The Football Fan Spot

LA Clippers

Pick: PF/C Blake Griffin (Oklahoma)

What a surprise! (soft claps, yawns) when does this thing get interesting?

Grade: A

Memphis

Pick: C Hasheem Thabeet (Memphis)

I wish I was 7 feet tall. You don’t even have to be all that talented and you get drafted higher and paid more than more talented players who are under 7 feet. There are probably 8 or 9 players more all around talented right now than Hasheem Thabeet in this draft class and a handful more with higher upside than him. He’s an amazing shot blocker, but he’s awful offensively. Jay Bilas says he needs to refine his offensive game. No, he doesn’t have one to refine. I still think the Dikembe Mutumbo comparisons are dead on and Thabeet will change games for you on the defensive end, but do you really want to use the 2nd pick on Dikembe Mutumbo when you’re the Grizzles and need so much more. The Grizzles could have gotten so much more value out of this pick if they had drafted Jordan Hill or better yet, traded down and then taken either Thabeet or Hill, while still getting an extra first rounder or two out of it.

Grade: D

Oklahoma City

Pick: SG/SF James Harden (Arizona State)

I don’t hate this pick. Harden has a really nice game, but he can be too timid to shoot and drive or score. He’s probably one of the few players I’ve ever seen who just does not like to score. He’s underselfish and while his athleticism and all around game give him the potential to be a Brandon Roy type player, he needs to become a lot more aggressive. The Thunder already have Russell Westbrook and Jeff Green who are score second type players. They need a 2nd go to guy after Durant. Harden could mature into that, but I don’t know if he will.

Grade: B

Sacramento

Pick: G Tyreke Evans (Memphis)

The Kings need a point guard. Evans is not a point guard. He played point guard in college, but he is not a point guard. He’s way too selfish and has no idea how to run an offense efficiently. Don’t get me wrong, I like Evans as a shooting guard, but he’s not a point guard. What makes things worse is that Ricky Rubio, one of the best point guard prospects in a long time, is still on the board.

Grade: F

Minnesota

Pick: PG Ricky Rubio (Spain)

I’m loving the pick. I suggested the Wolves package some of their 4 first rounders to trade up to #2 to get Ricky Rubio ahead of the Kings, but it turns out that the Kings are still being run with incompetence. Rubio is the perfect sidekick for Al Jefferson and a great piece to a young team. They still need a few things, a shooter, a shot blocker, and a slasher, but they have 5 more picks, 3 of them in the first round, so they could do a lot.

Grade: A

Minnesota

Pick: PG Jonny Flynn (Syracuse)

I’m sorry. I thought the Timberwolves just drafted Ricky Rubio a pick ago. I must have blacked out. Wait are you serious, they took point guards two picks in a row. Waiting for a trade to be announced, waiting, waiting, waiting, nothing? Wow.

Grade: F

Golden State

Pick: G Stephen Curry

I love Curry, but he is the absolute wrong fit for this team. They need size and defense and Curry doesn’t bring either of those. Now they have a back court consisting of Curry and Ellis, neither of whom can lead an offense or play defense. They can score in bunches, but that’s not going to be enough. The only reason I’m not completely ripping this pick is because of a rumor that Stephen Curry was drafted to be packaged in a deal with Andris Biedrins, Brandan Wright, and Marco Belinelli to the Suns for Amar’e Stoudemire. If that happens, this was absolutely the right move. Curry is the perfect fit for Phoenix.

Grade: B

New York

Pick: PF/C Jordan Hill

Knicks fans booed when Hill’s name was called. They won’t be booing him in a few years. Hill, in my opinion, is the 3rd best prospect in this draft class after Griffin and Rubio. He is extremely athletic, but he’s not a natural athlete. He’s a self made athlete with a great work ethic. He fits D’Antoni’s system perfectly and can fill the void at center after David Lee leaves as a free agent this offseason. He’s not well known, but think Chris Bosh. I’d rather have him than Curry if I were a Knicks fan.

