If both players are to reach a similar level of play, it can't go beyond not-quite-stardom or mediocrity -- duos such as Joe Smith and Antonio McDyess, Danny Manning and Rik Smits, and Kwame Brown and Tyson Chandler. The yin and yang are rarely upset. That means the James-Milicic relationship is at a point where the Magic should hope desperately the karmic relationship reaches the absolute limit of David Robinson-Armon Gilliam. Or that he can mitigate his status by, say, becoming a good jazz guitar player, like Wayman Tisdale (No. 2 after Patrick Ewing).

It must be something about the consolation-prize nature of the No. 2 pick as to why it so often seems so cursed. Rudy Tomjanovich, career cut short by the infamous punch from Kermit Washington in 1977? He was a No. 2 pick. Jay Williams, career cut short by smashing a motorcycle into a tree? A No. 2 pick. Len Bias, died of a cocaine overdose right after the 1986 draft? A No. 2 pick.

A few players have been able to sense their fate. Like Danny Ferry, a No. 2 pick in 1989, who played in Italy for a year rather than report to the wretched Los Angeles Clippers team that drafted him. Or Steve Francis, a No. 2 pick in 1999, who forced a trade to Houston rather than report to the wretched Vancouver Grizzlies team that drafted him. Draft-watchers might recall the Grizzlies-capped Francis walking to the draft podium like it was a death march.

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Speaking of the draft podium -- Rod Thorn, the guy who for years got stuck announcing the second-round picks after David Stern, the undisputed World’s Greatest Pro Sports Commissioner, got done with the glory of Round 1? A No. 2 pick.

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Let’s face it -- Darko Milicic has had to spend his short career struggling against mighty forces far out of his control, and I don’t mean Larry Brown. If the Orlando Magic want Milicic to turn out to be anything other than a colossal, Leaf-caliber bust, they shouldn’t worry about coaching him. They should worry about finding the basketball gods Mourning, Unseld and West must have appeased.

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