Thursday, June 19, 2008

6/29/07 NBA Draft

NBA draft

wow, what an incredibly boring draft. Very predictable, even down to the Celtics stumble with the #5 pick.

Let me start with the top:

Portland : obviously a no-brainer. His athleticism sets him apart from the Ewing comparisons being thrown around. I think he could be better than Ewing and the one knock I keep hearing is about his lack of passion for basketball. I don't know enough to do anything other than mention it and stir the pot.

Seattle/Las Vegas : even more of a no-brainer. Durant has passion and has tremendous skills, too bad the ping pongs went against the Celtics.

Atlanta : the buzz was that the hawks would take Horford at 3 and Law at 11, amazingly they didn't screw it up and that is how it fell. Amazing. Sports talk radio was going off this morning on the past picks and the failure to get Amare Stoudemire from Phoenix in the rumored 3 team deal with kevin Garnett. Stoudemire would have been an amazing addition, but I doubt it ever got that close to reality. Other than Sheldon Williams last year, the picks have been ok, I think Marvin Williams (over 17ppg in the last couple of months last season) will be a player, Joe Johnson is a player, Josh Smith is a player, Horford should be a player and Acie Law can play. Childress et al can fill roles. Not going crazy here but the Hawks could be a playoff team this year and with one or so more moves could start contending for the East (not necessarily a title).

Memphis : Conley, nice pick, a little early but nice upside.

Boston : ta-da...trading #5 to get Ray Allen. This is to appease Paul Pierce I guess and show that the C's aren't rebuilding, right? Would have been a good move 3 years ago. Bad feet kept him out of a bunch of games and surgery in April sounds scary to me.

I don't know enough about Gabe Pruitt (picked 32nd overall) to really make sense of it but from his stats it looks like a scoring guard and not a point. Taking Big Baby with the 35th overall pick might be ok. His weight is listed at 289, lol, I'd like to have that scale at my house. If he keeps the weight under control (for him) then he is a rebounder and can score. Could be a very good backup player in the NBA.

Milwaukee : EEEEEEEEEEEE! Gotta love the pick when the GM never has seen him play in person and publicly the player's "people" say he doesn't want to play in the city. He may turn out to be very good. Tough to sell to the fans I would imagine. Lots of analysts are projecting they trade the rights to him to somebody that he wants to play for.

That is where i will end as that is where my interest faded last night.

Cya next year at the lottery (celtics, memphis, milwaukee)

12 comments:

  1. In response to: NBA draft
    Comment from: bosfan [Visitor]
    The buzz on sports talk radio is that Ainge is not done just yet... One more trade for a solid veteran, maybe a guard.

    I don't see the Celtics in the bottom three placing their hopes on the lottery next year. If Allen and Pierce can remain healthy, and Jefferson plays the way he did the second half of last year and they do bring in one more Veteran, I feel they would make the playoffs. Not sure how far they would go, but the east is not that good...come on the Cavs made the finals with one great player.

    I'll go out on a limb and say if they do bring in one more solid (not great) veteran, that they are capable of winning 43 to 45 games which should be enough to get them in.

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  2. In response to: NBA draft
    Comment from: Rob Burnham [Visitor]
    Key point here. Both Cousy and Heinsohn, normally extreme company line guys, publicly said the trade was a bad move. Ouch.

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  3. In response to: NBA draft
    Comment from: bosfan [Visitor]
    Maybe so...but I'll still stick with what I wrote on the last post.

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  4. In response to: NBA draft
    Comment from: blmeanie [Member]
    I am not a Pierce fan, if I were Ainge, I would have gone a different way - i would have tried to trade Pierce instead and rebuild around Jefferson, the #5 and what you could get in return for Pierce.

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  5. In response to: NBA draft
    Comment from: bosfan [Visitor]
    What's out there that's going to be that much of upgrade from Pierce? It sounds like that direction would have similar end results.

    They want to win now three years tops, I just don't see that move being drastically better, maybe for the long haul but it's been a long haul and they need to take a shot now.

    I'm sure Ainge doesn't want his tenure to be rebuild after rebuild, you have to go for it in my opinion.

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  6. In response to: NBA draft
    Comment from: blmeanie [Member]
    wow, high opinion of Pierce.

    I don't believe Pierce is a winner. I don't think Allen and Pierce make it through the season together, I estimate they miss a combined 40 games due to injury.

    Clean house, dump Danny, dump Doc, dump Pierce...

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  7. In response to: NBA draft
    Comment from: bosfan [Visitor]
    See first post!

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  8. In response to: NBA draft
    Comment from: blmeanie [Member]
    so who would they move to get a "quality" veteran oh great Carnac?

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  9. In response to: NBA draft
    Comment from: bosfan [Visitor]
    This is what the buzz is, it's not me making it up. The Allen move made it clear that the philosophy is win now. I'm only going on what I heard, I don't know who they are willing to give up, I guess that would depend on the quality of the player. Green, Perkins, Tony Allen? Not sure.

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  10. In response to: NBA draft
    Comment from: blmeanie [Member]

    maybe the biggest asset they have to move is Theo Ratcliff, right? Expiring contract and all.

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  11. In response to: NBA draft
    Comment from: bosfan [Visitor]
    Not sure

    If it is a go, and this is Danny's shot, you would think he has to have another move in mind. Just Ray Allen alone is not going to be enough. Hey, we'll see!

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  12. In response to: NBA draft
    Comment from: blmeanie [Member]
    try this link out for Bill Simmons' take on the draft.

    http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/070629

    ReplyDelete