Taking a page right out of Bill Simmons' book on this one, and blogging along with the NBA Draft on ESPN. I am very biased and only admittedly only slightly knowledgeable on the topic of basketball, but I watched a lot of college basketball this year and I've been watching ESPN and listening to podcasts all day so I think I can do a fair job of analyzing.
7:20 I'd like to start off by saying that the rumors are true, Villanova girls are very attractive. The last 2 Barstool Philly Smokeshows of the Day are Villanova 2014. Meow. Hopefully that's a good sign for Corey Stokes and Corey Fisher in the draft tonight. I heard that Stokes had a very good workout for the Celtics and it'd be awesome to see him playing behind (and learning from) Ray Allen.
7:25 Commercial for the Urban Wrestling Federation. Pretty sure I saw Jay-Z and Lil Jon. Do they perform between matches? Do any of the wrestlers carry knives/guns/brass knuckles/gang memberships? So many questions, but I still feel like nobody will watch it.
7:30 I don't know how I feel about Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" being the theme song for this year's draft. Number one, it's not a deep draft at all. It's actually one of the least deep drafts in history. Number two, it's written by a slightly large British girl who probably has watched maybe two basketball games in her life - and it was like Raptors-Nets or something terrible.
7:35 The Cavs are on the clock. I think regardless of which of the 50,000 combinations of players they could take with their first two picks, they will not do as well as they did as the year after they drafted Lebron. Lebron is a better point guard than Irving and a better forward than Williams, and he's a bigger star than either of them will ever be. Bold prediction: Kyrie Irving and Derrick Williams will never even be considered as the face of the NBA. Let's get this pick in.
7:39 It's Kyrie. I disagree with the choice. I would have gone with Williams and then a point guard with the 4th. Kyrie reminds people of Chris Paul and I'm sure he'll be good (it'd be hard to be great on this Cavs team - did you see that roster?). Kyrie is unproven compared to Derrick and the difference between Irving and Walker/Knight is much less than the difference between Williams and Lithuania/Congo/Lithuania/Turkey.. at least in my opinion. I will say that Kyrie can handle the media very well, though. He's humble and excited at the same time, and I'm happy that he's going to sign a big contract so maybe his dad can eat his first meal in 6 weeks.
7:43 Jay Bilas: "You can't draft a veteran in the NBA draft." Thanks, Jay. I'm really excited to see what the Timberwolves do, because I'm a T'wolves fan now. Ordered my jersey a couple hours ago. It makes sense to get Williams because he's the best player left, and then get rid of Beasley perhaps? It's Williams. He is so ugly. I hope the second thing he buys (after his mom's new car) is dental work. I feel like at some point, the T'wolves are going to have so much young talent that they have to win more than 20 games. Right? I hope I'm jumping on the bandwagon at the start of something beautiful. Williams says he wants to play 3, but he's more of a 4. I kind of get the feeling that we'll see a lot of Minnesota lineups with Kevin Love at the 5 and Williams at the 4. And Ricky Rubio. God, I love Ricky Rubio.
7:50 Jimmer, Jimmer, Jimmer, Jimmer, Jimmer.... Kanter. Sad face. Call me biased against international players, but I just never saw Kanter play and he hasn't played against the same level of talent as the kids who played in the NCAA. It'd be cool if Utah is able to get Jimmer later this round, and they could potentially throw out Jimmer-Gordon-Kirilenko-Kanter-Okur and be the first NBA team to have 5 white players on the court at one time. Only in Utah.
7:56 The Cavs took Tristan Thompson, meaning that they now have two players who are as old as I am. That blows my mind. Tristan doesn't seem quite as comfortable talking to reporters as Kyrie was.
8:05 Jonas obviously doesn't have English mastered yet, but at least he doesn't look like a reptile. Raptors fans have that to be happy about, I guess.
