2011 nba draft thread

feels right to start this now after half the lottery has decided to go back to school

latest is perry jones, along w/ henson & zeller and most likely harrison barnes as well

the top 10 is gonna be irving, d williams, kemba & lots of euros -- nba teams are probably freaking out right about now

no reason to freak, nba teams

josh selby seems to be indicating that even when the one-year plan goes horribly awry, it's still a one-year plan.

what an idiot

lance stephenson pt 2

he's been in las vegas training for almost 2 weeks and surely not violating any ncaa regulations. i assume he'll get drafted somewhere, but he really would have as much to gain as anyone by going back to school and showing improvement.

derrick williams is officially in.

i'm not convinced that williams is gonna be a full time starter in the nba but in this draft he should be picked top 3 prob

Why are people staying? Lockout? Barnes is risking a lot, he'd be high this year if he stayed.

DIdn't the clipper throw in their unprotected pick as part of the Baron/Mo deal? I guess that was a pretty sign that people don't rate this draft. Still kinda pumped about BISMACK though!

yeah no one is rating this draft outside irving and maybe walker as an off-the-bench ty lawson type. clips also didn't want the guaranteed salary of the lottery pick on the books- it's usually a bargain for most teams but if there's one thing the clips are drowning in for the next few years it's cheap young talent already locked up

okay calipari keeps the conveyor belt going, we've got knight, jones, and liggins in the draft but not hiring agents yet.

i'm actually kind of high on derrick williams. feel like he might be sort of like supercool beas with better mental state, make a few all star games.

so happy those UK kids are declaring haha

lotto tonight fellas! please feel free to get as unexcited as you want.

the lotto is almost always hilarious

this is ridiculous + amazing

sportsguy33 Bill Simmons
Via Minn Star-Tribune: T-Wolves have never won the NBA lottery, never improved their spot + dropped lower 7 of 13 times.

i guess what's cool this year is that the lotto will actually influence who is picked #1? or maybe that makes it less cool

that wolves factoid means they are definitely winning this particular lottery.

Uh, gamblers fallacy.

i meant because this lottery blows and there is no good #1 pick

And the consensus #1 is another point guard

This shithole league is fixed, show us the ping pong balls stern!!!

Rashad mccants did 9/11

Timberwolves truthers 4 justice

Fuck this

they are definitely winning

Any TWolves fan should have known instinctively how wrong it felt to write that combination of words.

it's hella fucked up that the draft is gonna be LOADED next year aaaaaaaaaaaaand the t wolves pick is owned by the clippers (THANK YOU BASED JARIC)

wau really

on both points!

& that's another reason why the clippers dealt their pick

who's coming out next year?

well most likely three guys that would've been guaranteed top 5 picks this year (harrison barnes, perry jones, jared sullinger) + potentially a freshmen class that is really stacked

some of those guys: kentucky's anthony davis (called the next KG), duke's/doc's austin rivers, baylor's quincy miller, florida's bradley beal (the next eric gordon) etc etc

O_0

KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHNNNNNNNN

"This league has a habit, and I am just going to say habit, of producing some pretty incredible story lines," Kahn said. "Last year it was Abe Pollin's widow and this year it was a 14-year-old boy and the only thing we have in common is we have both been bar mitzvahed. We were done. I told Kevin: 'We're toast.' This is not happening for us and I was right."

obviously kahn needs to send a gay jewish transvestite to the next draft lottery to ensure the #1 pick

TBH given that I had zero hope of the Wolves winning, I am p.contented with a top 3 of Utah, Minnesotta and the Clippers having thrown in #1 overall just to get rid of Baron.

(The ugly thing is that basically every viable prospect at #2 plays PF which is also the position of our four best players at this point)

Isn't that dude that's going number two exactly like beasley?

So fucked

Why don't they show the ping pong balls being drawn? ?

GOOGLE BUILDING 7

yeah matt he is, pretty much. The bigger problem I see is that he's more suited to play PF than beasley but that would be a pretty small/weird defensive combo with love... plus they're paying darko a lot of money. Idk.

Simmons podcast w/ Chad Ford was interesting re minny. Simmons made the good point that Kahn has collected assets w/o any consideration to how they might play together. Like, he paid next to nothing for Beasley and Randolph, but those guys can't play together. Flynn is in a system that doesn't suit him. They tried wes johnson at the two for some reason. Kahn just has no plan.

Johnson at the two was an awful idea but they had no other way to play him really once they got Beasley - 10 minutes a night behind the team's second best player wouldn't really justify a #4 pick?

Maybe they could trade #2 overall for having their pick back in '12.

I think in fairness to Kahn his plan was always to take the best players he could for the minimum price, and then trade the chips into a team - what went wrong was that no-one wanted to trade with him because he is crazy.

"Thanks to moving up from No. 6 to No. 3 with the draft pick they received from New Jersey, the Jazz have a much bigger and better outlook. A month after the cursed season of 2010-2011, general manager Kevin O’Connor almost smiled, while recognizing how much scrutiny — of him and by him — will be involved in the June 23 draft.

"The pressure’s on," O’Connor said, "but that’s OK."

It’s better than that. The Jazz now can land the young, talented center they need: Enes Kanter of Turkey via Kentucky. This also enables them to be more creative with their own pick (No. 12), which brings The Jimmer Issue into full bloom over the next five weeks."

This is weirdly certain of what's going to happen - I didn't know Kanter was even the consensus #1 center.

