Ok, I have spent about as much time watching the NBA Draft as I have watching elephant polo because the Celtics just dominated the world and won a title. I have no idea who the Celtics have worked out, I don't know what Danny Ainge has said about this year's draft class, I don't know how much value our pick has for trades, or even what picks we have. To top it off, my expertise on each of these players in the draft is limited to a maximum of three or four games that I half-assedly watched while scouring the internet for more Youtube videos of Big Baby ballroom dancing. In comparison, last year I spent thousands of hours scouring every detail of the potential players we could have taken at #5. Needless to say, I like this year a lot better. Anyway, thanks to the fine fellows at NBADraft.net, I am going use their mock as a template to do a draft preview anyway.
#1 Chicago - They will pick Derrick Rose. Rose is a slasher/scoring point that shoots clutch free throws like vintage Ben Wallace. He also chose to go to Memphis, which says a lot about him. Namely, he's not waffling between a basketball career and an astrophysics career. He's not going to be distracted by reading books or going to art openings. I wish I knew why exactly Chicago was picking him here, because they have Kirk Hinrich at the point for many years for many dollars. Who's going to take him off their hands? This team is such a friggin' mess, which is amazing because a couple years ago I thought they had the best approach out of all the NBA teams. Their coach is friggin' VINNY DEL NEGRO. Rose also has Chicago ties, so you know some of his old sketchy friends will be leeching his money. This is a guaranteed bad situation for everyone involved. Chicago's team is an absolute train wreck. Never has a #1 pick guaranteed instant doom since the Clippers were involved.
Sullivan Says: Whoa, whoa, whoa BP, hold on a minute! Instant doom? Derrick Rose? The only time those two things should be mentioned together is to describe the confidence of whatever sap is guarding D-Rose. This kid is ridiculously good. He’s a better shooting version of Rondo. This kid is going to be a star, regardless of how many sketch ball friends live under his roof. Allen Iverson has a crew of like 200 people and he’s still the man.
#2 Miami - Straight up lock- they will pick Michael Beasley, who spent some time playing high school hoops in CMass hotspot Fitchburg, a.k.a. Bitchburg. He hated it there, but I don't think he ever gave Conquest Video a shot. Not really fair, it's like hating Santa Barbara but never going to the beach. Anyway. On the court, he's a great fit for the toughness/athleticism/scoring/defense/rebounding/passing/not sucking challenged Heat. However, all the stories I have read about him and heard about him through in the mainstream press and on the rumor mill suggest that he has the maturity level of a bipolar, ADHD-riddled third grader with a caseload of Red Bull in his stomach... and that combined with Miami is a bad, bad combination.
Sullivan Says: Fitchburg is a hotbed for pro athletes. The Bouchard brother’s of NASCAR fame were born there, as well as the late speed skater Art Longsjo. This guy’s pedigree has star written all over it.
#3 Minnesota - NBADraft.net says they'll take OJ Mayo, which is too perfect not to be true. After all, Minnesota worked out great for the last egomaniac shoot-first point guard with a sketchy-ass history. When are they planning Starbury's number retirement ceremony?
Sullivan Says: OJ would benefit greatly from playing alongside Antoine Walker, who could teach him the golden lesson: since there ain’t no such thing as fours, just shoot 3s until your home crowd boos you.
#4 Seattle - Russell Westbrook. I know people are expecting Jerryd Bayless here, but if I was Seattle I wouldn't trust anybody that can't spell their own name correctly. I saw Bayless play quite a bit during the season and he's way too me-first, in my opinion, to be paired with Kevin Durant. He dominates the ball. Westbrook, I believe, is the better fit for Seattle, but since PJ is coaching without anything resembling an offense, maybe I am being too idealistic. I'd love to see Westbrook pushing the pace, driving-and-dishing to Durant instead of Bayless meandering around endless pick and rolls looking for a three, which is all he seemed to do in the games I watched this year. By the way, is there anyone who hates David Stern that doesn't love the Sonics? Also, why is it that every Celtics fans loves Durant, including myself, even before the C's won the title?
Sullivan Says: UCLA players really tend to be good NBA players, but I don’t see this guy panning out. He played 9 minutes a game last year according to like every draft article ever. I don’t get where the hype comes from. Sure, he should play in the league, but this high this soon?
