Points in Paint 6.25.08: Draft Preview

Posted by Rob Bonnette on 06.25.2008

My Draft Preview!!

Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Points in the Paint. This week it's all draft, all the time.

THE DRAFT

Silly season: Who won and who lost? What is silly season, you ask? Basically the period from shortly after the draft lottery up until now, when the scouts and GMs are devoting all their time to working out, interviewing, and misjudging all of the players who are eligible for the coming draft. It's where everything these guys did in actual games gets cast aside, and things like height, wingspan, vertical leap and upside potential take over. This is where solid college upperclassmen go to die and end up getting picked 29th behind a bunch of guys who have no idea how to execute even basic basketball plays but who can jump out of the gym or are so much younger (19 instead of 21 or 22). The worst thing you can be is a solid player with some college experience, because as far as a lot of scouts are concerned you're not worth drafting because there isn't a lot of room for you to improve and the idea of drafting a guy who can come in and score in double figures immediately sucks in comparison to the chance to pick a totally raw prospect who may, if EVERYTHING goes perfect, may be the next Kevin Garnett in four years. Of course, this almost never works. The guys who become mega stars almost always come into the league with a great deal of basketball know how and understanding of how the game works. They have to adapt their game to the NBA level of play but that's pretty much it. The guy who knows nothing when you draft him is almost a lost cause; he may become an effective player but chances are he'll never be the superstar you hoped he would be. Of course, that doesn't stop NBA GMs from trying to find that one guy who buck the trend and prove them to be a freakin genius! So who appears to have benefited from silly season? Let's see:

O.J. Mayo: Now this is ironic. Mayo went from being the latest prep phenom who was supposed to rule the world to a disappointing also ran and back to a top prospect in good standing all in one year. After disappointing everyone with his failure to walk on water and heal the sick, Mayo's stocked dropped to the point where some mock drafts had him going around tenth. By the time I started tracking, he was averaging fifth or sixth between the four mock drafts I kept track of. By the time the June 22 mocks were released, his average position was between third and fourth, and no one had him going lower than fifth. What happened? Well, people got to focus on him as an individual talent and not the mediocre USC team he had to try and carry. Even allegations of off the court payments couldn't stop him from rising.

Russell Westbrook: His average was between ten and eleven when I started; now it's between five and six. He's as high as fourth and only as low as ninth. When I started, he was no higher than eighth and as low as twelfth. He's a guy who's stock went up as people got to look at how fast he played and his potential as a starting point guard. His college coach also vouched for his game knowledge, and the result is a big push towards the top.

Joe Alexander: He started out thirteenth in three mocks and out of the lottery in the fourth; now he's eight across the board. His game knowledge is a minus but everyone was wowed by his athletic ability.

Brandon Rush: At the beginning, he wasn't in anyone's lottery. Now he's between thirteen and fifteen across the board.

Kosta Koufos: Three out of four had him outside the lottery when I started. Now three out of four have him going fourteenth.

But silly season also had some casualties. Here they are:

Darrell Arthur: He was flying high at first, as high as ninth on one list. Now he's out of the lottery completely on every board, and is as low as 27th on one. It looks like he fell victim to just being good but not doing any of the things to make scouts go gaga over him.

JaVale McGee: Was hovering around fourteen, now he's between 20 and 23. It looks like he intrigued some people briefly but they soon decided he was a project pick and decided to pass.

DeAndre Jordan: Another major project who got exposed by the evaluation process. He was in the ten to eleven range to start, but now he's fallen out of the lottery on every board and is no higher than 16th while being as low as 28th.

Anthony Randolph: He's the fortunate of all the losers, but a loser still. He was as high as fifth on two mocks to start things out, but then he stepped on the scale and it stopped at 195 pounds. For a guy who is 6-foot-10. Yikes. Now he's floating between eleven and sixteen as people fear he may the latest LSU power forward to stink after getting picked high (Stromile Swift and Tyrus Thomas are his predecessors).

So what's my overall assessment of silly season? On the one hand, it looks like some athletes took advantage of the process to move up, like Alexander, but at the same time a lot of guys who'd have been picked much earlier a few years ago were knocked down to where they should get picked. Project picks should happen in the lottery, and it looks like there will finally be less of it this year.

Rose or Beasley?

