Just have to look at history... how many white centers taken in the lottery have been good in the past 10 or 15 years?
Well that shouldn't be the determining factor. Maybe a hint, but not the evidence that convicts him of mediocrity.
Sometimes you just don't mess with the gods. Maybe if KP had ignored all of the hype surrounding Oden and looked at our history, he would have chosen Durant over Oden.
No it's not. Good players can come from any college, but seriously how many good white centers have been drafted in the lottery over the last 15 or so years? Przybilla? Bogut? How many have been All-Stars? Why waste a lottery pick on a guy who has almost zero chance of becoming a very good player?
No thanks on Zeller. Heard he didn't wow many out at the PF. They won't waste a lottery pick on him. Imagine if this Zeller guy had gone to Syracuse?
Kaman, Lopez, Gasol, and if you go into tall PF range too there are quite a few. I think there are a lot of good examples. What good Black centers have been drafted in the last 15 years? Dwight Howard, Hibbert, Bynum, and Shaq? It's not like there is a long list of them. How many whiffs have there been of Black centers or just centers in general? Now Zeller may not be the pick and could be the second coming of Eric Montross, but I don't think race is the issue. It's the athleticism.
Isn't Carmelo Anthony from Syracuse? With centers a lot of teams take the you can't teach height attitude. It seems any 7-footer with even minimal skills will get a look. So the Warriors preferred Todd Fuller to Kobe Bryant. Pau Gasol is an international player so he wouldn't count as US white center. Latin players? Mark Aguirre, Nene, Manu Ginobili (or do you count him as Italian), Luis Scola, Anderson Varejao, Thiago Splitter, Carlos Arroyo If you count Spanish as Latino you get even more. Happy, HCP?
White centers taken in the lottery since 1995 1995 Bryant Reeves #6 Cherokee Parks #12 1996 Todd Fuller #11 Vitaly Potapenko #12 1997 No white centers 1998 Raef LaFrentz #3 Michael Doleac #12 1999 Alek Redojevic #12 2000 Chris Mihm #7 Joel Przybilla #9 2001 Pau Gasol #3 2002 No white centers 2003 Darko Milicic #2 Chris Kaman #6 2004 Rafael Araujo #8 Andris Biedrins #11 Robert Swift #12 2005 Andrew Bogut #1 2006 No white centers 2007 Spencer Hawes #10 2008 Brook Lopez #10 (he's kinda white) 2009 No white centers 2010 Cole Aldrich #11 2011 Enes Kanter #3 Jonas Valanciunas #5 I tossed you a couple of bones by including Gasol and LaFrentz. Both of those guys have played PF and C so I included them. Other than that, there have been some real stinkers. I guess my point is that you don't waste a lotto pick on a guy who is going to (maybe) be a solid backup. There are plenty of those around. Obviously you wouldn't pass on a guy if he is the next Blake Griffin but he just happened to be white. The thing is, Zeller isn't the next Blake Griffin. He's the next Joel Przybilla if we're lucky.
i'm not saying you take zeller by any means, but discounting him purely because he is "white" is not the type of draft analysis i would want any team performing.
