Glen Rice Jr.

[DCsOwn]

They traded for him because this...

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P5E_IpKjowQ

...plus this...

“Obviously with some of the things that happened at Georgia Tech that was a concern, but he's a really likable kid. Our players really liked him. He's an intelligent kid, a hard-working kid. All of those things are a good start,” he said. “We didn't have any issues with him off the floor, never even heard whispers or rumors of anything off the floor. Never saw him on the road coming in late or any of that kind of stuff.

“We just tried to spell it out for him that he needed to keep his head down and let his play do his talking. That was it. He really did a good job with that. I've been in this league six years and I haven't seen too many rookies who have been that patient and just kept on working and put up those kind of numbers when they got that opportunity. It was a pretty impressive run by him. He's not a shy kid or a quiet kid, that's for sure. He's smart and kind of funny. Our players really liked him. He was kind of a focal point of our team, the kind of guy people gravitated to.”


...equals a worthwhile gamble in the second round of an NBA draft. The logic behind the move is easy to discern. Draft a guy that has the talent to be a major contributor on a competitive team. A guy that can get his shot off against NBA caliber athletes, a guy that fits your team's on-court philosophy like a glove (including being a perfect force amplifier for your best player), and a guy with the versatility to play multiple positions, something in vogue in the new NBA, or draft a guy that projects to be a career backup pg with questions about how his game will translate to the pros*. They made the right decision, even with the inherent risk associated with GRjr.

*While Wolters has certainly earned plenty of fans for his play over the last couple seasons, his NBA potential is still up for debate. The level of competition in the Summit league makes it more difficult to judge how his game might translate to the NBA level, and he doesn't have the prototypical physical profile. He does have excellent size for an NBA point guard prospect, but he lacks great length (6'3.5” wingspan) and strength, and he doesn't have the speed or explosiveness that scouts would generally like to see at the point guard position.

His physical limitations cause the most concern on the defensive end, where he plays intelligently and shows good toughness and instincts, but he lacks the ideal lateral quickness to stay in front of NBA guards. He defended pretty well at the Summit League level and even held his own defensively in big outings against New Mexico and Michigan, but NBA teams will certainly want to put his lateral quickness to the test in workouts over the next couple months to get a better gauge for how he'll be able to defend against quicker guards in space.

http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/Nate-Wolters-6480/

[keynote]

Oof. I don't like the looks of that Twitter feed at all. He comes across as immature and crass, with no sense of what's appropriate for public consumption, etc. The stuff he re-tweets is even worse.

Rice's dad and/or agent should be in his ear about cleaning that crap up quickly. He might just want to delete that account and create a new one from scratch.

Yes, he's young, and single, and is living a (relatively) glamorous life. But so have a lot of other players in college and the pros, and their twitter feeds don't read like this.

[doclinkin]

... sigh, yep.

Doesn't mean he can't be a good player, but it's easier to cheer louder for a dude who's a high caliber guy. Oh well. Hope his game proves more mature than his PR presence.

[The Consiglieri]

CCJ, this post is aimed primarily at you, but it applies to plenty of other people on this board as well.

I understand if you don't like Rice as a prospect. I also understand if there were other prospects that were still on the board that you liked a lot, and would have preferred over Rice. However, I'm getting very annoyed with some of the things that have already been said around here.

CCJ, you need to come out right now and post exactly who you think we should have drafted instead of Rice. I don't need any explanations, as you've already given them in the past, I just want a simple list of every player that was still available that you would have drafted over Rice.

My fear is that you, and many others on this board, will suffer from some serious revisionist history if Rice doesn't end up being a good NBA player. We've seen it with this team plenty of times before. For example, we all whine about how we drafted Vesely over Leonard and Faried. But that's not fair, because it's a lot easier after 1 or 2 seasons in the league, to pick out those two names as guys who were overlooked in the draft that ended up being very good players, certainly better than the player we picked. But it's not fair to ignore all of the other prospects that were taken after Vesely. I know that in this particular case that many of us had targeted Leonard and Faried before the draft, so it's not complete revisionist history, but it's still questionable.