Grade: A

Toronto

Pick: SG DeMar DeRozan (USC)

The pitch was lobbed over the plate, all the Raptors had to do was swing. Luckily for them they did. DeRozan was the perfect fit here. The Raptors need a shooting guard and the Raptors need a face of the franchise for after Chris Bosh leaves after next season. DeRozan plays shooting guard and he has more upside than any player in this draft and that includes Griffin. He needs a lot of work, but the Raptors are going to lose their franchise big man in a year so they needed to go for the homerun here.

Grade: A

Milwaukee

Pick: PG Brandon Jennings (Italy)

I’m not buying this whole, Jennings is a better player because he played a year in Italy and struggled with adversity. I don’t like Jennings. He seems like he thinks he’s above the game. He circumvents David Stern’s draft policy by skipping college to play overseas and then he doesn’t show up to the draft because he wasn’t given a guarantee in the top 10, only to crash the party midway through after he got picked at 10. To make things worse, Jennings is going to be coached by Scott Skiles, a no nonsense coach. I don’t think they’ll get along too well and this pick is going to be a bad one when you look back at it in a few years.

Grade: D

New Jersey

Pick: SG/SF Terence Williams (Louisville)

I wanted the Nets to take a Louisville kid, just not this one. Earl Clark would have fit better for the Nets who needed a do everything small forward. Williams is a natural shooting guard and I don’t get why the Nets would take a shooting guard when you just traded away your best pick for a package of players centered on Courtney Lee, a shooting guard. Williams is not a natural small forward. He is versatile, but if the Nets were looking for versatility, why not take Clark, who can play all 5 positions, and 3 of them really well.

Grade: C

Charlotte

Pick: SG/SF Gerald Henderson (Duke)

To be honest, I thought Michael Jordan and Larry Brown, who both went to UNC, would take UNC shooting guard Wayne Ellington over Henderson, because Henderson is Dukie. I apologize. Maybe Jordan and Brown aren’t as bad of drafters as I thought. Henderson fits what the Bobcats need most, a go to scorer. He’s not an all-star type player, but he’s very athletic and should be a solid 15 point per game guy. Good pick

Grade: A

Indiana

Pick: PF Tyler Hansbourgh (UNC)

I like Hansbourgh more than most scouts, but I don’t like him in Indiana. Indiana needed an athletic, defensive minded big. DeJuan Blair would have fit perfectly and Troy Murphy could have moved to center without Indiana having to worry about getting destroyed inside. Now, if they move Murphy to center, and put Hansbourgh at power forward, they are weak defensively inside. Hansbourgh isn’t going to beat out Murphy for too many minutes, so he’s not good to play all that much. It is true that he’ll make a huge difference in Indiana’s practices and work ethics, but they said the same thing about Joe Alexander when the Bucks took him last year despite having Richard Jefferson already. He may have changed their practices, but when you get down to it, those Bucks were the same crappy Bucks with Alexander as they were without him. The Pacers are going to be the same crappy Pacers next year as they were last year. Don’t listen to Dick Vitale go on and on about Tyler Hansbourgh as if Hansbourgh were his man love. Dick Vitale has probably never watched a minute of NBA basketball. Just because a player was good in college, does not mean they will translate to the NBA. I remember Vitale going on and on about JJ Redick and Adam Morrison back in 2006. Whoops!

Grade: C

Phoenix

Pick: F Earl Clark (Louisville)

I love Earl Clark as a player and I think the Suns got a huge steal with him here. He is that versatile athletic type player that they had with Boris Diaw before they traded him and fits really well with them. However, they needed to take a point guard here. Either they think that Nash will be back in 2010 or they think that Leandro Barbosa is the point guard of the future, either way they’re making a mistake by not taking a point guard like Ty Lawson, who would have fit the offense very well. Hopefully, for their sake, they can get Stephen Curry from Golden State. On another note, does David Stern just hate Phoenix or what. He suspended their star player, Amar’e Stoudemire, in the 2005 conference finals for 2 games because he stood up off the bench and stepped on the floor in reaction to a Spurs’ role player beating the shit out of Steve Nash. The Spurs role player got a 1 game suspension. Amar’e got 2. Steve Nash got a big gash on his face and the Spurs won the series. Now, during the Suns pick, Stern stops pretty much mid sentence to announce that Brandon Jennings, the prima donna who circumvented his one and done rule, had finally arrived after being 2 hours late.

