Grades on the 2008 NBA Draft

Atlanta Hawks
Picks: None.
Grade: None

Boston Celtics
Picks: J.R. Giddens, Bill Walker, Semih Erden
Grade: C
Walker isn’t necessarily a bad pick at his spot (47), in fact, that deep in the draft, you draft for upside and possible breakout players. J.R. Giddens at 30, on the other hand, means the Celtics passed up Chalmers (youth behind Rondo, even though they have House) and CDR, better prospects than Giddens. Erden won’t pan out.

Charlotte Bobcats
Picks: D.J. Augustin, Alexis Ajinca, Kyle Weaver
Grade: B
D.J. Augustin is a risky pick at 9, but the Bobcats need to get lucky, and quick. Augustin is one of a very few players that has the chance of becoming even better in the NBA than they were in college, despite his small size. He’s listed at 5′11″ and will have trouble against the bigger guards, but he has a shot at being Mr. Chris Paul Lite. Ajinca, in my opinion, will be terrible. He put up horrible numbers overseas (5 PPG in the French league). This pick could have been used way better. Kyle Weaver might end up taking their starting PG position if he plays solid ball – you don’t see 6′6 combo guards who can play point every day. He had a really nice A/TO ratio in his senior year and shot decent PCTs.

Chicago Bulls
Picks: Derrick Rose, Omer Asik
Grade: A-
Decent picks. Everyone knows about Rose (even though I think Beasley and Love both turn out better), and Asik has a chance actually play in the NBA. Pretty good for a 2nd rounder.

Cleveland Cavaliers
Picks: J.J. Hickson, Darnell Jackson, Sasha Kaun
Grade: B-
Hickson has a slight chance of making the rotation (since everyone not named LeBron on this team is pretty much mediocre). I think LeBron’s still leaving for big money out East in 2010, unless they make some big moves.

Dallas Mavericks
Picks: Shan Foster
Grade: B
For their remaining pick (first rounder was traded for JKidd), not a bad selection that deep. Every team can use another white guy who can spot up in the corner and knock down threes.

Denver Nuggets
Picks: Sonny Weems
Grade: C
Could have drafted a better player here (CDR), or picked up an international player like Ante Tomic as trade bait for future picks or players since they’re already over the cap. I don’t see Weems being higher than 12th man.

Detroit Pistons
Picks: Walter Sharpe, Trent Plaisted, Deron Washington
Grade: C-
These are all late picks. Sharpe put up good numbers but is turnover-prone, Plaisted is a 6′10 white center (not going to work), and there’s no way Washington makes the roster.

Golden State Warriors
Picks: Anthony Randolph, Richard Hendrix
Grade:  B+
Another tall long guy in Randolph. He’s probably better than Wright though. Richard Hendrix is a really good prospect for that deep in the draft. Now that Boom Dizzle is off the roster though, maybe they should have drafted a PG. Noone expected it though, so pretty solid job based on what they knew.

Houston Rockets
Picks: Donte Greene, Joey Dorsey, Maarty Leunen
Grade: A
Yes, I’m biased. But this grade is perfectly logical. If you guys were paying attention to Daryl Morey, he drafted Nicolas Batum at 25 (to cockblock the Spurs at 26), traded it down for picks 27 and 33 (Darrell Arthur and Joey Dorsey), and then traded 27 Darrell Arthur for 28 Donte Greene and a 2009 2nd rounder (probably high, since its from Memphis). So from one #25 pick, the Rockets GM changed it into pick 28, 33, and a high 2009 2nd rounder. Greene is very tall for a SF (6′10) but he has very poor shot selection and probably can’t play a lick of defense. He’s a pretty large project, when we need help now. Dorsey, on the other hand, was the backcourt anchor of the solid defensive Memphis team. He can contribute immediately. Maarty Leunen of Oregon is yet another white boy who can shoot, a role already filled by Steve Novak. Impressive maneuvering by Morey, but could have drafted better. Hopefully the rookies prove me wrong.

