Dear ESPN,

Stop putting me on TV.

Love,

The NBA Draft

 

The ‘Big O’, Walton, Magic, Worthy, Olajuwon, Ewing, Robinson, Shaq, Duncan, James,……and Anthony Bennett. What? I didn’t even know who the hell this guy was prior to the draft. I take a look at the 1^st round and half the guys I don’t even know. It is pretty much a list of 30 guys not even close to being ready for the NBA. 15 years ago, not one of these guys would have been drafted at all.

Is there a larger crapshoot in life than the NBA draft? It is like watching spoiled kids (NBA owners) buy a bunch of cutting edge technology that they don’t know anything about and don’t know how to use….and likely never will. While the NFL is “what have you done for me lately,” the NBA draft is based on “how tall are you and what might you be able to do for me 5 years down the road which you have shown little or no ability to do up until this point in your basketball career?” Honestly. How else can you explain a guy (Alex Len - sophomore), being taken #5 overall? Sure, he is 7’1”, but he averaged a whopping 11.9 ppg and 7.8 rpg in a very depleted college basketball game. Len didn’t even make a very weak All ACC team…or the All ACC 2^nd Team…or 3^rd team. He did make honorable mention though! He was a top 5 pick, yet not even top 15 in his own conference. Makes a ton of sense.

Playing more than 1 year in college basketball seems to be held against these guys. The more you prove you can do (shoot, win, pass, play defense, etc), the more they (NBA decision makers) find things you cannot and therefore they don’t want you. They would rather pay millions to a guy that is unproven and may pan out, than pay millions to a guy that will develop into a solid starter, but maybe not an all-star. It is this idiotic way of thinking that allowed Darius Miles to collect millions of dollars for way to many years.  It is why teams like the Spurs run circles around other teams. They pick up a guy like Deshaun Thomas, a junior from Ohio State who averaged 19.8 ppg and has a history of winning and a good work ethic.

Here are the guys the 12oz GM would have approved picking:

Victor Oladipo

Otto Porter
Cody Zeller
Nerlens Noel
Trey Burke
Shane Larkin
Tim Hardaway Jr.

Here are the guys the 12oz GM wouldn’t have touched with a 10 foot pole (all went in the top 15):

Alex Len – Did not make 1^st, 2^nd, or 3^rd team ACC. Enough said.

Ben McLemore – A train wreck both mentally and maturity going to a train wreck organization (Kings).

Shabazz Muhammad – 2 things to know about Muhammad: 1) he once was upset when his team (UCLA) won on a last second shot because he didn’t make the shot; and 2) when he started dropping in the draft, he left the draft….only to come back when he was drafted.