With the NBA Draft taking place on Wednesday, I thought it would be appropriate to talk about the status of my favorite pro sport.

When talking about the NBA, one word comes to mind: skinny. These days, the kids coming into the league are getting taller and thinner every year. I guess with the recession all high schools must be selling their weight room equipment.

Shoot, my school had a weight room and I went to North High in the Des Moines Public School District – by my experience, one of the poorest school districts in the country.

Anyway, it seems as though any guy who comes into the league that is taller than 6-foot-8 can’t weigh more than 220 pounds. Look at guys like Darius Miles, Lamar Odom, Tracy MacGrady and even Kevin Garnett. While possessing great talent and ability, these guys should be down on the block, banging with Shaq or Zo, but instead they are bringing the ball up the court and trying to dribble like Iverson.

What’s the deal?

Man, my coach made us run cross-country in the fall if we didn’t play football. We would run two or three miles every afternoon, and then go lift weights. Then again, we only won four games my two years on varsity, so maybe that’s not the strategy to go with.

The problem isn’t just with the guys from the U.S., either. Now we have the big wave of foreign players coming into the league. Wang Zhizhi, or as Charles Barkley calls him “Wang Chung,” is over seven feet tall, and he’s standing out on the three-point line – right next to seven-footer Dirk Nowitzki.

And then you’ve got the talk of the draft, Yao Ming, a 7-foot-5 center who shoots threes better than he shoots a five-foot jump hook.

This pattern has led me to the conclusion that as long as Shaq is playing, he’ll win championships just because he’s three times as big as anyone that guards him, with the exception of, as Ahmad Rashad would say, my main man Vlade Divac.

It’s a given that Ming will go number one to the Rockets as long as the formalities with the Chinese government go as planned. Now, Steve Francis will have someone to kick the ball out to while Glen Rice is icing his knees on the sideline.

The second pick goes to everybody’s former favorite team, Da Bulls. They will be taking Duke’s Jay Williams. I would say they’d draft Tyray Pearson, but Tim Floyd is long gone. Sorry, Tyray.

The Warriors have the third pick, which looks to be another Blue Devil, Mike Dunleavy Jr. I’m calling trade here. The Nuggets need a coach. Dunleavy’s dad, Mike Sr., is looking for a job. So I say dad coaches son. Otherwise, Mike’s going to be a Warrior.

I have one warning for Golden State though. When looking at Dunleavy, remember Christian Laettner, and how great everyone thought he was going to be. Granted he is a starter, but that’s for the Wizards, who also happen to be the fifth different team he has played for.

At number four, the Memphis Grizzlies will be taking Nikoloz Tskitishvilli, another seven-foot guard. Why not? They have last year’s Rookie of the Year, seven-foot shooting guard Pau Gasol. The Grizzlies might as well stick with what works, and continue to win 25 games per year with one of the most talented rosters in college basketball.

The Denver Nuggets are at number five. Either they trade with Golden State, or they pick Cyclone-killer Drew Gooden, this being with the plans of losing Juwan Howard and/or Antonio McDyess within the next year.

One note to Drew: whoever picks you is going to suck, so get used to losing. Maybe they’ll let you represent your team at next year’s lottery selection show like Francis did for the Rockets this year. Hey, you’ll get to be on NBC at least once next year.

Memphis’ Dajuan Wagner goes to Cleveland at number six. Cleveland then requests Dajuan, as well as the rest of their starting five, to take the season off, so they have the best chance to get the number one pick next year. This way, they can take high school phenomenon LeBron James. They’ve already worked him out, so now it’s just a technicality.

The Knicks are up next at the seven spot. They may as well just give this pick away, since they can’t afford to sign anyone else, thanks to Latrell Sprewell and Allan Houston. That’s all right. This is their punishment for allowing super center Luc Longley to retire, depriving us all of watching one of the most dominating centers in the history of the NBA continue his reign.

This is where I conclude my draft predictions, since only about four of the guys drafted the rest of the way will amount to anything special in the league. And that doesn’t include guys like future NBA D-League all-stars Reggie Evans, Luke Recker, and Casey Jacobsen.

We should have seen the Wizards get a pick earlier than number 11, but Michael Jordan had to mess them up and actually got them to win a few games.

I like Mike as much as everyone else, but what he’s doing is only a temporary fix to a long-term problem.

He wants to build the franchise up, but they aren’t going to be able to draft anyone good when they are picking at the bottom of the lottery.

Then again, they took Kwame Brown with the first pick last year, and look at the stud he turned out to be.

Rick Kerr is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Des Moines. His roommate says the only reason people play soccer is so they don’t have to watch it.