Official 2013 Draft thread

The only real sub-6'0" guy that I've been high on for a while is Pierre Jackson... not as a star in the league or anything, but as a great reserve that'd be great on a contender for instant offense off the bench. Most of the time you just have to look past their measurements and just look at their performance on the floor, and Jackson has been insanely productive at Baylor. They underachieved this year based on the talent they had on paper, and you'd think that a lot of that would fall on Jackson's shoulders, but really, he's the only one that kept them in a lot of their close losses with his play down the stretch.

In fact, Jackson led the Big 12 in both ppg and apg this season. The last player to accomplish that feat in a "Power Six" conference was Jason Terry at Arizona, fourteen years ago. Not to mention, he pulled down 3.8 rpg as a 5'10" pg...

 

To tell you the truth, I don't remember him too clearly, I have a vision of him making a 3 pointer but I don't think he's a pure shooter. I think at the time I compared him in my mind to Potyeress, a guard that's very solid but doesn't wow you. I think I do remember most of their offense coming from him and Corey Jefferson at PF but then when Isaiah Austin - The very skinny 7 footer that wears glasses, shoots 3s and finishes alley-oops - got in the game, the whole thing turned into something completely different (the word 'circus' comes to mind) and maybe that's what blurred my memory of Pierre Jackson.

 

You catch any of the NIT? Pierre Jackson looked great there, leading his team to the NIT title, and he also looked great when they just destroyed #4 Kansas, at the end of the season.

For reference, here were the numbers - 21.4 ppg, 4.6 rpg, 11.0 apg in 34.4 mpg in the NIT (including a 26/3/16/4 game against Arizona State) and 28 points, 6 rebounds, 10 assists, and 2 steals against #4 Kansas on 11-13 FG shooting. His two years at Baylor and his NIT performances aside, the Kansas game was really an eye-opener. That Kansas team was full of future NBA players, and he just destroyed them.

 

No, haven't seen him there. I've never seen Seth Curry BTW. Also Otto Porter and Bennett I don't ever remember seeing.

 

You're not missing much with Otto Porter. He's really a poor man's Evan Turner. It's blowing my mind seeing the mocks that think Washington will take him #3 just because he's a local kid. This draft is weak at the top, but why would a team throw away the chance to get a guy like Oladipo just so they could get a less valuable fan favorite? This isn't a second round pick we're talking about...

Bennett's the real deal. Maybe in a class that was stronger at the top of the draft, he'd be a mid-lotto guy, but if a team really wants to take him #3, I wouldn't call that a stretch.

 

Tim Hardaway Jr., Reggie Bullock, Ricardo Ledo, Shabazz. I think those are the prospects I've adjusted to the most. I like them. All obtainable if we package our second rounders, I believe.

 

I actually disagree with you hear. Porter is one of the few guys in the draft that I think has star potential.

 

Tweets:

Josh Newman ‏@Joshua_Newman 25m Really liked Baylor PG Pierre Jackson today at Nets Combine. Height (5-10) is an issue, but he's a player. Several mocks have him in the 40s


Josh Newman ‏@Joshua_Newman 22m
Jackson was D1 JuCo Player of the Year as a soph at Southern Idaho. Averaged 20 and 7 and was MVP of NIT this season for Baylor.

Highlights:

[video=youtube;Ls-4PFZmKbE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls-4PFZmKbE[/video]

 

Ford compared this draft with the 2006 draft.

Outside the obvious few (LMA, Roy, Rondo, Gay) that draft was UGLY.

 

http://weareutahjazz.com/lockedonjazz/2013/05/23/podcast-chad-ford-nba-draft-insider/

 

Not sure if this has been posted yet: analysis of where each Western team's picks have come from.

 

BUT even in drafts like that, you can get good players lower down:
21. Rajon Rondo
24. Kyle Lowry
32. Steve Novak
42. Daniel GIbson
47. Paul Milsap
50. Ryan Hollins
undrafted: Barea, Lou Amundson, CJ Watson

 

That's basically what he said in that podcast - this draft is deep with rotation players.

 

-Luke Winn

~Sports Illustrated

 

D.J. Stephens recorded the highest vertical leap in NBA history today -

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-b...-records-highest-vertical-leap-181932411.html

46 inches in a Brooklyn Nets workout.

 

Nogueira? Gobert?

Anyway, I don't think the worry was ever with Olynyk's offense exactly - other than his lack of lift which causes his shot to get blocked at a high clip. The size at center in the NBA is only going to make that worse.

But his defense is...yikes.

 

Now that I'm finally seeing the bench press numbers being released, how mindfucking are the following #'s -

Cody Zeller - 17 (sixth overall)
Matthew Dellavedova - 16 (ninth overall and #1 for guards, tied with Canaan and Hardaway, equaling big man Steven Adams)

Brandon Paul also had a very surprising 15 reps. That's impressive, because the guy made his living as a perimeter shooter.

Lower body strength and core strength matters more for NBA players than upper body strength, but it's still interesting to see that Matthew Dellavedova can bench as much as Steven Adams.

And for Zeller, the rich keep getting richer with these measurements. Not only did he have the highest no-step vert of any 6'9"+ big in over a decade, he also showed up strong on the bench. The only players that benched more, who have a shot of getting drafted were Mbakwe and Cooley.

(I'm not high on Cody Zeller as a high draft pick, but just knowing the biases in the draft process, I'll steal a thought process from Jason Kapono and say, "if Tyler Zeller would have moved to Greece and changed his name to "Giannis Adetokunbo," he'd be a top five pick.")

 

I have a feeling that this year, even more than most, the mock-drafters are going to be way off. Every year there's a sort of game between the people who make mock drafts where they come to a consensus on the "value" of certain picks. The mock drafts are more like lists of the top players according to some scale - it's like a marketplace system - and they convince themselves that a team would be crazy to take a "less valuable" player because, even if they prefer that player, they can turn around and deal the more valuable player for the player they want PLUS MORE (like Nellie taking Tractor Traylor and trading down for Dirk Nowitzki). But that assumes perfect fluidity in the market and perfect trust between GMs and suchlike. And a lot of GMs don't give a shit about the mock drafters and have criteria that they know nothing about (including owners with particular faves whispering in their ears). This year, with so much parity anyway, I think there'll be a LOT of picks that the Chad Fords of this world will be scratching their heads over.

Which is a long way of saying that I think Dieng may go a lot higher than people are saying.