Grade: B

Detroit

Pick: F Austin Daye (Gonzaga)

The Pistons need big men with Rasheed Wallace leaving as a free agent and Amir Johnson traded to Milwaukee. Daye weighs 192 pounds. He’s essentially a very poor version of Tayshaun Prince, who they already have. Why use the 15th pick on someone who is going to be a backup when you could fill a need? Some people think they this pick means that the Pistons will try to trade Tayshaun Prince. Bad idea. Daye is going to be an awful NBA player. The only one good thing scouts seem to be able to say about him that is truly good is that he’s long. If I had a nickel for every time Jay Bilas said that a player had great length, I’d be a rich man. You aren’t an NBA prospect if you don’t have great length, unless of course you’re Tyler Hansbourgh. I don’t see anything special about Daye. He’s also rail thin and makes poor decisions on the offensive end. He could be in Europe in a few years, and have to stay there if he wants to play basketball.

Grade: D

Chicago

Pick: F James Johnson (Wake Forest)

Again, I like James Johnson as a player, but I don’t like the pick. The Bulls need a back to the basket post up big who can open things up for their guards. Johnson, as a power forward, is a face up type of guy who can shoot from about 15-17 feet. I like him better as a small forward, but the Bulls already have Luol Deng and John Salmons at that position so Johnson will probably play power forward, where he doesn’t have as much value. I would have rather seen them trade down for BJ Mullens, even though I think Mullens could end up stinking, or trade this pick to the Clippers, along with Tim Thomas, for Chris Kaman.

Grade: C

Philadelphia

Pick: G Jrue Holliday (UCLA)

Well, they drafted the right position, just the wrong guy. The Sixers have a history of taking high upside kids in the post-Allen Iverson era and Holliday is no different. So far it has worked out. However, this is not a 50 loss team preparing for the future anymore. They are a playoff team that needs playoff pieces. Andre Miller is likely gone as a free agent this offseason. The Sixers need a point guard who could potentially start next year. Jrue Holliday averaged 8 point per game at UCLA last year. He is not an NBA starter right now. Ty Lawson would have been

Grade: D

Minnesota

Pick: PG Ty Lawson (North Carolina)

Are you kidding me?!?! Three point guards?!?! I think Jay Bilas said it perfectly, “they are going to pass really well next season.” No one is going to be able to score the basketball for them. I’m convince Minnesota didn’t actually hire a replacement for evin McHale, but just put it on espn fantasy football autodraft and had it take the best available player. The Timberwolves would later trade this pick to Denver for a future first rounder, but that doesn’t fix any of their holes. They haven’t taken a shooter to replace Mike Miller or a slasher to replace Randy Foye. This is going to be an awful team next year, especially if they can’t work out Ricky Rubio’s buyout. As for Ty Lawson, I love him as a player. I think he could have been a top ten pick this year. I hate to see him have to backup Chauncey Billups in Denver. One more aside, how do you think Sebastian Telfair was feeling when these draft results were coming in. “What the hell! They drafted 3 guys at my position in 3 picks! I didn’t even do that bad of a job last year!”

Grade: F

Atlanta

Pick: PG Jeff Teague

Again, right position, wrong player. The Hawks traded away Acie Law and Speedy Claxton, their only 2 true point guards under contract for next year, for Jamal Crawford, so they need a point guard in case Mike Bibby doesn’t resign. However, Jeff Teague is not quite ready to lead an NBA offense. Darren Collison would have been. It’s not as bad as taking Jrue Holliday over Ty Lawson, but it still wasn’t the right pick for a team that hopes to make the playoffs next year.

Grade: B

Utah

Pick: PG Eric Maynor (VCU)

Congratulations Utah, you just picked a player who will play 8 minutes a game for you. Seriously, was a backup for star player Deron Williams really so high on your wish list that you had to use the 20th pick on one? Its not like they don’t have other needs. Both Carlos Boozer and Paul Millsap are free agents so they need a power forward. Andrei Kirilenko is your small forward so you need help there in case he gets hurt. An actual inside defender could have helped as well.

