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Sort of a strange day. If you ever get yourself in position to tail someone who is set to make millions from their bodies, make it your business not to injure that person.

That has been my primary mission today: Don't injure a rookie.

At that, I almost failed.

I have been trailing Kevin Love more or less all day, and at one point we were both not really looking where we were going, and I pretty much ran into him. And he is recovering from a recent ankle injury.

Crisis averted. He was fine. Now I tail a lot more cautiously.

Smile and Smile and Smile Some More
The overall theme of this event is more or less like being the lucky couple in an all-day receiving line at a wedding. You have to be enthusiastic to the face of people you don't know that well. Everyone can do that for a few minutes. Lots of people can do it for a half-hour.

It takes a superstar to be fresh and compelling through three two hour shifts of smiling for the camera.

Don't get me wrong. I don't mean to tell you that these rookies have it rough.

But man, the artifice of the event can get a little tough to bear.

See the facial expressions going on in these photos? You try to do that all day.

That said, I haven't heard any complaining.

It should be pointed out that it's loud as hell in here. There's a DJ, and it's nightclub loud. Conversations are shouted from close range. That keeps the complaining to a minimum.

Tim Donaghy Sentenced
Word is getting around in the gym that Tim Donaghy has been sentenced to 15 months in prison for, essentially, crooked refereeing.

I asked Kevin Love if he was at all worried about the fairness of NBA officials. "You try not to be," he said. "You kind of hope that the referees will be fair. But you kind of have to wonder."

The Money
One thing that makes rookies different from veterans is that, for the moment, by and large, they are not wealthy. They don't start drawing team salaries until the fall, and in this draft class only a handful have even medium-sized endorsement deals at this point.

When the money starts to really roll in, players simultaeously start dealing with things most of us can't relate to (mountain in your pool?) just as they start closing the door to outsiders, as so many of then are asking for money.

But at this point, it's more or less like hanging out with college students -- albeit college students who have a very easy time arranging large lines of credit.

Except for a couple of things.

For one, there was an announcement before the players headed out to get their photos taken. "If anybody is uncomfortable wiht leaving their jewelry in this room," said an NBA staffer, "I'm going to be out there with you all day and can carry it for you."

In fact, there was not a lot of jewelry visible, and the request went unheeded. That's good news for the NBA, which never likes to promote players in jewelry, as it has the effect of alienating NBA fans who feel they can't relate to ostentatious wealth.

The Uniforms
The photos that are taken today will be on these players' official Upper Deck and Topps cards. The NBA also takes photos for their vast photo archive.

But some teams are about to unveil new uniforms.

So the players from those teams have been asked to be sneaky. They are wearing the new uniforms. But when they are not being photographed, they are wearing shooting shirts over the top so the secret .

I know you are just dying to know what the new unis looks like, but I'm not telling.

Then consider the cases of Russell Westbrook and D.J. White. For my money, Westbrook's one of the most promising players in this class, and his team doesn't even have a name yet, let alone a uniform. (Guess they're still brainstorming what kind of uniforms say"Wind" in the toughest way possible.) Westbrook and White are wearing black uniforms with generic NBA designs.

There are also some players who are wearing uniforms without numbers. (The numbers will, presumably, be photoshopped in later.)

One of them is Mario Chalmers, as you can see in the photo above. I asked him why he didn't have a number yet, and he said "I'm trying to get number thirteen." Alexander Johnson has that right now. Chalmers says he's working on it.

(Michael Beasley and Mario Chalmers photo by Nathaniel S. Butler/NBA/Getty Images. O.J. Mayo photo by Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE/Getty Images.)