That minor upside (hard to sign FAs in Portland) is nothing compared to getting a player who has been drenched in piss as long as Gasol.
DraftExpress updated their mock this morning. They have us taking Gobert... not sure what to think about that... http://www.draftexpress.com/nba-mock-draft/2013/
Pretty sure their first mock to actually take teams into account will come tonight after the lottery. Until then, I'm pretty sure he's still just ranking players.
I understand your reasoning. Not sure why he would rank Oladipo so low then. He's a top 5 IMO. If we get the 3 we should take him there.
Hmm, actually, nevermind, I think on the front page, he has it based on rankiing, but he has that as a rough draft with team needs, sorry.
Yeah, but I think that might be an old disclaimer, as he has a link from his twitter account saying here's a rough draft of what his first mock could look like. Oh, who knows.
I think Zeller jumps back into the top 9. I don't want him, but other than his reach, he measured out pretty well. He seems to have surprised a few people with his athleticism.
Maybe so, but just seems odd to me that teams will watch a guy play, and make a judgment of his abilities, and then be swayed to not believe what they saw because he ran and jumped well. You can train real hard in between end of season and combine to improve what drills are testing for, but it doesn't, or shouldn't, alter what happens when games are played.
Yeah, for the most part I couldn't care less about those drills - running and jumping in isolation doesn't really tell you much of anything with regards to basketball. Open-court sprints between sets of cones aren't creating anything remotely close to a live game situation. And fundamentals and intelligence will trump athleticism in the end.
Yeah but didn't he take a step back "athletically" last year from his freshman year? I can see the case where scouts may think his injuries or extra weight negatively effected him last year, but now he is back to where he was before.
His DraftExpress vid (I watched Indiana a lot this past season) does him justice. I think he just needs to get stronger (a lot stronger). But the intangibles are there. [video=youtube;Wvb2SNJ9T4w]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Wvb2SNJ9T4w[/video]
How about fishing for an overlooked European talent? I was just looking at some of the European league playoff results and ran across this guy - http://basketball.eurobasket.com/player/Boban_Marjanovic/Mega_Vizura/65526 7'4", 286 lbs., 24 years old 16.9 ppg, 11.8 rpg in the Serbian league Here's his nbadraft.net profile from nearly five years ago - http://www.nbadraft.net/players/boban-marjanovic He put up those numbers in the Serbian league, which only has one Euroleague team (Partizan), but those are still numbers that would sort of suggest the guy's developing into a basketball player.
This season Joel Freeland was supposed to be the big-name center for CSKA Moscow, but sadly Joel's body betrayed him again and Kyle Hines continued to get big minutes, which led to this: He seems to have more ups than Chuck Hayes. I'd be very happy with an offseason that signed Boban Marjanovic and, if not Hines, then somebody like him who can be our defensive enforcer. Of course, I'd be equally happy with Ekpe Udoh, although I'd worry about him staying healthy:
Whiteside please!! Damian(PG) - McCollum(SG) - Aminu(SF) - Vonleh(PF) - Whiteside(C) cures many ills. We also need more consistant scoring from the 3 position. Would love to have Barnes and Whiteside, but not enough money for that.