I'd take Rose, but I'm not a total Beasley hater. I think that everything Rose did in college will carry over to the pros, while I'm not quite as sold on Beasley. I have real doubts about his rebounding, and whether or not he will be a Glenn Robinson type, a la Kevin Durant last season, who will go from double digit rebounds in college to five or six per game as a pro. Maybe that's just me, but I don't know. I really do believe that another guy like Beasley will come along in another year or two, while the next stud point guard may not come around for several more years. Recent history seems to back me up here. There's a been a dynamic scoring forward in almost every draft since 1992 (Walt Williams in 92, Jamal Mashburn in 93, Robinson in 94, Michael Finley in 95, Shareef Adbur Rahim and Antoine Walker in 96, T-Mac and Keith Van Horn in 97, Paul Pierce in 98, Lamar Odom and Shawn Marion in 99, Richard Jefferson in 01, Caron Butler in 02, Lebron and Carmelo in 03, Luol Deng in 04, Rudy Gay in 06, and Durant in 07). Point guard, on the other hand, offers slimmer pickings as far as A-listers go. We had Gary Payton in 90, then Jason Kidd in 94, Steve Nash in 96, Baron Davis in 99, Tony Parker in 01, and Chris Paul and Deron Williams in 05. That's seven point guards in eighteen years as opposed to eighteen small forwards in sixteen years. That alone justifies it in my book.

You can add in the matter of leadership. We know Rose is a team leader in addition to being a potentially great point guard. From the looks of things, Beasley is not. He'll be a great number two guy who puts up numbers and carries the scoring load, but he's not a leader type according to the information we have now. If I have the first overall pick I'm not taking a guy who isn't a leader unless he's the hands down best player on the board. If there's anyone who I consider his equal and can lead, I take that guy. Beasley has been hurt by the character questions; otherwise he'd probably be the first pick. He doesn't have any criminal record to deal with or anything; he's known as a practical joker who's still immature. Nothing happened during his year at K State, which is good, but he has a rap sheet of goofing off a mile long, and that has a lot of people thinking twice about centering their franchise around him. I'd have to agree with them; I don't see how you entrust the on court and locker room stewardship of your team to a 19 year old rookie who's known for being a goofball. That's why he isn't going first, and why Pat Riley may ultimately go ‘thanks but no thanks' and trade the second pick. I can't see a Riley constructed team, with veterans like Dwyane Wade, Shawn Marion, and Udonis Haslem trying to bring along a guy like Beasley.

Who would I not pick under any circumstances?

In honor of such luminaries as Patrick O'Bryant, Saer Sene, and Darko!, here are a few guys that I flat out would not take under any circumstances:

Joe Alexander or DeAndre Jordan: Anyone who has ‘needs to learn how to play' in their scouting report isn't worth my trouble if I'm a GM.

Either Lopez twin: Brook Lopez is slated as big man who can score, but a soft rebounder. No thanks. Anytime a big man who can score isn't the first overall pick, then there's something wrong with him. After watching the Eddy Curry experience in New York and seeing Pau Gasol and Dirk Nowitzki get punked in the Finals, a soft rebounding seven footer is the last thing I want. His brother Robin is being billed as a hustle man, an Anderson Varejao type. It's good to have those guys, but you draft them in the second round, not the first. His first round status is a novelty act; if he was Robin Jones and played for some other school he wouldn't even be in the draft right now.

Alexis Ajinca: And here we have the next Nikoloz Tskitishvilli! The plays scant minutes overseas and averages all of five points per game, and yet he's on two draft boards in the lottery. Hey, he's European, long, and athletic, so he hits the trifecta!

What guys would I have no problem with?

Kevin Love: The guys' skill set is amazing. The knock on him is that he's ‘unathletic' (translation: he's white). First off, calling anyone about to play professional basketball unathletic is ridiculous. I'm unathletic, not Kevin Love. I remember another guy that was labeled unathletic, who supposedly would have hard time playing good defense at the pro level: Shane Battier, who is now regarded as one of the best on ball defenders in the league. Kevin is alright with me.

Danilo Gallinari: I'm usually skeptical of the Euros, but he has a rep for scrapping and not being afraid. I like that; he apparently has some skills so he'd be fine with me, too.

Roy Hibbert: Roy got a lot of flack for staying in school for another year and seeing his draft stock fall from lottery pick to the twenties, because as we all know scouts love to drool over unfinished early entry guys and hate seniors. I don't do that; I look at how far Roy has come in his four years at Georgetown, and have heard the stories about how hard a worker he is. A guy who clearly is a learner and a hard worker, and is seven feet tall and a good guy to boot? Sign me up for that! He just needs the right organization and a point guard who can and will get him the ball in the paint. I guarantee you that in two or three years Roy will be better than a lot of the upside guys who get picked earlier.

OK, that's it for this week. Next week it's all about the draft recap. Until then.