#5 Memphis - This is a tough one, because they already have Kwame Brown and Pau Gasol's brother to play the "4". Should they waste the pick on Kevin Love, who is destined to ride the pine for 2 seasons behind those players? Screw it, they should take Love anyway and maybe they can immediately parlay that into a trade with the Lakers for DJ Mbenga.
Sullivan Says: This team should not be this bad. At the beginning of last season they had Pau Gasol, Rudy Gay, Mike Miller, Darko, Mike Conley, Hakim Warrick, Kyle Lowry, and Juan Carlos Navarro. If you are willing to call Rudy Gay a poor man’s Kobe, this team was essentially the Lakers (Miller = Vujacic, Gasol = Gasol, Navarro = Fischer, Warrick = Odom, Darko = Turiaf, Conley = Farmar). Now that they traded Gasol for Kwame Brown, they are like the pre-Gasol Lakers. Aka they suck even worse than a team that lost by 39 points in a decisive playoff game. Believe me, I really like the Grizz, but by god, good luck.
#6 New York Knicks - You might say that this one is impossible to call because there are no horrendously overweight, overpaid douches with a stripper-slapping pedigree to draft. However, I am going to go out on a limb and say they take Eric Gordon because he's smallish, selfish, and he really, really, REALLY likes the sketchiest coach since Tarkanian. Sounds like a perfect player for the Knicks.
Sullivan Says: I would take that Bayless kid here. Starbury’s $21 million/yr contract is up after this season, and chances are he will pursue a career banging girls in the back of trucks. The Knicks need a PG.
#7 Clippers - I need a Clippers joke, stat, so I go to Basketball-Reference.com's page on their draft history. It's a murderer's row of headcases. Why would the Clippers do anything differently this year? Hence, they draft Joey Dorsey.
Sullivan Says: I like Dorsey, but I love this next guy
#8 Milwaukee - Joe Alexander. This is the most outrageous team ever, adding in a Maryland-born, West Virginia-schooled whiteboy to an already eclectic team. However! I do believe that Alexander is going to be a very good player and this is a good pick for the Bucks. I watched a couple West Virginia games this year and literally every team would shade three guys on him and he could still get his shot off and get to the rim.
Sullivan Says: This guy, next to Rose and Mayo, is my favorite player in the draft. I saw this kid break a guys ankles at the top of the key and drive with his off hand for a layup. And he is a power forward.
#9 Charlotte - I often make the argument that teams should only draft smart, motivated college overachievers. "You mean like the Bobcats?" is the quick reply, and my argument is immediately ruined. Let's stick to tradition - Brook Lopez is the obvious pick here.
Sullivan Says: Good point BP, I could see this happening.
#10 New Jersey - Everyone is picking them to take some Italian dude, because Lord knows the Italians can ball. I don't have anything to add here except that Vince Carter is a pussy.
Sullivan says: Ditto.
#11 Indiana - About time I took Jerryd Bayless and his horrible name off this board. Anfernee Hardaway thinks Jerryd's name sucks, and don't even get Antowain Smith started on the subject. The Pacers would be wise to end the Jamaal Tinsley reign of terror and get a new point guard that won't get into high-speed shootouts in strip club parking lots. For that, Jerryd's your man.
Sullivan Says: Don’t worry, Tinsley’s reign of terror ain’t over yet –the Pacers owe him 7 mill a year for at least the next three years.
#12 Sacramento - I have heard people say that they are seeking for a second coming of Brad Miller. I even heard someone say that about Kevin Love, could be, if he plays his cards right, the next Brad Miller. People want more Brad Millers, really? Centers that don't rebound, don't play inside, shoot outside jumpers, can't guard anyone, can't protect the middle, and are hurt all the time? Really? Is his passing ability enough to offset all those flaws? Are the Kings that much of an offensive dynamo to use Brad Miller as a prototype center? If you said, "yes," to these questions, than your man is Roy Hibbert.
Sullivan Says: Hibbert is the worst. If you value Centers that run like girls and get outmuscled by point guards, go ahead and disagree with me.
