What is it like to know something that millions of other people want to know, but to have no way of telling anyone? I found out on Tuesday night as one of the news media witnesses to the N.B.A. draft lottery.
At 7:05, a dozen of us are escorted to the basement of the New York Hilton Midtown. Upstairs, there is a well-appointed ballroom from which the public announcement of the winners will be made. Downstairs, we find ourselves in a small makeshift studio. There is a jersey on the wall for each of the 14 participating teams, all of them optimistically imprinted with a No.