NBA Draft recap

I was setting up my new apartment during the NBA Draft and was thus unable to provide my thoughts and analysis. Fortunately, Fastidious Hat was here to provide minute-by-minute updates as DeMarre Carroll and Leo Lyons waited to hear where they would be spending the next several months. (He also added in some truly wonderful Steve Nash photos but didn't include one of my personal favorite NBA draft pics that you can find below.)

But since this was the first draft in 93 years that the Tigers had a chance of getting two players taken and featured some typically embarrassing picks by NBA teams as well as an absolutely terrible talent pool, I had to chime in with my delayed reflections. 

First we'll start with where JYD landed. Memphis. Ugh. I mean seriously, UGH. I thought DeMarre's best chance of making an impact in the Association would be to land on a winning team (like Cleveland or Chicago) and become an energy and character guy off the bench. I convinced myself he could replace Anderson Varejao. 

But instead it's Memphis. Some might argue that he'll have a better chance of getting immediate playing time with a team like Memphis. He also has a better chance of getting misused since that franchise is a joke. That happens and he could find himself on the bench because of no fault of his own. And if you can't crack the playing rotation in Memphis then most other teams are going to shy away from you. As a rule of thumb, if you're a role player it is almost always better to start your career with a winning franchise. There's a reason they win and one of those reasons is usually that they are good at developing talent.

And I don't see this team turning things around anytime soon. They've got a couple decent pieces in point guard Mike Conley and small forward Rudy Gay who is a damn good scorer. (And he plays pickup ball with Kimmie English in the summer.) I'm also a big fan of Marc Gasol who seems destined to be a Vlade Divac type player who plays a major role on a good team and has all kinds of intangibles but that you can never fucking stand mainly because he's European and bitches at every call. He's also one of the dirtier players I've seen in a while. Check out the gold medal game between the US and Spain for more on that. 

But the team also has OJ Mayo who is a little too much like Rudy Gay (shoot first player, passing isn't good at all). And then there's Marko Jaric who is just awful and I don't think I need to say anything more about him. Looking at their potential starting five—Conley, Mayo, Gay, Gasol and Hasheem Thabeet—I notice a major problem: That starting five is not going to average much over 10 assists a game combined. Conley averaged around five dimes per game, Mayo averaged three, Gay and Gasol under two and Thabeet isn't a good passer. That's terrible. They're a team with an offense built around one-on-one scorers. If you're building your offense around those kinds of players they better be in the Kobe or Kevin Durant mold, which they're not. 

So to summarize, I'm not real happy with DeMarre's situation. But at least he went in the first round and he went in the same spot (No. 27) as Linas Kleiza did. That worked out alright. And maybe he can fall into the Darius Miles-Quentin Richardson clique and start doing that fist head thumping thing every time he scores. On second thought, maybe that's a terrible idea. 

Now Leo. Not as much to say about him since he wasn't taken. I've noticed that if you're projected as a second rounder then it's pretty much a crapshoot whether or not you're going to actually be picked. Tough break for Leo. But he is getting a shot with the Indiana Pacers summer team and will supposably get a shot with Cleveland after that. 

After watching Leo for four years we all know that he need to go somewhere where there's a player or coach who will light a fire under his ass. That's not meant as a knock on Leo. It's just his makeup as a player and a person. 

Ideally, he'd end up in Boston or San Antonio where he'd have either Kevin Garnett (who has a record of bringing out the best in other bigs) or Tim Duncan on his ass at all times. I'm not sure Boston has expressed interest but I believe the Spurs have. That would be perfect as they're my early pick to win the Western Conference next season after acquiring Richard Jefferson for the patch of hair that used to cover Manu Ginobili bald spot. Best of luck to both Leo and DeMarre.

And I won't go into detail here since this is a Mizzou blog and it is not at all connected to the Tigers, but I want to go on record saying that the Thunder and Kings (and Grizzlies) all made a catastrophic mistake by passing up Ricky Rubio. Just sayin.