8:08 After watching Jan Vesely kiss his smoking-hot girlfriend and then dunk on a bunch of random Europeans, I'm excited to see him play with Wall and McGee (McGhee? I mean that tall guy that can dunk but isn't really good for anything else). They should be a really fun team to watch. And I'd love to see his girlfriend (wife?) as a Barstool Smokeshow.
8:12 BISMACK! He's actually 15. Maybe 16. He's killed more animals than all of us combined, though, so I guess that counts for something. He'll probably lead the league in blocks one day and turn into Dikembe Mutumbo. Keep in mind that because he's so young, he has about three decades to play. I'm waiting for someone to trademark the term bis-smacked for when he gets a block. Did I just accomplish that?
8:24 Kemba Walker to the Bobcats. He basically carried a team of role players to the national title at UConn, and he's basically got to do the same thing in Charlotte. Gerald Henderson, Boris Diaw, Kwame Brown, and Bismack. Hopefully Villanova's very own Dante Cunningham can get some minutes and make our school look good. But I can't see the Bobcats looking good at the end of next season. Sorry, MJ.
8:29 I have mixed emotions about Jimmer's selection. I'm happy to see him go top ten, but I really hate to see him go all the way to Sacramento. There should have only been two options for him: Utah and New York. The Kings fans (all 8 of them) won't appreciate Jimmer like the people in New York or the polygamists in Utah. It really is a shame. But I am looking forward to the signs that say "Jimmer is the King." This is the first I've seen of Jimmer's contract with his brother to work hard enough to get into the NBA and it's kind of cool. It becomes a lot cooler (1) if Jimmer's brother is younger - he's not... crap - and (2) if Timothy Fredette goes by Timmer Fredette - he doesn't... crap. I suck.
8:48 Markieff Morris gets drafted by Phoenix. He's 7 minutes older than Marcus, so we have to assume that Marcus is going to get drafted at 8:55. That would be 15th overall, to the Pacers. You know what? Toss that out the window. No way Indiana drafts a black guy.
8:55 I got the team wrong, but I absolutely called this. You could see it on David Stern's face as he was walking out. He was nearly laughing at the irony of the twins going back-to-back. Marcus Morris to the Rockets. That sets up a handful of Morris Brother matchups during the regular season. To be honest, I was really hoping he would drop to Indiana and the Pacers could prove me wrong.I guess we'll find out who the best white player in the draft is next - probably the Lithuanian.
9:01 I don't know where the stigma of the Pacers' draft executives being racist comes from. They have a lot of talented young players of both skin colors. Collison, George, Rush, Granger, Hibbert, Hansbrough, McRoberts, and now Kawhi Leonard. See? Plenty of racial balance. They have two white guys!
9:12 The pick that will be most thoroughly examined and heavily criticized: the Knicks. Iman Shumpert, Georgia Tech. You can see the fans holding their hands up asking "who is that?" and making faces like they just smelled something terrible. I think this will turn out to be a typical Knicks pick - he'll be okay but he won't really do anything major and he'll end up being part of a package trade for a superstar. Spike Lee's thoughts: "we're going to go with it, we have no choice." That says it all. No way Shumpert gets playing time over Landry Fields. Landry is going to be better than Michael Jordan. That's what's good. The Knicks really needed a center to replace Ronny Turiaf, and I think management is going to get some shit for this. At least they're used to it - or at least they should be.
9:25 My T'Wolves are back on the clock. Point guard, shooting guard, small forward, power forward, and center are basically filled by Rubio, Johnson, Beasley, Williams, and Love. They really could use a star, though. Ricky is a star but he isn't going to score 20-25 points per game. I like Kevin Love but he's not a huge scorer. Michael Beasley once posted a picture of himself to Twitter with a bag of weed visible in the background. So I'd vote for trading him and getting a star shooting guard. Monta Ellis? Andre Iguodala? Kobe? (Kidding.) I have absolutely no idea what they're going to do with this 20th pick.
If Donatas Motiejunas can play 5, then I don't hate the pick. He's 7 feet tall, so I'd assume he can. Now as I wrote those two sentences, I learned a lot about him from the highlights on ESPN. I don't like him anymore. They have way too much height. Maybe we can trade him and Beasley for Landry Fields.
