Depending on where the Warriors select what position should they draft? Will it be one of the euro centers or another small forward, shooting guard that we have enough of. I actually hope that Mully will take a gamble and drafts one of the euro centers or maybe even one of the H.S. kids.
Probably a Euro center. Anybody but Pavel. There's a reason why the Euro teams benched his gigantic arse most of the time. I'm really high on Martynas Andriuskevicius (how the freak do they fit his name on the back of his jersey?), Andris Biedrins (6'11 Latvian dude), Ha-Seung Jin (7'3" 300 pound South Korean dude), Jaber Rouzbahani (7'5" iranian dude), Peter John Ramos (7'4" Puerto Rican dude) Those are all legitimate international prospects because of the size and potential. The language barrier is going to be a problem the first year I bet.
The Warriors draft pick will be an indication of how confident they are in resigning Erik Dampier. My gut feeling tells me he will be back, because he loves the Bay Area, and the changes the Warriors are going through should hype Dampier up to be a part of it. At their current position, I think the Warriors need to draft not based on need, but on "best available player" left. Too often, teams draft on need and pass up on a talented player, instead of loading up on a position and then making a trade for something they need. The Warriors are two deep at every position, but what they are lacking is a Superstar player. They don't have a franchise player to build around, and they will probably have to thin out their roster to acquire one. I originally had them taking Childress in my mock draft, but with the hiring of Montgomery I think that throws Childress out of the picture. The Warriors are in a position to either deal the pick with two or three players to land a star, or they can gamble on one of the highschoolers. How about Telfair or local Cali product Robert Swift?
The warriors have usually drafted the best available player since Jean arrived. But none of the picks panned out to be strong enough. I think Twardzik was in charge when they started doing stupid picks like Joe Smith over KG, Adonal Foyle over Tmac, Todd Fuller over Kobe. But that's all hindsight and some drafts were hard to tell because of the lack of depth. I think however the Todd Fuller was the worst draft because that was one of the year's deepest drafts with 5 allstar players the warriors missed out on (Nash, Peja, Kobe, Illgauskus, and Jermaine O'neil) And they also had Tony Delk, Walter Mcarty, Jerome Williams, Shandon Anderson, Othella Harrington, Derek Fisher and Moochie Norris who all would have been better than Todd Fuller.
Somehow I think drafting Telfair would be a mistake, but they say he "makes everyone better around him". And that's exactly what I want to hear and would like to see. There's definitely more hype on Telfair for a reason other than the fact he's a 5'10" point guard declaring for the draft out of high school. He's seen as one of the few players at that point guard spot who gets people open and he knows where to hit the open person with the perfect pass. He's also a good defender that can guard much larger opponents with his quickness and long arms. So basically we'd be drafting another version of Claxton with better court vision.
The reason I like Telfair is also the charisma and exposure he brings to any event he's at. The excitement around him is needed to get big name players wanting to come to the Warriors via free agency. His ability to make players better is another selling point for the GM to use in luring the superstar player the Warriors need. If the Warriors drafted him he would also push Speedy to give his max effort, knowing this young up and comer is just waiting to take the starting job from him.
If we got Telfair we'd have to be damn sure to get a good veteran free agent center or sign somebody that went undrafted. You never know. We could find a Brad Miller or a Ben Wallace somewhere.
The only thing that makes me worry about Telfair is his height. He's listed at 5'10 which could be 5'8. I got nightmares of him being posted up to death.
He's actually 5'10 without shoes I think but listed at 6'0. He's around the same height as Jameer Nelson or Speedy Claxton. Neverthless, these guys are really quick and if they're long it won't matter what their height is. It's like Tayshaun Prince versus other 6'9 forwards. He's got the wingspan to play 6'11 guys.
Tonights the night, we can quit speculating and actually see where we'll be picking. It'll be typical Warriors fashion that we get the #1 pick a year after Lebron...(we'll be know for having the 3rd pick a year before Lebron and Melo and having the 1st after Lebron and Melo) but i'd rather have Dunleavy and whoever instead of Darko... By the way, where do you think guys like Darko and Yao would go this year... Are they way better then the big men this year? or where they just the tallest and rawest, therefore, had the most upside, in their respective years.
Yao would be number 1 obviously because he's got the complete package with the shooting touch, range, ballhandling, passing, blocking, defense, and mobility. Only his strength and conditioning suck. I blame that on China for not giving him rest or an offseason to work out. Darko would probably be behind Okafor but they say Darko has a good allaround game like Yaoif he can get some playing. He also needs to work on strength, conditioning, and backing down smaller opponents. A lot of the international big men don't play the back to the basket type of game because the European/International style of game is different overseas with the emphasis on shooting.
<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">This year, no matter where they end up drafting, the Warriors would seem to need a low-post player. Their core of young talent mostly plays on the perimeter, from Jason Richardson and Mike Dunleavy to Troy Murphy, Speedy Claxton and Mickael Pietrus. Plus, starting center Erick Dampier could opt out of his contract and become a free agent July 1 (Dampier must notify the Warriors of his plans between June 15 and June 30). Backup center Adonal Foyle already is eligible for unrestricted free agency. Also remember this: Montgomery built his Stanford powerhouse on sheer size, leaning on big, bruising interior players. It requires little imagination to picture Montgomery pushing for the Warriors to take a center or power forward.</div> http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c...PGN06RSGN1.DTL" target="_blank">Source</a>
