NBA Draft thread

Draft lottery is tomorrow... It seems like ESPN thinks it's a foregone conclusion that Nerlens Noel is the No. 1 pick.

When was the last time the likely No. 1 pick in the draft was fresh off an injury-plagued season? I guess Bradford was in the NFL... I'm sure there are others...

I'm just relieved that the Knicks, the LA teams and the Bulls are all out of the lottery, maybe Stern will just the balls fall where they may this time...

 

The last time? You'd have to go back a whole two years to when Kyrie Irving played 11 games at Duke because of ligament tears in his foot.

 

OK, well I guess it wasn't that long then...

ESPN has Noel listed at 7-foot. I'm almost positive he was not listed as being that tall when he was at Kentucky.

 

They measure him standing on his wallet, whch has grown since he's been at UK

 

I know there are some college teams that intentionally list 7-footers at 6-10 so other teams don't prepare to face a 7-footer. That goes with the guys who are 6-7 and 6-8 who are listed at 6-9 or 6-10.

 

I was just reading something the other day that said there's more of a chance that the No. 1 pick could be traded this year than there has been in years past, because NBA teams aren't sold on Noel.

 

So why would anybody trade up for him, then?

 

The NBA may be the one U.S. pro sport where building via the draft is not a requirement.

Look at Cleveland, which drafted LeBron Freaking James and got to exactly one Final, losing it.

Look at Dallas, which Cuban built almost entirely by inheriting Dirk and making multiple trades and got to two Finals from 2006-11, winning one.

Get the right combo of FA's, and you can win a title as long as you can keep the team together. Cubes won his and let Tyson Chandler skate. End of dynasty.

 

Congrats. You get the Number 1 pick. You almost have to take Noel, who won't even think about playing until December.

 

Why do you almost have to take Noel?

 

Because the rest of the draft is rubbish.

 

There's an element of truth to that, especially since the players are only locked in to the teams that draft them for three years.

I wonder how many of the key players on the Miami Heat, other than Wade, were drafted by Miami. I know of the starters, Wade was drafted, Bosh and James came via free agency, they traded for Chalmers and Haslem signed as an undrafted free agent after playing in Europe.

I'm guessing it helped OKC that it was able to draft Westbrook and Durant.

If you're a big-market team that is a free agent draw, I don't think the draft is as important, but if you're not one of those 6-8 teams, I think the draft is pretty important.