the hullabaloo over Dallas school board hiring Bill Rojas at $260,000. Then recognize, as the nation’s highest-paid superintendent, he still draws less than an average backup point guard in the NBA.”

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Not impressed: Geoff Calkins of the Memphis Commercial Appeal figures the new bowl championship series formula that still doesn’t include a playoff system is outdated before it begins.

“Any day now, Roy Kramer will announce that he’s built a better typewriter,” Calkins wrote. “After that, he’s going to start to work on a faster and more efficient steamboat. And then, well, a spiffier eight-track tape player.”

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Not so maniacal: Tiger Woods offers that “Tigermania is not as high as it was [after he won the Masters]. Definitely not as high as the Byron Nelson in ’97 [when he won his first tournament after the Masters]. I think that’s the crescendo. I don’t think it will ever be as high as that.”

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A frilly what? Sue Mott, sports columnist of the Daily Telegraph in London, writes of equal pay for women at Wimbledon: “You cannot have men running around with the idea that we think we’re worth less at anything. Give them room to infest their egos with women’s submissiveness, and they will all have us back to the ironing board in a frilly pinny in no time.”

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Trivia answer: In 1971, Apollo 14 astronaut Alan Shepard addressed a ball on the moon and launched his six-iron “miles and miles,” he said, alas, dumping the shot into the Sea of Tranquility.

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And finally: PGA Senior Tour rookie Allen Doyle, he of the slap-shot swing that has earned him three wins and $1,062,831 in his first year, told Don Markus of the Baltimore Sun, “There was never a guy I went to the first tee with who didn’t think he could beat me.”