Grade: F

New Orleans

Pick: PG Darren Collison (UCLA)

Same guy who drafted for Utah must have drafted for New Orleans. Why make a decision with the 21st that only looks smart if Chris Paul gets hurt? “You all laughed at me when I took Collison, well who’s laughing now, Chris Paul is hurt, suck it…oh, wait.”

Grade: F

Portland

Pick: F Victor Claver (Spain)

Claver has potential lottery talent and is a solid pick for a team that doesn’t have a lot of needs now. However, did they really have to trade up 2 spots to get him? I can only hope that Kevin Pritchard was looking to take someone else here when he traded with the Mavs to get this pick or that he was looking to trade up further and could and not that he just had too many 2nd round picks that he had to give some to the Mavs to get rid of them.

Grade: B

Sacramento

Pick: SF Omri Casspi (Israel)

Nice job by the Kings of taking someone who has high potential, but isn’t NBA ready. Casspi is going to be NBA ready by the time this team is ready to possibly start contending for a playoff spot, which after their mess up at #4, could be in the year 2015. Or maybe Casspi just goes unheard from forever. Anyway, I like the high upside pick by the team that has nothing to lose.

Grade: B

Oklahoma City

Pick: C BJ Mullens (Ohio State)

Good job filling a position of need, but I don’t really like Mullens all that much. Still, it was slim pickings when it came to big men this year and Mullens has nice skills and good potential (he also has great length, but as I said before, that means nothing).

Grade: B

Dallas

Pick: G Rodrigue Beaubois (France)

I’m not going to insult the pick just because I’ve never heard of him. Fran Fraschilla said he is Leandro Barbosa esque, though that needs to be taken with a grain of salt because Fran Fraschilla has never said a bad thing about a foreign prospect in his life. I just don’t think adding a foreign player when you’re a team built to win now doesn’t make a lot of sense, especially one who could be very similar to a player you already have, Jason Terry. Sam Young would have made a lot of sense.

Grade: C

Chicago

Pick: PF/C Taj Gibson (USC)

Again, right position, wrong player. Chicago needs a back to the basket post scorer. Gibson is great and in my opinion very underrated. But he’s pretty much a clone of Joakim Noah and Tyrus Thomas. High hustle, good rebounder, good shot blocker, no offense game. They didn’t need more of the same. Jeff Pendergraph would have been a much better selection.

Grade: C

Memphis

Pick: F DeMarre Carroll (Missouri)

Memphis is so bad they can just take the best player available. However, there just isn’t anything that screams best available about DeMarre Carroll. Of course, I guess that’s why they are as bad as they are. Oh, and Carroll has liver disease. Stuart Scott was very reassuring when he said he “probably” wouldn’t need a live transplant for a couple of decades. Have fun with that one Grizzlies fans, if they are actually any of you out there.

Grade: D

Minnesota

Pick: SG Wayne Ellington (North Carolina)

I was waiting for them to take a 4th point guard and make Sebastian Telfair jump out a window. But they didn’t actually mess this one up. Ellington is the shooter they need, the shooter they hoped that Mike Miller would give them. Ellington is guy who thrives coming off of screens and without the ball. Good thing, because the Timberwolves appear determined to use a bunch of 2 and 3 point guard sets next season.

Grade: A

New York

Pick: G Toney Douglas (Florida State)

Chris Duhon is a free agent in 2010 and since he’s played well and wants a big contract, he’ll likely be gone, so the Knicks need a replacement for him. Toney Douglas and Chris Duhon are almost the exact same player, both of them are physical, athletic guards. If it wasn’t for the fact that they traded for Darko Milicic, I’d say they had a good draft day.

Grade: A

Cleveland

Pick: SG/SF Christian Eyenga (Congo)

Sam Young was the “lob throw over the middle” pick, but the Cavs still swung and missed. This team needs to win next year, otherwise there’s a good chance that LeBron James leaves as a free agent in 2010 and all of a sudden this team is god awful. I haven’t heard of Eyenga and for all I know he could be a future star, but it doesn’t matter. He’s not going to be ready next year. Sam Young could have helped this team, like actually helped them next year. They messed up the draft last year by taking a project player, JJ Hickson, and they did the same thing this year. They better hope the addition of Shaq is enough to turn this team into an NBA Champion, because otherwise this pick will be looked at as the pick where they ruined their franchise’s future.