#13 Portland - If I were the Blazers here, I would take Anthony Randolph from LSU here. Not because I have seen him play, because I haven't, but because he's huge, athletic, and versatile, which is what the Blazers need. He may not slip to them here, however. I think that under the iron fist of the Blazers coaching staff he could be used very effectively as an energy guy off the bench for what should be a very good Blazers team. They could also take Brandon Rush, who is the second coming of Morris Peterson.
Sullivan Says: Why not.
#14 Warriors - I predicted the NBDL dominance of Patrick O'Bryant and so did everyone else not in the Warriors organization. O'Bryant's NBA highlight reel can be found below.
Sullivan Says: You just got it poppin’ like Orville Redenbacher.
That being said, the Warriors need frontline help and they're a really, really stupid franchise, so I say they take the tall French guy that weighs a little less than the amount of dope in Robert 'Tractor' Traylor's Nissan Sentra.
#15 Suns - Where to begin? The Suns could throw a dart at their draft board and address a crippling need at this point. Who knows? I'll put my money on a foreigner. Let's just say the best Croatian with the stupidest haircut.
#16 Sixers - Kosta Koufos from Ohio State. How amazing would it be for the Sixers to land this guy? Philly fans might even stop being insufferable windbags for ten seconds. Memo to Koufos- don't hold out for more money and then get redrafted next year because every game you play in Philly you will get pelted with batteries. Ask JD Drew about that one. I think Koufos is a good player and would blend in well with the surprisingly fun to watch Sixers pretty quickly.
#17 Toronto- DeAndre Jordan from Texas A&M. Thankfully, DeAndre just had one year of poultry science courses at this academic wasteland. Four years at A&M is about as good for you as drinking gasoline and smoking crack for four years. DeAndre got out while the gettin's good, and while mid-first round big men make me suspicious in general (these are where the "project" picks abound), I think that a front line with him and Bosh would be pretty formidable. We all know that Andrea Era has been an unmitigated disaster.
EDIT: This pick has been traded to the Pacers, along with TJ Ford and Rasho Nesterovich, who is apparently still in the NBA. Still probably a good move for the Pacers to take DeAndre here because the Pacer front line isn't exactly, um... formidable. Weird for the Raptors to now have 11 power forwards on the team, but whatev, they're the geniuses not me.
#18 Washington - JaVale McGee from Nevada. Although I am always skeptical of people with unusual first/last name combinations (but I was totally right about Jamaal Slovenski and D'Brickishaw Goldstein, neither of which went anywhere), but I will make an exception for Mr. McGee. The Wizards have the worst rebounding team in the league. Assuming Agent Zero and Jamison are back, which they should be, the Wizards need some serious help up front. They have some options for big guys, but McGee is the a shotblocking machine they need. He could go down as the best Irish basketball player from Flint, Michigan of all time.
#19 Cleveland - Chris Douglas-Roberts is the obvious pick here. He claims to have never lost a game of one-on-one, EVER. I love that. So brash. But, as much as I would hate for the Cavs to be good again, the "stick a couple shooters around LeBron" strategy is asinine and has proven not to work. How many shooters do they have to stick around Lebron before they figure this out? Why not add a big two-guard to attack the basket like a maniac?
#20 Charlotte - Brook and Robin aren't just two chicks that got married in San Francisco, they're your new starting front line for the Charlotte Bobcats!
#21 New Jersey - JR Giddins, formerly from Kansas, now from New Mexico. Giddins is a maniac who has a Jamaal Tinsley-esque ability to find bar brawls and throw himself into the middle of them. Nobody is picking him to go in the first round, but I have my fingers and toes crossed because there is no team I hate like the Nets. I wish them nothing but headcases and fragile little pixies a.k.a. Vince Carter. BTW, that Marcus Williams experiment is working out great, huh?
#22 Orlando - DJ Augustine, Texas. There comes a point where DJ has to be drafted. I do think it's funny that "the guy that managed to hold back Kevin Durant and limit his true potential" has turned into a potential lottery pick in one year. I don't see the appeal here, he's a Marcus Williams-type to me. It doesn't help that I have never seen a good game out of DJ and I watch Texas whenever they're on TV, especially when they had Durant.