Indiana Pacers
Picks: Brandon Rush, Roy Hibbert
Grade: A
By all accounts, Brandon Rush was one of the most polished all around players in the draft. A Roy-esque player who plays both sides of the ball well, shoots decent percentages. A great draft-day trade by Larry Legend. Hibbert used to be highly touted, but his stock has fallen as of late due to people feeling like he has already reached a ceiling of sorts.

LA Clippers
Picks: Eric Gordon, DeAndre Jordan, Mike Taylor
Grade: A-
After the Davis trade, the Clippers don’t look quite so stupid for passing on Bayless after all. Letting Maggette get away to possibly keep Brand and Davis could be one of the best moves the franchise has made in a long time. Gordon will provide solid offense at the two spot. Jordan was also another player who saw his stock fall as of late, so he could end up a solid contributor. Taylor will not.

LA Lakers
Picks: Joe Crawford
Grade: C
Who? A late pick at #58 rarely pans out. Shoulda went with Demarcus.

Memphis Grizzlies
Picks: O.J. Mayo, Darrell Arthur
Grade: A
Mayo has a shot at being one of the few true superstars in the league, so I understand their trade entirely. Its too good of a deal to pass up. Certainly a gamble, but he rarely shot poorly in college. Most of his bad rap is from the USC bribe scandal and all that, but he’s a solid player to build around. They lost Mike Miller though, and took on a bad contract. Arthur was the story of the night when he was in the Green Room and didn’t get picked until 27. I felt bad for him man. He’s a solid prospect who shouldn’t have dropped as far as he did. Good pick ups.

Miami Heat
Picks: Michael Beasley, Mario Chalmers
Grade: A+
Amazing. Miami goes from the worst team in the L to a very solid, young core.
Chalmers/Wade/Marion?/Beasley/Blount? Mourning? Who the hell starts at C for the Heat? I have no idea, since I don’t watch bad teams. Anyways, their starting lineup next season is Beastley.

Milwaukee Bucks
Picks: Joe Alexander, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute
Grade: C-
Alexander is a good athlete from Taiwan who can speak Mandarin. He likes to dunk. A lot. I liked this pick before the RJ trade, but now Alexander is playing behind RJ, and even with Redd and Jefferson, the Bucks are still going nowhere, even in the East. Maybe I’m wrong and Ramon Sessions will bring them to the promised land. But Mbah a Moute is also a SF so they’re clogged at the 3 spot. Unless they make some trades, drafting for talent isn’t the smartest of ideas when you make a win-now splash like Jefferson.

Minnesota Timberwolves
Picks: Kevin Love, Nikola Pekovic
Grade: A+
Freed some cap space while trading for Miller and Love. Amazing deal. Love will probably end up as a 16/8 type of player and Miller is already a bomber so can’t be noted as a bad trade unless Mayo averages 25+ PPG.

New Jersey Nets
Picks: Brook Lopez, Ryan Anderson, Chris Douglas-Roberts
Grade: A+
They traded for cap relief by picking up Yi and now they can make a move for LeBron down the line. All of their picks were pretty solid. B Lopez can play D, Anderson might be the “who?” sleeper of the draft, and Chris Douglas-Roberts might have a vendetta against the 29 other teams that passed him up. A steal at 40. Maybe it’ll all pan out and they’ll have a good young team.

New Orleans Hornets
Picks: None
Grade: None

New York Knicks
Picks: Danilo Gallinari
Grade: C+
Seems like a project even though he’s one of the best Euro youngins. A really high draft pick here, could have traded down two spots or so and picked up some assets. This seems like one of those players that a few years down the line you’re like “whoa! this guy was a #6 pick? what were they thinking?”. Unless, of course, he turns into some sort of Dirk-esque eurosauce.

Orlando Magic
Picks: Courtney Lee
Grade: A+
Very good pick for 22. I had done some scouting of my own (on Youtube) and was personally hoping that Lee would fall to the Rockets at 25. Sad. A good SG scorer.

