It wasn't a no brainer. Fuck, look at my avatar. The Blazers made a whole campaign out of "who should we choose" instead of having an Oden jersey ready on the day of the lottery. It was most definitely NOT a no-brainer to pass on a 6'11" shooter/scorer who had just won College Player Of The Year and was predicted (correctly) to lead the league in scoring for years to come.
My dad might look like Kojak, I've been told by several people that I'm more along the lines of a young Agassi
A hairy Armenian? That's cool, if that's your thing. I was a big fan of Agassi, and his autobiography Open was the best of that genre I've read in the past few years.
7 of those guys were 1st round picks. 4 of the 6 2nd round picks are rotational players for someboy, which is pretty darn good for 2nd round value. Williams gets a pass because he missed his rookie year. Oden was just bad luck. He was drafted with injury issues, but no one could have predicted he'd essentially miss 3 of his first 4 years to season ending injuries. When he plays he's a great value. Bayless was a great value pick (forecasted as 4th pick player that we basically got at 11). Tough to fault that pick. Rudy has probably earned his worth as a 3 million dollar investment. Babbitt and Claver are probably bust picks. If KP can be faulted for anything, it was his inability to get a young point guard, as there were several from the past 3 drafts he could have landed that would have helped us. All in all, a pretty decent track record that basically turned out worse case scenario. The best case, would have us still playing right now. He's a risk taker.
You think the GM would have been fired immediately after making the pick? That makes no sense. They would have at least waited for the season. The season in which Greg Oden would not play a minute. Why would the GM who picked Durant be fired then?
One media guy predicted Bayless at 4, the only GM who took the bait was Pritchard at 11, so this makes Pritchard a GM who gets great bargains. Only trouble is, Bayless should have gone at about 40.
In hindsight, probably. Bayless had the highest potential of the guys we traded him for. When you're a team like Portland -- with limited resources and perennially picking in the mid-upper half of the first round -- you gotta take chances like this and I think it's the best personnel philosophy. Where I fault KP is he waited for Bayless to develop instead of continuing to look to upgrade the position.
? He signed Andre Miller meaning Bayless could develop while playing backup PG. Not sure how he was waiting for Bayless to develop and not upgrading the position. Only problem was Blake was still on the roster which cut into Bayless' minutes. All I know is Cho traded a guy that averaged 14/4 in the playoffs in his 2nd year in the league at 21 years of age for......nothing. Terrible. Bayless is now starting to blossom and had a monster April to end the season. His progression is reminiscent of Mike Conley's. All he needed was time to figure it out but Cho would have none of it. What a dipshit.
Bayless should have gone right where he went. Trading him for the 20th pick in a weak draft was a stupid move by Cho.
Yep. Bayless isn't a heck of a lot older than some of the guys who are going to go in the first round and he's got a lot of potential to improve still, IMO. Ed O. Ed O.
Great move trading Bayless, McMillan! Pretty smart, striking when a brand new GM had just started and would do your bidding. Then they'll blame Cho! My computer won't start or I'd put in a new 5 items just for you. So I can't get to my reserve file full of about 20 new ones and change my signature. I'm on someone's computer right now shopping for a laptop to replace the old clunker.