#23 Utah - Donte Green, Syracuse. The Jazz need a wing scorer so badly it's just flat-out ridiculous. Green is the best shooting guard available at this point in the draft and even though he already plays like a present-day Antoine Walker, this is the only move they can make at this point. I have never seen a superathletic 6'10" college freshman shoot so many threes as this kid. Another red flag is that he went to the same high school as Carmelo Anthony. However, as I mentioned before, the Jazz need a player with the potential of Green because their most athletic three right now is a white kid from Creighton, and he has to guard Kobe a couple games a year.
#24 Seattle - It feels as though Seattle has ten picks in the first round this year. That's good, because most NESCAC intramural bball championship teams could take the Sonics in a 7-game series. I think they take Darrell Arthur from Kansas with this pick to get a lockdown post defender/weakside shot blocker to go along with their fancy new lockdown defensive point guard. The Sonics would be a very, very athletic team with much-improved defense. However, their coach is best known for being strangled by his own player. He would have led the '98 Bulls to the lottery if he was in charge.
#25 Houston - Mario Chalmers, Kansas. Houston's point guard play sucks unless their point guard is playing in Rucker Park alongside a fat guy in sunglasses with a t-shirt over his head screaming into a microphone, "OHHHHHHHHHH!!!! THA PROFESSAH!!!!!" over and over again for 3 hours. The only game Rafer Alston could beat Chalmers at would be a "spit on a valet" contest. I would look for Chalmers to contend for the starting job as a rookie, he knows how to run a team.
#26 San Antonio - They need help at virtually every position. It always amazes me how think these Spurs teams are yet they get away with it every year. If I were them, and I was in this position, I would take Brandon Rush from Kansas. He could help out right away, and the Spurs don't exactly have a decade of improvement ahead of them.
#27 Trail Blazers - Jason Thompson from Rider. Everybody needs a few versatile big guys except for the Raptors and the Grizzlies, who have 11 each. I have never seen him play but he went to JR Rider university so you know he can ball. Either that or beat up his girlfriend, or both. Just kidding, everyone seems to think this kid will work his ass off so he seems like a natural fit for the Blazers.
#28 Memphis - JJ Hickson from NC State. The Grizzlies won't be short on power forwards. In fact, this may be the first all-power forward starting five in the history of basketball. Remember, this is Chris Wallace, who drafted exclusively small forwards while in charge of the Celtics. When this dude gets something in his brain, he is not going to let go.
#29 Detroit. Let me pause for a second here. I have heard rumors that the Pistons are trying to swing a trade for Carmelo. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Pretty good planning, dumbasses!!! MWAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I say that they take the tallest, slowest, youngest, stupidest looking white foreigner available here, sit him on the bench his entire career, and then brag about what a great pick it was because your team made the Eastern Conference Finals the year you drafted him. Oh man, that Darko pick was the worst EVER! Who didn't see that one coming? HahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
#30 YOUR NBA CHAMPION BOSTON CELTICS!!!!!!
Everyone seems to think the Celtics will take DeVon Hardin, a center from Cal. Considering I have just heard of him for the first time one minute ago, this doesn't thrill me. Also, his DraftExpress profile says "Worst Case Scenario: Jamal Sampson". Who the hell is Jamal Sampson!?!?!?!?!? You guessed, it, Ralph Sampson's cousin and Josh Childress' best friend. Yikes. I am hoping that Bill Walker will fall into the Celtics' laps here to replace the soon-to-be-gone James Posey as hardnosed perimeter defender. If that doesn't work out, I think the Celtics should go for a shooting guard here to take some of the pressure off of Ray Allen. Courtney Lee would be a good pick, even though I am not sold on men being named "Courtney." I would like to have a long discussion with whoever approved that. Also, Kyle Weaver from Washington State, I think, would be a good pickup because he could play the 2 or as a bigger 1. However, his outside shooting is sketchy so maybe he would just be a bigger Rondo and not a change of pace guard. The final option the Celts have would be Trent Plaisted from BYU, who could just be the second coming of Greg Kite. I feel as though the Celtics have several good options at the #30 pick that will address needs for the team going forward.
It's weird, though, I am oddly nostalgic for the lottery, when we would pin the hopes of a franchise on a random 19-year-old and momentarily forget about what a disaster the rest of the team was. Well, it was fun while it lasted!Source URL: http://ledger-heath.blogspot.com/2008/06/nba-draft-tonight-put-on-your-finest.html
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