It's a good thing Durant and Westbrook are 21

[houston911]

i was very high on aldrich has freshman/sophomore year...he kinda regressed last year and that made me question his potential

if he can get back on track then

pleiss, smh...dude looks so stiff and swaggerless from the clips i've seen. i would have much rather gambled on whiteside, stephenson or willie warren

[sonictecture]

[
like i said, i agree with drafting for fit in most places, but when you have a chance to draft a guy who could be the 2nd best player on your team, you don't pass on him because of a fit....thats just common sense.

has presti drafted anyone with a tattoo yet? thunder would have been so much better with reke. i've never seen a player miss as many layups as harden did this season.

I don't agree, but let's say you're right and Evans is a better player than Westbrook. How much better is he?

Evans doesn't have a huge skill advantage over Westbrook, ages are negligible and what Evans has in size he gives up in athletic ability. If Evans has even a small advantage couldn't that advantage be overcome through better player development? Why give up a year of development invested in Westbrook to start over with Evans? It doesn't make sense. You move forward you accelerate the growth process and keep your players happy.

My favorite prospect in 2009 was Stephen Curry, but I respected Presti for sticking with Westbrook even though we all had lingering questions. It's difficult to say if Evans would have been more successful than Harden, but from a skills and fit perspective it was clear that Harden was a logical choice.

Presti nearly chose 3 centers in the 2010 draft. He moved up, taking on salary to get Aldrich, moved up to 18 and took on salary in attempt to move up ahead of San Antonio to get Kevin Saraphin. Traded the pick (Bledsoe) when Washington took Sarphin one pick before 18. Traded cash to get Pleiss at the top of the 3rd round.

Before the draft I saw Aldrich as a college role player who measured out short and light for an NBA center. My first mental image was Aldrich trying to guard Andrew Bynum at the rim and it wasn't pretty.

After the draft, like most, you try and talk yourself into the idea that Aldrich could be better in the NBA than in college with more space and a faster pace. You hope he is the bouncy active player you watched in Freshman and Sophomore highlights. You hope his willingness to bang in the paint doesn't disappear against NBA competition. You look at his wide shoulders and long arms and see a guy who should be able to use what size he has effectively.

What I'm growing to respect more and more is Presti's belief that he can take guys with certain talents and with the coaching staff develop them into pieces that make the whole better. It's and extremely logical and efficient way to build a team and I'm fascinated to see if it will work.

[sonictecture]

pleiss, smh...dude looks so stiff and swaggerless from the clips i've seen. i would have much rather gambled on whiteside, stephenson or willie warren

i think every NBA team should have someone in the draft room to give input on a players swagger quotient before making a decision.

[houston911]

lol, sonicecture, i know youre making fun of me but im for real with the swagger stuff....my player predictions have been pretty accurate the last few years since i started incorporating swagger ratings, im just saying

and yeah, in hindsight curry would have been the best fit, hes one of the best shooters in the league. i liked him much more than harden but i thought a backcourt of curry and westbrook was too small

and presti is gonna keep gambling on bigs and hope one of them pans out. it's too bad they took dj white over deandre jordan. i saw deandre at the a&m maroon madness doing exhibition stuff, dude is an unbelievable athlete fdr his size. i still cant believe nobody gambled on him in the lottery

[sonictecture]

lol, sonicecture, i know youre making fun of me but im for real with the swagger stuff....my player predictions have been pretty accurate the last few years since i started incorporating swagger ratings, im just saying

I think swagger can be a good thing, but I also think that if you go beyond just trying to pick which player is going to produce the most and focus on which players compliment each other the best to produce sustained success, that swagger becomes a less important factor and in some cases a liability.

and yeah, in hindsight curry would have been the best fit, hes one of the best shooters in the league. i liked him much more than harden but i thought a backcourt of curry and westbrook was too small

I agree, I think a Westbrook and Curry backcourt would be a liability defensively.

and presti is gonna keep gambling on bigs and hope one of them pans out. it's too bad they took dj white over deandre jordan. i saw deandre at the a&m maroon madness doing exhibition stuff, dude is an unbelievable athlete fdr his size. i still cant believe nobody gambled on him in the lottery

I was watching Jordan in summer league and came away thinking how does a guy who has played so much basketball still have so little skill. He's just an athlete, I'm sure he looked good in a exhibition setting because his strength. Not only did no one gamble on Jordan in the lottery but no one gambled on Jordan in the first round. I'm not a fan.

I like D.J. White, I think he's an NBA player, but if he stays with the Thunder it looks like he'll be little more than insurance this season.

[Bubstubbler]

They all have ET options after their 3rd year so if one of them isn't happy they can bail quite quickly. This might fall apart before anything happens

Anything other than 3 consecutive championships, anyway.

[fallacy]

and yeah, in hindsight curry would have been the best fit, hes one of the best shooters in the league. i liked him much more than harden but i thought a backcourt of curry and westbrook was too small

I agree, I think a Westbrook and Curry backcourt would be a liability defensively.

Westbrook is probably the second best defensive starting PG in the league behind rondo. I agree that Curry would be a HUGE dropoff defensively from Sef and Harden. Most people don't know that Harden actually held opponents to a lower FG% than sefolosha last year. Although that doesn't mean that Harden is the better defender, it does show that he's a damn good defensive SG

[PortlandForever]

Do not kid yourselves and leave the Blazers out of these talks. Good luck to you and yours, but we will be seeing ya.