Philadelphia 76ers
Picks: Marreese Speights
Grade: B
The 76ers get another tall athletic black guy. He shot decent percentages in college and didn’t turn over the ball much. Might end up being a very solid pick down the line.

Phoenix Suns
Picks: Robin Lopez, Goran Dragic
Grade B-
I don’t think Lopez would have slipped much farther than Phoenix, so all in all the pick ended up pretty good. I think the Suns might have to shut it down though. They should go into rebuilding mode by trading everyone away because they are far too old and with no team identity. Plus, everyone knows how to hack-a-Shaq by now.

Portland Trail Blazers
Picks: Jerryd Bayless, Nicolas Batum
Grade A+
Some clever maneuvering gets the Blazers Bayless. Bayless is more of a tweener, but playing next to Roy who can handle the ball the majority of the time will benefit both of them. Batum is a project but has a chance to be very good. Especially if the Spurs liked him. God, this team is going to be scary 2-3 years down the line.

Sacramento Kings
Picks: Jason Thompson, Sean Singletary, Patrick Ewing Jr.
Grade: C+
Man I have no idea what the Kings are doing. Thompson at 12?? Seems like he had a good workout, or something.

San Antonio Spurs
Picks: George Hill, Malik Hairston, James Gist
Grade: C+
Hill is from IUPUI. What the hell. anyways the Spurs know what they’re doing so its hard to question them.

Seattle Supersonics
Picks: Russell Westbrook, Serge Ibaka, D.J. White, DeVon Hardin
Grade: B-
Westbrook? Seriously? I think the Sonics could have grabbed Love at 4 to solidify their frontcourt. They had so many draft picks though, one of them is probably a gem.

Toronto Raptors
Picks: Nathan Jawai
Grade: B
Might be a good backup. Probably not.

Utah Jazz
Picks: Kosta Koufos, Ante Tomic, Tadija Dragicevic
Grade B+
Koufos is a good backup C. The others are tradebait.

Washington Wizards
Picks: JaVale McGee
Grade: C-
I don’t think he’ll pan out.

Some Assists

Quite a few noteworthy happenings in sports yesterday (6/25), so a quick recap of the best in each.

TENNIS: Djokovic slams Federer, saying that he himself, along with many others, are capable of taking down the FIVE-TIME defending Wimbledon champion. Then, he goes and gets crushed in straight sets. Hey, Novak, just keep your mouth shut next time when you’ve only gotten out of the first week of Wimbledon once.

HORSE-RACING: Big Brown trainer Rick Dutrow, Jr. – aside from having a big mouth and prematurely crowning his horse before the Preakness – is facing a 15-day suspension for one of his horses, Salute the Count, having excess of a substance that increases lung capacity before the Kentucky Derby. Even if it wasn’t Big Brown, the last thing any sport needs is a drug scandal.

BASEBALL: Probably should be higher on the list, but Fresno State pulled off one of the greatest Cinderella stories in sports by winning the College World Series. (according to espn.com voters, it’s the second best cinderella winner) Major props to the so-cal team.

SOCCER: Turkey might be the only team in Euro history to provide three instant classic games in the same competition. Everyone knew not to write them off against Germany – the writers still took Joachim Low’s European juggernaut – and although the Germans won, the Turks gave such a great show, again. Semih Senturk, “the lifeguard”, has cracked my top 3 fave soccer players. Unfortunately, the whole world except for Switzerland missed two goals because of technical difficulties from a storm. Maybe UEFA should think about weather when they pick the next host.

BASKETBALL: Aside from Candace Parker dunking for the second game in a row (ok, so that was two days ago), Jermaine O’Neal is likely getting traded to the Raptors. Couldn’t be happier for the Pacers – I really loved them and it’s awful what has happened to that franchise since the brawl. If it can just get rid of Jamal Tinsley now, Indiana can finally move on.

