A locked room, 14 NBA reps and ping-pong balls galore: Just an annual day for Rockets' Clay Allen
Clay Allen, the Rockets general counsel, will be the team's designated observer in the NBA draft lottery drawing room.For nearly an hour on May 16, Clay Allen will hold much of the future of the Rockets in his hands. He will have done nothing to put it there. He will be able to tell no one.
After each team’s representative, lawyers from the NBA legal department, league staff members and eight media representatives surrender their laptops, tablets, cellphones and smart watches and then pass through metal detectors just to make sure they've done so, Allen will sit in the front row, second from the right, and watch.
“It’s nerve-wracking, even though I can’t really do anything to affect the outcome,” Allen said. “The entire day is anxiety and nerves, from traveling up to Chicago to sitting in the room with the weight of the team sitting on my shoulders. The last couple years, just hearing the Rockets name announced for one of the top three draft picks relieved so much pressure.
“I’m happy to go,” Allen said. “It’s a unique experience. Get to meet people from around the league … see NBA colleagues. Just to sit in the room I think is a cool honor. When I was asked if I was interested in doing it again, my response was, “If you think I’ll be the good luck charm this year, I’m happy to go.
“By the time we finished, it was 5:30 or so,” Allen said. “The paint didn’t have time to dry, so we couldn’t roll the banner up. So we walked it from my house to the Compaq Center, over the Edloe bridge, with the wind kind of whipping from the cars and elevation. We finished second, but the second prize was suite tickets for that night.”
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