Actually the relevance of nationality is quite important. European players often slide due to the fact they have contract buyouts that cause them to slide, to literally fall into someone's lap. This means it was an obvious player who slid because of economic reasons. Yes KP is good at scouting high level talent. He has done very good picking in the lottery. The facts are, most of these european guys would have gone much higher if there was not a contract buyout and or delay on them coming stateside to play. They were a no brainer and he had nothing to loose. But when it comes to picking players in the second round, he has missed the boat a lot. A ton. Peterri Koponnen instead of Carl Landry, Marc Gasol, or Ramon Sessions anybody? Does that ring a bell? See the pattern I see repeating is: Use late round picks on a european prospect and sometimes your dart will hit the dart board. So far he has 2 good ones (Rudy and Batum, although my opionion on Batum is still out.) and 2 that flat out stink in Sergio and Koponen.
playoff basketball is still just basketball. there isn't some special knowledge required to win in the playoffs that only vets have. playing in a 7 game series is different than playing a team 2-4 times spread out over a season because the team's become familiar with each other and are able to make vast adjustments game to game, but that really is the only difference.
What about the teams picking directly ahead of Pritchard? They were obvious at 24 but not at 22 or 23? The idea that they were "obvious" is completely wrong. They fell because once their price tag was factored in, they were not obviously good values at those draft positions. Like every GM in the history of the game. A 50% "good player" success rate for draft picks that late is fantastic. So you see a pattern of Pritchard adopting a smart strategy. Cool, I do too.
I thought about Ime, but I'm not sure what he'd bring to the team that they don't already have in terms of raw talent (Nicolas' defense is pretty close to on par or better than Ime's)? Sure, he's older and he's pretty tough, but where do you use him unless some serious paring down at the wing occurs, even even if you were to move one of Travis or Martell they would still be overloaded and facing a minute crunch (especially if you count Roy and Rudy). My guess (hope?) is that they add a veteran backup 4 to the roster who can bang around a little bit and score from the block, and maybe add a veteran starting point guard like Andre Miller or Kirk Hinrich to help shepherd some of these youngins and take some heat off of B-Roy. Bottom line: Ime would be a great addition if we didn't have Nic.