Today, make sure to watch Spain-Russia in Euro 2008’s second semi-final. It promises to be real exciting. Also, check out the NBA draft. If you can get past the excess of Stephen A. Smith, the heckling of the New York fans is great. I will never forget the day the Knicks passed on Marcus Williams to draft Renaldo Balkman (Rondo was on the board too, but that wasn’t a real crime at the time). I think God made sure that Balkman wasn’t there to endure that reception. HILARIOUS, but sad.

Pat Riley must be nuts

If you weren’t already sufficiently bombarded with draft news, Pat Riley has developed new reservations about Michael Beasley – he’s apparently “uncomfortable with [Beasley's] personality”.

Ok, Riley has got to be an IDIOT to be pass up on one of the best college prospects of the decade. Beasley’s a beast. He averaged over 26 points and 12 rebounds. Double-double machine. He’s more of a knockout than Kevin Durant and no one had any doubts about him. You put Beasley with Wade and Marion and that’s an Eastern Conference playoff team.

So, now there’s some speculation that Riley is bluffing about not wanting Beasley so that a team with the No. 4 of No. 5 pick trades up, and then the Heat can still get Mayo or Bayless. For instance, they could trade the No. 2 pick and an expiring contract to the Grizzlies for the No. 5 pick, maybe Mike Conley Jr. and mike Miller – although why Riley would want that instead of Beasley is beyond me. I get that he wants to win now, but they can’t get out the East with this roster.

And why does everyone want Rose over Beasley anyway? The Bulls could REALLY use Beasley, too, since all of their post players can’t score.

Regardless who the Bulls and Heat pick, this draft will be remembered as a pretty lame class. Truly, after the top 6 or so, there’s NO depth. We’re going to be talking about this one with the 2000 draft. Remember anyone from that one? Yep, didn’t think so.

I Am Definitely Missing Something Here

My NBA draft predictions are nearly always bad. I thought Kedrick Brown was a great player. I thought it went Darko, then Melo, then Lebron. I thought Marcus Banks would be an all star point guard. I’m wrong a lot.

That being said, with no one having a reason to appreciate my opinion, I have to say something about the upcoming NBA draft. The draft lottery was today and the Chicago Bulls beat the odds and won. Will they draft Chicago native Derrick Rose? Here’s to hoping they do. And I hope that as a Celtics fan. Here’s why I say this:

PPG:18.9

APG (assists): 4.5

No these are not Derrick Rose’s statistics. These are Stephon Marbury’s stats from his one season as a point guard at Georgia Tech. I think I realized something. MARBURY AND ROSE ARE THE SAME PERSON!! Seriously, both are shoot first point guards who stayed one year in college and are way overrated. Rose’s stats?

PPG: 14.7

APG: 4.7

OMG Marbury is BETTER than Rose. I mostly write this because everyone keeps saying that Rose is the “prototypical pg” for the NBA. No. This is incorrect. He is almost exactly the same as the pg EVERYONE points to when talking about bad point guard play or talking about good players that don’t know the “right way to play.” Rose is a selfish pg who wants to BE THE MAN or whatever. I think the Bulls will take him. He might be mildly better than Kirk Hinrich, but if the Bulls picked up Marbury for nothing I think he would be mildly better than Hinrich as well.

And if you’re the one saying that Rose “does the little things” and has “intangibles” that Marbury didn’t have, well… you are dumb because those phrases mean nothing. But for your sake I will try to defend Rose for a second. Rose averaged 4.5 rebounds a game while Marbury averaged 3.1. So he’s mildly better there. Also, Rose had “only” 2.7 turnovers a game (which is bad) while Marbury had a little over 3 a game (which is awful). So Rose is a tiny bit better there.

But Marbury averaged more steals. Marbury might even be a better defender. I’d say overall Marbury compares favorably to Rose.

Is Rose really a point guard that will become like Deron Williams? This is the comparison everyone is making. No chance. Rose is a middle-class man’s Stephon Marbury.

So mark it down, Derrick Rose will make the Hall of Fame and average 12 APG over the course of his career.