Oh, sure, Cleveland Cavaliers General Manager David Griffin (left) and minority owner Jeff Cohen won the lottery, but how many Twitter followers did THEY pick up? (Kathy Willens / AP)
The unquestioned star of the NBA draft lottery Tuesday night wasn’t a big name like Dr. J or James Worthy or even Nick Gilbert.
It was Mallory Edens, the 18-year-old daughter of Milwaukee Bucks co-owner Wesley Edens. She was the team’s designated rep and, although she brought only the No. 2 pick back to the Land of the Cheeseheads, she did succeed in igniting Twitter. This was both wonderful (her following shot from a few hundred pre-draft to over 26,000 by Wednesday morning) and shudderingly creepy. She received everything from marriage proposals to unseemly and inappropriate propositions. (She has another month of high school left! Her dad was right there! People, please!) It wasn’t all awful, though. Some of the reaction was good, clean fun.
“I was really nervous but really happy to get the second pick,” Mallory Edens told JSOnline.com. “I was extremely nervous, but it was really fun.”
Letting one’s offspring make the lottery pick has worked well for Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, whose son Nick secured two No. 1 picks. And there’s precedent for spouses, too. Irene Pollin, the widow of former Washington Wizards owner Abe Pollin, brought home John Wall.
Still, the idea caught Mallory, who is one of three kids in the Edens family, off guard. “He sort of brought it up in passing one time and I though he was joking and then here I am, so I suppose it wasn’t a joke,” Mallory said.
Madison, Mallory’s older sister, was content to watch from the front row with her father. “She’s definitely the more photogenic one, so I was happy to give it to her,” Madison said. “I could not be up there. She was amazing. … What a great way to start.”
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