Grade: Super F

The Oklahoma City Thunder did not have a great season in their first season in Oklahoma City, going 23-59. They have the 3rd pick in today’s NBA draft to try to make up for that and as is always the case, we are not quite sure what they’re planning to do. One of their biggest weaknesses last season was shot blocking, as they ranked 23rd in the NBA with 4.5 blocks per game. This is likely because they used Nenad Kristic as their center. What’s interesting about this is that the Thunder had to use Kristic, a true power forward, at center last season, even though the Thunder have drafted 3 centers in the first round since 2004, when they were still called the Seattle Supersonics. Let’s take a long at what happened.

2004

With the 12th pick in the 2004 NBA draft, the Seattle Supersonics select Robert Swift, center, Bakersfield High School

Fresh out of high school, Robert Swift had tremendous potential due to his size. However, he would never come anywhere near reaching his potential due to injuries to his knees, as a result of weight strain. Swift weighs about 270 and doesn’t have particularly strong knee muscles. He barely played in his first two years before getting hurt as a result of his youth and inexperience. Swift is still with the Sonics, now called Thunder, and played in 26 games last year, averaging 13.2 minutes per. In his NBA career, Swift has never averaged more than 6.4 points, 5.6 rebounds, 1.2 blocks per game.

2005

With the 25th pick in the 2005 NBA draft, the Seattle Supersonics select Johan Petro, center, France

Even though they already had Swift, they took Petro in 2005 as insurance. Petro started 41 games in his rookie year, but never would start that many games and he proved his future in the NBA was as a role player. He’s never averaged more than 6.2 points, 5.1 rebounds, and .8 blocks in a season and before this season he was traded, along with a 2nd rounder, to Denver for Chucky Atkins and a 1st rounder. He averaged 8.0 minutes per game in Denver this year, playing 27 games.

2006

With the 10th pick in the 2006 NBA draft, the Seattle Supersonics select Mouhamed Saer Sene, center, Senegal

Not pleased with either Swift or Petro, the Sonics took Saer Sene, a 7 footer with a 7-8 wingspan, to help them block shots. However, he never adapted to the NBA game coming over from Senegal. He has never averaged more than 6 minutes per game in a single season. He has spent the majority of his time in the D-League, where he has become a bit of a perennial all-star. He was waived by the Sonics, now Thunder, this past February and picked up by the Knicks who use him as a 12th man.

The Thunder could take Hasheem Thabeet today in the NBA Draft in hopes of finally filling this need. Thabeet has one thing that the previous three guys listed do not have, NCAA experience. Thabeet has played 3 years at the University of Connecticut where he has become familiar with the American style of play and learned from one of the best, coach Jim Calhoun. Thabeet is also bigger than the previous three and a better, more refined shot blocker. Though I currently have the Thunder taking shooting guard James Harden with the 3rd pick in my latest mock, just because the Sonics/Thunder always seem to surprise people with their draft picks, Thabeet is certainly an option.

In other news, Shaq is now a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Suns get Ben Wallace, who they will likely buy out so he can retire, Sasha Pavlovic and his expiring contract, and a 2nd round pick in today’s NBA draft. The Cavs hope this move with give them the final piece in their championship puzzle as they need a big man to guard Dwight Howard, who destroyed them in the conference finals. They just have to hope it doesn’t hurt their chemistry in the way in killed the Suns’. The biggest winner here is likely ESPN, who, next postseason, will not only be able to bombard us with thousands of Kobe vs. LeBron commercials, but will be able to add a large Shaq puppet to the mix. As for the biggest loser in this deal, that’s probably Shaq. The medical staff in Phoenix revived his career, not to mention the fact that Shaq has never lived in a cold city like Cleveland. And of course, he can no longer go by The Big Cactus, and The Big Rock and Roll Hall of Fame doesn’t quite roll off the tongue. Maybe he can play on the cities lack of any success in sports in the history of the city by naming himself The Biggest Loser.