Better idea: JJ Redick. He's ready. He was a star at Duke, and he's been biding his time on the Magic, playing sixth fiddle to Howard, Turkoglu, Nelson, Arenas, and Carter. It's time for him to move and take on a more important role. You're going to tell me that if he got 20 shots a game (8 from 3 point range) that he wouldn't hit 10 (3 from 3) and score 23 a game? Plus we could get him to Minnesota for basically nothing. Lock it in.
(I told you I was biased.)
9:34 Now to my favorite team to use in NBA 2k11. The only thoughts I have on this pick are related to who will I be able to use with Roy, Fernandez, Mills, Wallace, Oden, Aldridge, and Matthews. Animated Brandon Roy is the truth. Absolutely unstoppable.
The pick is Nolan Smith, from Duke. I LOVE the pick as a Duke fan because Nolan's a great guy and I love it as a video gamer because he can put the ball in the hoop - and let's be honest, what else really matters in video game basketball? Looks like another year of dominance on the sticks for Jay and the Trail Blazers.
9:42 Two notes on Kenneth Faried. (1) All he knows how to do is dunk. (2) He has a daughter. I know I differ from a lot of people on this, but I wouldn't have drafted him. Denver's biggest need was a go-to scorer, and they drafted a guy with three foot dreadlocks who can't score from father out than "touching the rim" range. Smh
9:50 T'wolves Alert! Potential trade would send Jonny Flynn and Motiejunas to Houston for Brad Miller, this foreign guy Mirotic who can't play in the US for 4 years, and a future 1st round pick. Since we're giving Rubio the keys anyway, I don't see why we can't get rid of his backup to get a big American center and get rid of Darko. If it happens, the lineup would be Rubio, Johnson, Beasley/Williams, Love/Williams, and Miller/Milicic. I still think Beasley should be moved for a legitimate NBA 2 guard. Throw Houston's future first round pick in that deal and I think that's more than enough for Redick.. Right? I mean, if the Magic will take Arenas and Carter, what's one more headcase? Like, it was only weed. At least he never pulled a gun on his own teammate. Weed's probably legal in Florida anyway. Illegal guns are not legal in any state.
10:09 Chicago on the clock. Another team that could really use a guy like JJ Redick to solidify their starting five. They have a HUGE question mark at 2 guard. If Corey Stokes fits in with an NBA team, it's the Bulls. He could play offense with the Bulls and he's a good defender at his position. Unfortunately, I don't see him being a first round pick. Actually, I don't know if he'll be picked at all. Damn, Chicago doesn't even own this pick anymore. If Minnesota picks Selby, I'll shoot myself. You shouldn't have 5 point guards on your team.
But Selby is solid for another team. I think that - with enough media hype - he could have challenged Irving for the title of best point guard. He'll be a steal for whoever gets him.
Chicago drafted Cleveland State's point guard, Norris Cole. If he goes to Minnesota I'm going to get irate. I don't know how people root for the T'wolves. David Kahn (President) is completely unbearable. Bring in Ruben Amaro! Or me. I've been very successful as the GM of the Chicago Bulls in Franchise Mode. Why not give me a shot?
10:34 Singler to the Pistons. I feel bad for him. Most people who are end-of-the-first-round talents get stuck on great teams. Poor Kyle just missed the cut, dropped to the second round, and is now on the Pistons, living in the shadow of Tracy McGrady, Rip Hamilton, Ben Gordon, Tayshaun Prince, and Ben Wallace. Like 6 years ago it would be an ideal situation to be drafted in to. This year? Ouch. The good news is, they're guaranteed a lottery pick next year so eventually they'll have some good young talent to replace the old men.
*Note: My last hour and a half of notes didn't get posted or saved. Thanks, BlogSpot. To sum it up in a few words: Nova got no love, the T'wolves are poorly managed, and I will post my draft grades when all of the trades are finalized. smh
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