If you watched Duke at all, he was a PG the minute Irving went down and was legit at it. If you would of told me he was a PG 2 years ago I would have laughed. But, he was a legit PG this year.
Here's a good little breakdown of Smith's D abilities http://tlorc.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/nolan-smith-is-an-excellent-on-the-ball-defender/ Dont get me wrong, I wanted Faried more. But, I think Smith will be good at what he does and in weak draft at pick 21, it is what it is.
I don't think the OT is accurate, we traded Bayless for what became the 19th pick, even though Rich Cho since traded the pick twice.
But we didn't need to trade Bayless, we could have included our own first instead of NOs. If we did that, we'd have Bayless now instead of Smith.
Yes. I'd think that Charlotte would have accepted our first rounder, rather than New Orleans, if it was the only one we had to offer. Ed O.
I believe he already got traded for Faried (in the wrong direction); they didn't need to formalize the trade since Denver and Portland had consecutive picks.