The last NBA lottery that meant anything was in 1997. Tim Duncan was the clear-cut prize and the San Antonio Spurs got him. That night, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich and his wife, Erin, went out to dinner in New York in a picturesque setting underneath the Brooklyn Bridge.

The two giggled over their good fortune. As other diners eyed them suspiciously, the two toasted their unexpected luck and thought, briefly, about rising from the table and telling one and all what the fuss was all about.

"We didn't," Popovich said. "Probably no one would have cared anyway. But I knew what we got. It was like, OK, now everything else has to go wrong for us because we've had this incredible good luck."

Of course, little has gone wrong for the Spurs since then, their current plight notwithstanding. He said he got only a few phone calls after the lottery, the callers always prefacing their trade remarks by acknowledging that their request was both futile and ridiculous. Then-Celtics boss Rick Pitino did offer his entire roster, but Popovich, wisely, had no interest.

The 2001 lottery is now over and who is the real winner? Yes, the Wizards won, and now we can expect league operations boss Stu Jackson to disclose that Jason Williams actually did apply for the draft and that he, er, lost the letter.

But, in all seriousness, do we envy or pity Michael Jordan and Co.? There is no Duncan. There might not even be a Michael Olowokandi or Elton Brand, the top picks in 1998 and 1999, respectively. There doesn't appear to even be a Kenyon Martin, last year's grand prize. It easily is the most convoluted draft class since 1989, when the Sacramento Kings won the lottery and ended up drafting Pervis Ellison.

What do you do with the first pick? The first option out of the mouth of assistant general manager Rod Higgins on the night of the draft lottery was "trade." There's no consensus No. 1.

There's no immediate difference-maker. The Class of 2001 already has been downgraded by the absence of Williams, the dynamic Duke point guard, and Chinese center Yao Ming. Yao couldn't get clearance to leave the motherland and Williams elected to spend another year in college. A third stud, Camden, N.J., high-schooler DaJuan Wagner, decided to honor his commitment to Memphis (the school, not the new NBA team).

So that has left scouts to drool for months over four clueless hunks fresh out of high school, all of whom apparently possess the now-de rigeur qualities of size, athleticism and potential. No one is sure if they actually can play basketball, however.

If you want to play it safe this year, then Duke's Shane Battier is your man. But he has an apparent downside: He's -- are you sitting down? -- a true senior. How good can he be if he stayed in college, even at pristine Duke, for four whole years?

"We're so screwed up," said Golden State coach Dave Cowens, who professes a fondness for the Dukie and whose team will be picking fifth. "We look at this and we say, 'Well, we can't take Battier because he's plateaued. Isn't that ridiculous?"

Yup, it is.

Most everyone loves Battier, but most everyone also doesn't have him at No. 1. Doug Collins, coach of the Wizards, said before the lottery that he wouldn't object to drafting Battier. But it's hard to find anyone who will place Battier at the top of the list, even though he is coming off a terrific college career capped by an NCAA championship. He's played against decent competition over the last four years and, incredibly, is being viewed as a leader even though he's never played a pro game.

The only other individual in the presumed top six with any level of meaningful competition is Eddie Griffin. He had one year -- and a disappointing one -- at Seton Hall. But he can score, rebound and block shots and that one year of college may be the difference in the eyes and minds of the Wizards. But it will also be hard for Washington to bypass someone like Kwame Brown, a high-school bruiser, or Eddy Curry, another unfinished product. DeSagana Diop, for goodness sakes, already is said to possess an NBA body. And we all know that Washington has needs at every position, even if Jordan decides to come back.

The successes of Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant and Tracy McGrady have cleared the way for high-schoolers to make the jump directly to the NBA. No one talks about Leon Smith or Korleone Young or even Jonathan Bender, who has done nothing in two years at Indiana. No one talks about the fact that these kids are judged based on playing against fellow teen-agers or against each other in dunk-o-rama All-Star games.

The NBA should stop crying about a minimum age limit -- that is an artificial argument -- and instead do something about a rookie wage scale that guarantees these kids millions of dollars without any certainty that they can play. The analogies to other sports (tennis, for instance) don't wash. There is not a single other sport that offers non-refundable deposits to players who have not proven they belong.

But that didn't stop the NBA executives Sunday from feeling giddy. Higgins, the Clippers' Alvin Gentry and the Hawks' Dominique Wilkins all were fist-pumping when they discovered they'd cracked the top three. (Contrast that with the scowl from Jerry Krause, the Bulls general manager, who had the best odds of getting the top pick but fell to fourth.) The Clips are believed to like Tyson Chandler, another high-schooler, who may be the Sam Perkins of our generation (read: I play the game because I'm tall and can make money at it, not because I really like it).

The unknown at this point is whether the outcome of the lottery is one more domino in the 'Jordan Returning' story. We've had Collins hired. We've listened to Charles Barkley promote a reunion (although Jordan has been silent about such a potential partnership). Now, with the No. 1 pick, would that encourage Jordan even more?

It might if there is a real No. 1 out there. Chances are MJ and the Mrs. aren't going to be toasting each other tonight at the family mansion in Chicago's wealthy Highland Park neighborhood. Or wherever they are -- Jordan was on a golf course during the lottery, apparently afraid to watch.

The real winners in the lottery may be the ones who don't have to make the early picks. Those teams might actually get someone who has played in college or played in Europe. They might get someone who didn't go to the Senior Prom. That's not to insinuate they are getting the best; that won't be known for years. But, clearly, the story of the 2001 lottery is that no one knows -- and no one is willing to commit to anything.

Peter May, who covers the NBA for the Boston Globe, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.