Essential tips to prepare for the lottery

Where: NBA Entertainment Studios, Secaucus, New Jersey
When: 7:30 CST
Where to see it: ESPN

Tonight that whole lottery thing happens. We finally can quit speculating about if we pick here or if we land there. It will be nice to stop wondering. It all just comes down to those 119 lottery balls and where they land. It’s really all out of our hands now.

Or is it?

You’re probably asking yourself, “But Royce, what can I do to help?” Well here, let me give you some essential things to do today in preparation for tonight’s lottery.

• Buy a custom Thunder No. 23 jersey with GRIFFIN on the back right now. Make sure it’s non-refundable. And one of the $250 kinds. Go big or go home.

• Urge Sam Presti to make a promise to sign Taylor Griffin. Blake only plays with Taylor. Everybody knows that.

• Ask Gary England to make it thunder today.

• Play ESPN’s lottery generator until Oklahoma City gets the top pick 23 times.

• Like Silas in the Da Vinci code, put yourself through Blake’s transgressions: take a shot to the nards, get tripped while running, take a phantom elbow and get a concussion, hit your face on the backboard (ladder/trampoline may be required), get judo-flipped onto your back and make your nose bleed every 15 minutes.

• Promise your husband or wife that you’re naming your first born (or next child) Blake – boy… or girl.

• If you’re already done having children, legally change the name of your first born to Blake. Or just have another one. Whatever’s easiest.

• Make outlandish, over-the-top statements about what you’ll do if OKC lands the top pick. If we get the No. 1 pick, I’ll sleep on broken lightbulbs for a year. Or,  if we get the No. 1 pick, I’ll let someone shoot me in the chest with one of those police bean bag guns. Or, if we get the No. 1 pick, I’ll swim across Lake Hefner… naked. Or, if we get the No. 1 pick, I’ll personally pay Blake’s salary. You get the idea.

• Make out with a picture of Blake. Like MAKE OUT with it.

• Don’t let any “Hey, maybe I’d be OK with getting the No. 2 pick anyway” thoughts creep into your head. I know. I’ve been fighting them too. There’s just something about that Rubio guy that is so dang likable. (But I will take number two David. It’s better than six.)

• Watch the following video 119 times.

• Send a letter to your congressman. I have no idea what that does, but everyone always says to do it when you want something.

• Come up with three totally awesome nicknames for Blake that only work with Oklahoma City or Thunder.

• Remind David Stern about how Blake Griffin is, you know, from here and all. And how that will be good for the league. And how much money that could make the league. And also about that Tyson Chandler deal that we gave back to help NOLA save face. Yeah, remind him about all that.

• Promise to hurt yourself badly if Oklahoma City doesn’t get the No. 1 pick.

• Promise not to cry, NO MATTER WHAT.

• Create a player named “B. Griffin” on NBA 2K9 and put him on the Thunder. See what I did there?

• Ask Randy Roper to sprinkle some holy water on our 119 lottery balls.

Most importantly, mentally prepare yourself for the fourth pick. Convince yourself that it’s probably better to get the fourth slot than the first anyway. Because that’s what’s going to happen. So just get ready for it. Just spend the rest of the afternoon getting ready for disappointment. It should make the let down a little more gentle. I know that’s what I’m doing. I just picked up a THABEET No. 34 Thunder jersey today. Non-refundable too.