Draft Day 2012 slotting speculation

[The Consiglieri]

I posted this on a thread at the Redskins Message Board on the Wiz draft, and thought I'd include it here, I'd love to hear your speculative thoughts on where you think we'll be slotted looking at teams post draft for next year's draft.

Here's my rambling take:

Next years draft will probably be the best since 2003. It's a bit unfortunate that we probably cratered from 2009-2011, but we did luck into Wall (we shouldnt have gotten him), and this team should be arse again next year. However there are some teams that appear to be deliberately tanking already for that draft (Charlotte), other teams that are just plain horrible and clueless (Minny and Cleveland), and others that will just be bad (Toronto, a truly awful team, won't get any help, but i have to credit them, if Valunciunas is as good as advertised, there was no justification for Cleveland or Toronto to let him slip to Washington, both Toronto and Cleveland are absolute septic tank teams right now, Toronto having very little talent going into draft day, Cleveland having even less (washington has pieces , at least).

For now, I suspect the bottom of the barrel next year should be:

Toronto: No major help from this draft, awful.

Cleveland: Started improving in the 2nd half, much of their disaster season was attributable to injuries as much as paucity of talent.

Sacramento: Our nightmare scenario, have collected a lot of pieces, and THEY JUST DON'T FIT. Plus made complete asses of themselves on draft day.

Next Tier:

Minny: I actually kind of liked what they did in this draft, taking one of the bery best two or three prospects in the draft, and then turning their other assets into future assets.

Detroit: Knight falling into their laps was the equivalent of us landing Singleton, but moreso, how often does a team at the bottom of the top end get a guy with a 3 slot value? I remember us stupidly refusing to move up the two times in my memory it happened (Butler falling, and Pierce falling), but that's it. However, it was clear they imploded last year, and it definitely has the feeling of a hollywood film with an elevator racing to the bottom rather than the begining of a rebuild, i think they are like we were in 2009, except they didnt make a stupid trade, Im not sure if they'll continue to collapse, or get a temporary reprieve with the arrival of Knight. However, I am sure that they are going to be bad, the question is 60 loss bad or 45 to 50 loss bad.

New Jersey: I'm not really sure how bad they will be. I suppose it depends on how bad their offseason is post-draft.

Washington: We now have a lot of pieces that are young and filled with potential: McGee, Seraphin, Booker, Singleton, Vesely, Young (resigned), Crawford, Wall, and Mack. It's the beginings of something, and that doesnt take into account other pieces like the inscrutable Baltch, however, if this team was as bad as it was, and it was, this past year, a young Euro who still needs to learn a ton, in Singleton, a player who needs to develop an offensive game (it was coming along pre-injury, his best year yet, and on a team in FSU with no weapons offensively), and in Mack, a guy who needs to find a way to stick w/only borderline NBA level talent and skill that may (and I emphasize may) be able to translate to the next level, or may not, is highly unlikely to jump from 19-26-23 to suddenly 35 or 40 wins. I'd say 25-32 are reasonable expectations, and that's not taking into account the possibility of a strike, if there is a strike/lockout, the team will be slower out of the game (may not get the time in necessary to train, no summer league etc, and as a result, will gell much slower than a good team). All these things are good things in my view, as it cements one last crater worthy season in a year with a draw that pending CBA, could be an outstanding draft.

So for now, I'd project us to pre-slot, be locked in with a pick in a zone between 4th and 8th.

Charlotte: I heard many commentators suggest that Charlotte's decision making suggested a team that was clearly trying to line itself up for a great pick in a great draft next year. I know they aren't very good, and have no central pieces to build around, so it seems like a reasonable contention.

Others of note:

Golden State: This team could certainly move a player this summer or during the deadline, and if they did they could either get better or a lot worse, fast.

Milwaukee-As always, its very hard to tell if they are on the cusp of building something, or the cusp of a clusterfluck.