The Quest for Tony's Eyebrows: the 2012 NBA Draft

wizards are a playoff team next year

errrr misread that

man this sucks, who the hell wants to watch davis play on the hornets

lol c-o-n-spiracy

I'm waiting for the picture of the Hornet logo with Davis' eyebrows instead of the antennae. I'm disappointed I haven't seen it yet.

so cavs ended up w drummond?

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/1144336/hahaha_medium.gif

is there a good reason why the NBA doesn't televise the actual drawing of the lottery?

nba likes to cultivate mystery

feel for the bobcats but they'll love MKG

hahaha @ sternspiracy

these results blow btw

Cavs are actually a great, low pressure situation for Drummond I think.

as far as drummond goes

1 nola - obv this is not happening

2 cha - this could be interesting, not sure if the bobcats could develop him or that the culture would be right for him but him & biyombo would def be interesting.

3 was - this would be awful. learn under the tutelage of andray blatche!

4 cle - agree w/ matt that this would be great. would take some pressure of tristan thompson too

5 sac - this would be horrifying, obv

6 por - i think this would be fantastic, outside of the curse of portland taking centers high. but he would have no pressure to be an offensive force down low. this could be great for all.

7 golden state - doubt he even lasts this long and i guess it could work but idk, toxic franchise. plus they have bogut.

i would really like to see portland take him

another team that would be great for drummond tho i don't see it happening would be the sixers. they need an athletic big man in the worst way... maybe they could deal igou and their pick for a team looking to get out of the top 6 or 7 or so? i'm not sure if that would work.

drummond & biyombo could be like a younger, much less polished version of the perkins/ibaka frontcourt

the ford/simmons podcast is pretty frustrating but once they get into talking about drummond like 1/3 of the way thru it gets pretty interesting

fascinating talk about how dwight, amare, chandler, okafor, kwame, oden etc were perceived when coming out of the draft

Behind the scenes at the lottery:

http://nba-point-forward.si.com/2012/05/30/nba-draft-lottery/

2 cha - this could be interesting, not sure if the bobcats could develop him or that the culture would be right for him but him & biyombo would def be interesting.

they would block a billion shots. I don't really think the Bobcats have a "bad culture" or anything. They had a bunch of awful picks and then they decided (smartly) to tank last season. nbd

3 was - this would be awful. learn under the tutelage of andray blatche!

They're pretty much set at the 4/5 with Seraphin, Nene and Vesely. Doesn't make sense.

5 sac - this would be horrifying, obv

They would have to take him here though. As crazy as that roster would be, Drummond makes sense from a basic Xs and Os perspective.

It kinda flew under the radar, but the Wizards frontcourt looked pretty rad after the McGee trade. Vesely started coming along and Seraphin looked like a legit starting C.

the one thing from listening to the chad ford podcast is that i probably overrated "culture" -- some guys just don't give it their all in high school or college or in workouts and then when they get to the nba they just start to turn it around on their own volition

that said i'm not sure i'd like to see drummond go to some teams like was and sac that have run loose ships before -- was at least seems to be trying to clean that up but...

one thing in that podcast that i really agreed w/ simmons about was austin rivers. i think he's gonna get way under drafted. the one and done rule has its benefits to GMs i think (obv we now know that harrison barnes isn't the next kobe) but i think it can also throw them off the scent of a really good player

Only worries with Rivers is he's a volume shooter. Like a less talented Monta Ellis. If he ends up on the right team he could be a great second unit scorer. You just can't let him take 20 shots a game and make 8 of them.

rivers is definitely a high volume scorer but he's bigger physically than monta and is a smarter basketball player. and he'll play/try on defense. simmons made the comparison to jason terry, which i think was pretty solid, altho rivers' body means that he could be a bit more than that, at least as an all around player.

Golden State: "I think we kept our integrity," said general manager Bob Myers. Not exactly, but you did keep your draft pick.

hollinger :-)

Terry's jumper is much purer than Rivers'. Rivers reminds me of Jimmer Fredette.

ehhhh Jimmer isn't a terrible comp but he can't get to the rim at all. Rivers will need to learn to finish better but his skill in that regard is much higher than high volume combo guards like Jimmer or Kemba. I think his size gives him an advantage over those guys too even if it means he can't play the point.