TAKE BRANDON KNIGHT

he's the best balance of upside/risk in this relatively upside-less but very risky draft imo -- i think you could easily make an argument that he should be taken ahead of kyrie

I think in fairness to Kahn his plan was always to take the best players he could for the minimum price, and then trade the chips into a team - what went wrong was that no-one wanted to trade with him because he is crazy.

― Gravel Puzzleworth, Wednesday, May 18, 2011 10:46 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

ford says on this podcast that the bizarre thing about this is that kahn genuinely believed that the team would be good -- he used the example of danny ainge, who was collecting assets but had no delusions of those assets being worth anything in the short term, whereas kahn was expecting the wolves to be competitive this year

also they touched on this & i think it's pretty intriguing & that's looking to trade rubio for a 2012 lottery pick (simmons throws out the clippers, which actually makes a ton of sense)

i wonder what color the sky is on david kahn's planet.

Yeah, I find it really hard to figure out Kahn's "genuine beliefs" 'cos he'll say the craziest stuff ("Darko is on track to be an all-star next season") and it's just totally unclear whether it's a) To boost Darko's confidence, b) To save his own job, c) To raise Darko's trade value, or d) he actually thinks this is true - like, if the consensus #2 player were a center this draft, would the wolves be taking him? I honestly have no idea.

also they touched on this & i think it's pretty intriguing & that's looking to trade rubio for a 2012 lottery pick (simmons throws out the clippers, which actually makes a ton of sense)

This would be such a catastrophic admission of failure though - simultaneously "we cannot persuade a guy getting 20 non-starter minutes a night to come and play in the NBA" and "we intend to suck next season for the third year in a row, hope u guys weren't too attached to Kevin Love".

well yeah but sometimes that has to happen -- chris wallace admitted failure when he dealt thabeet but it netted him a pretty good player

i just feel like we're caught in some inescapable black hole of sucking it's so goddamn depressing, i don't even have ideas of what they should do anymore, you know? like i can't wrap my head around the enormity of how bad the timberwolves are

honeycutt just went int he 2nd round, steal of the draft according to hollingers ucla sucks formula

i liked him and malcom lee a lot when i saw them in the tourney this year

the second round is such a crapshoot -- there's literally like 2 worthwhile players a year MAYBE -- it's kinda fascinating

i'm surprised tyler hasn't gone yet -- just on sheer size he'll be in the nba for a while imo

yeah workouts/interviews must not have gone well

silver needs stern's pronunciation coach

rudy5fernandez thanks all blazers fans for ur support this 3 years!! So happy to be in the best team in the nba!!!dallas!!!

2nd round extra dull this year.

aw, rudy!

like jeremy tyler on the warriors

i like rudy on dallas

yeah mightve got a steal w/tyler there

they need some big bodies at least

bucks sticking to their "white guys who can't run" strategy

Jeff "The Whole Package" Van Gundy.

i dunno guys, rudy goes down as one of the greatest disappointments in blazers history. and considering their history that's saying something!

ShamSports Mark Deeks
Nets just bought the #31. Ironically, New Jersey sold the #31 (Tibor Pleiss) for cash just last year. That's the Prokhorov effect.
7 minutes ago

hahahaha

by ironically, i think he meant "stupidly"

loll

Hoopdata Joe Treutlein
So @DraftExpress informs me via tweet he's exceeded his tweet limit for the day and is in Twitter jail. Not joking.
1 minute ago

I hope Warriors fans chant Charles Jenkins name like Leeeeeerooooooy Jenkins.

Do the timberwolves actually have anymore picks??

they have all the picks, all of them!

wouldve been cool if they tried to trade the 2nd pick for the entire 2nd round

SebastianPruiti SebastianPruiti
Fading quickly...laying down watching the rest of this draft...
2 minutes ago

SebastianPruiti SebastianPruiti
OK, seriously, going to bed tonight...look for a Jan Vesley "Overseas Scouting Report" tomorrow morning...
16 minutes ago

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/draft/results/rounds this shit is so ridiculous chad ford likes like every pick yet he knows that half of these guys wont even be in the league in five years, it just dont make sense

fun fact: derrick williams is the only US-born player in the top 7

Irving was the right choice for the Cavs. He's going to be a very good NBA point guard. He has...
To access Chad Ford's complete analysis, become an Insider

p.s. Bismack Biyombo

Warriors should hire Charles Oakley to coach Tyler imo. Makes perfect sense with Mark Jackson already there.

'Reke/Jimmer/Salmons is awesome imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08rirsA8YaM

liking this bismack fellow http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/6679686/your-deal

http://a.espncdn.com/photo/2011/0624/espn_g_biyombo2_sy_576.jpg

That bismack interview is so great - kinda wish MN had taken him now!

Best thing Henry Abbott's got in a while:

By the way, when video guy extraordinaire Jade Hoye and I spent all that time with Charles Jenkins, Jade noticed Jenkins had no tattoos, and asked why. Jenkins' response: "You ever see a bumper sticker on a Maybach?"

so apparently the guy the wolves drafted 57th Targuy Ngombo is 5 years older than he told everyone, too old to be drafted! lmao

You can be too old to be drafted?

yah cut off is 26 apparently

hmm. Odd little tidbit.

well there goes one of my longshot plans for financial security

Rough. Well, at least they don't owe him a contract.

pretty sure (a) kahn knew that and (b) drafted him for that reason

this t-wolves draft is so amazing

best international scouting dept amirite

haha

The timberwolves should make their draft party a rave next year

lol

would rave it up w/ kahn