long suffrin' boulez fan wrote:The Consiglieri wrote:cdouglas wrote:Yes, I've seen him play and he's raw! No, I was listenting to the commentators but looking at the Wizards' history with the picks from overseas makes it look like a bad decision. Our past overseas picks never put on Wiz uniform. It wouldn't be too bad if this was the 30th pick but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth at the 17th pick.
I don't get the hate w/this pick. I've only read the first page of responses but I was shocked by them. This is exactly the sort of pick we should have made. When you're outside blue chip territory you can either draft guys w/low ceilings who might be bordean shoot for the stars. Everything I've read everywhere about Seraphin is that he was one of the highest upside guys available in this draft outside of the 5-10 slot are. The only knocks were his contract and that he was and is raw and will take time. Well what are we? Are we trying to win 50 games next year? I don't think so. 50 wins by April 2012? I don't think so. What the end game here? It's Leonsis. The end game is to build a team that can contend long term w/real long term pieces that Wall can lead. When is this going to start profiting for us? Well Leonsis is a long term planner, he built the caps w/the usage of fire sales in '02, '04, '06, and '07, w/trades for prospects and picks, and some painful miserable seasons, 3 consecutive at the end, paying off in that fourth season Feb/Mar run to the 8 spot in the playoffs. For those of you who wanted to be big players in free agency this year, and possibly next, and wanted the team to be in the playoffs this year or next, you just don't get what appears to be the plan.
I think it's clear he wants to see a young, fast, athletic team built w/Wall as its leader. I think he sees this plan as one that will likely take bad but slowly imporving seasons in '10-'11 and '11-'12 to make this plan come to fruition providing long term success by '12-1'3 w/a playoff run that year. Perhaps a run in the spring of '12, it's possible, but the key is to think what the process is, and if you project what appears to be the program, then the worst case scenario, getting seraphin in ''12-'13, would be exactly when the team is positioning itself for its first 45-50 win season. It is not in our interest to land a superstar free agent, or to utilize draft picks for role players for a team that lacks top end talent. The objective should be to find players that can exploit, o the talents of Wall and that Wall can exploit for the success of the team and that's clearly whats being done. Getting too good too fast would have us repeat the Arenas years, when the team was built to be good enough to contend for a midtable playoff slot, but not winning anything of substance. Suffering a little more will alow the team to add some more pieces, and cement Wall's role as leader, so its not disputed by the presence of some max me first player. The team has a plan, the Seraphin pick was in keeping with it, and it makes sense. Very confused at the hate for the pick.
I guess I was a little more excited about the pick until I saw he averaged 6 points in the French league.
Sacre bleu!
There is raw... then there is sushi grade.
Europe develops their players much,much more differently than we do. Lionel Messi could have contributed hugely to Barcelona far earlier than he did, but he didnt really start seeing serious minutes until they felt he was ready. European leagues develop their players to an extent almost like our schools develop the minds of children on their way to elite colleges. They take their time. It doesnt surprise me at all that he didnt put up huge stats. European teams develop players just really differently, usually junior teams, eventually reserve teams, then little bits of minutes w/the big boys, than more the next year, than maybe a starting role. Seraphin is really early in his development, not that its fair to make an analogy to the best soccer player in the world, but if Seraphin was Messi, he'd be in the equivalent of say 2002 or 2003 in Messi's development. Very, very early, and bare in mind, Messi didnt even start in the world cup in '06 (though he definitely could have). Looking at the stats does not tell the story in europe because their approach to developing players is radically different from ours.
:o