I think kemba was a much better finisher in college than Rivers. Just from what I saw.

Size-wise Rivers is basically Jimmer isn't he?

ah ok rivers is about 1.5" taller nvm

both have T-Rex arms

lol

I mean Rivers isn't a great finisher right now but I think he can get better with time. His biggest problem is playing when everything doesn't come remarkably easy to him like it did in high school. But the skills are there, and I think he'll end up being worth closer too where we would've been picked out of high school (top 5) then where he will be here (low teens)

In terms of value. I would take him anywhere after, like, 9 myself.

i've been a rivers hater since day 1 so take this with the requisite grain of salt, but i'm not sold on him at all. has no idea how to play basketball, which has become more and more apparent as he's risen levels - his questionable mechanics are gonna be more problematic in the NBA when he's a C athlete compared to the rest of the league

I like the swag.

rivers will definitely have to adjust to the nba but he'll be in a better system than he was in at duke, but he can get to the rim and he can shoot, and he was seen as a top 5-type player coming out of college, and i'd risk a low top 10 pick on that. i'd rather have him than waiters, and i think he's up there with lamb (not a huge fan of lamb's body, tho i think there's a chance he morphs into a paul george type -- don't think he's that athletic tho) and terrence ross, who's pretty underrated

top 5 outta high school obv

The Dubs didn't tank. Tired of people saying that.

oh sure they did

that was like the most transparent tanking in recent memory -- the front office barely tried to hide it

trading for bogut was the tank.

they traded their top scorer for an injured person (which might work out in the long run but it's hard not o see the short term benefit as "we will lose more games this way") XP

The players were trying anyway. They just weren't very good players. But it gave some valuable minutes to Klay who stepped his game up and showed some of what he could do.

the rosters they were putting out there at the end of the year were sub-D league. obv guys who are sub-D league are going to try, because they'll be out of the NBA. but the front office and marc jackson were purposefully putting a team out there that gave them the best opportunity to keep their pick.

I'm not complaining.

(which might work out in the long run but it's hard not o see the short term benefit as "we will lose more games this way") XP

They didn't trade Ellis so they could lose more games. They have been trying to trade for size all fucking year.

I mean I don't blame you guys for not watching Warriors games but all those meaningless games where they trotted out a broken down Curry and Lee and let Ellis play big minutes so they could get into the playoffs ... very infuriating shit.

Or all the games where they played Nate Robinson instead of developing Charles Jenkins ... or etc. etc.

(which might work out in the long run but it's hard not o see the short term benefit as "we will lose more games this way") XP

They didn't trade Ellis so they could lose more games. They have been trying to trade for size all fucking year.

― polyphonic, Thursday, May 31, 2012 6:28 PM (6 minutes ago)

...

very nice suit

he is a good dude, very good-natured

Eh, they're all scumbags afaic.

was fab melo the only 7 footer left at 22 or what because ummm

im all in on sullinger though, if jared dudley could actually get in shape he can do it and i imagine every day will start with a phone call from kg

AY SULLY WHAT'S GOOD HOWS YA BACK, YOU LIFTING SOME WEIGHTS? COME RUN ON THE BEACH WITH ME POTNA

the sullinger pick has upside for sure

how is this kid not gonna get destroyed in the nba, i mean come on

http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/340G1a.FVvCvC9h_SCNjTg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NTt3PTYzMA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en/blogs/sptusnbaexperts/Austin-Rivers-checks-in.-Getty-Images.jpg

he can buy a mac now tho

he's watching instructional videos on this thing called "passing"

eric gordon still looks younger/softer than him though!

lol xp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIQjhrmmX7c

Was drifting around in old threads and found this gem from June 2012, quoted upthread. Jordan posted a long draft pick analysis by some guy called Draft Rater:

"In the tail end of the first round and throughout the second, we're sorting through several big men with fairly weak Draft Rater résumés. The Rater is a particularly harsh judge at the center position, where it frowns on the prospects of four centers with first-round aspirations -- Tyler Zeller, Meyers Leonard, Fab Melo and Festus Ezeli -- and flat-out mocks Miles Plumlee, who is off-the-charts bad with a 2.49 Draft Rater projection."

italics added