If Rice doesn't work out a few years from now, I don't want to be hearing about how Ernie made a terrible trade, and more so, how we passed on Player A and Player B. If you give me a list of the players who you would have preferred right now, then we can go off that list in the future to confirm your beliefs. Also, let's say there's 10 guys you would have drafted instead of Rice. And let's say 3 of those guys blossom into very good NBA players, while Rice struggles, and the other 7 guys struggled as well.

I will seriously be pissed off if I have to listen to you and everybody else here blame Ernie for the trade and Rice pick, and talk about how we could have had any of those 3 players (or perhaps, 2 of them if we didn't trade the 54th pick). I don't want to give you the opportunity to pick and choose whichever players end up being steals and go around parading about how you knew they'd be great and you would have picked them at the time, especially if 70% of the players you would have picked instead turned out to be busts as well. If you say that 20 guys taken in the 2nd round are sleepers and are gonna be good, then pretty much no matter what a few of them are going to end up being steals; it doesn't take any skill to do that.

So please, CCJ (and honestly everyone else), if you're not happy with the Rice pick, then do us all a favor, and man up, and post a list of all of the players you would have drafted instead, preferably ranked in the order that you would have picked them. Otherwise, STOP COMPLAINING!

My 2nd round board posted a bit before the draft:

1. Tony Mitchell
2. Rudy Gobert
3. Giannis Adetokoubo
4. Shabazz Muhammad (it could happen, he's falling fast)
5. Glen Rice JR
6. Reggie Bullock
7. Tony Snell
8. Jamaal Franklin
9. Nate Wolters
10. Isaiah Canaan
11. Adonis Thomas
12. Mike Muscala
13. Pierre Jackson
14. Archie Goodwin
15. Myack Kabongo
15b. Alex Abrines

Do not like Murphy or Green.

Rice Jr was the top guy on my board at 35, with Franklin and Wolters and Canaan the next best targets. Thomas was a speculation interest based on his high school recruitment expectation (not fulfilled), and the rest were basically upside interests. Murphy and Green, 2 board favorites, were not that interesting to me after I did some research on them, but I did not see them play during the season so my analysis was limited with regards to them.

During the draft and after, I viewed Rice Jr as a borderline steal at our slot. Pelton, a metrics guy at espn that also loved Wolters, ranked Wolters 28th, and Rice Jr 15th, so there's that.

I don't really understand the backlash on him. He was a good prospect coming out of high school, didn't really develop into a great player at GT, but showed some promise, got derailed by his own idiotic behavior, though the two most incendiary instances that resulted with his expulsions have resulted in hyperbole lated, b.s. drivel from a lot of posters, including posters I'm very fond of. Being guilty of the Eric Davis indictment, "You are who you roll with," its certainly relevant, if your boys are morons, idiots and borderline criminals, and you refuse to detach yourself from them, you're going to get lumped in with them and go down with them, if you outgrow your boys, who refuse to evolve, then great things can happen. There's a difference between loyalty and stupidity, and loyalty goes two ways, if your boys with an athlete who makes it big out of nothing, you can call them out for issues of loyalty, but what about yours? Are you going to be a leach, a hanger on, are you going to try to drag them down, and set fire to their route out of poverty, or are you going to celebrate their success, and not sabotage it?

Well Rice JR is a weird case, as his father was a superstar. He doesn't have a tough background, though he clearly had a problem hanging out with idiots and criminals. But was he a criminal or a violent criminal? In the instances referred to, #1, I know of virtually no individual my own age who has either never driven drunk and/or never seen and not stopped a friend from driving drunk (and this includes buzzed), while awful, this is just a reality of the pre-college, post-college, and college years we all go through. Those mistakes happen ALL the time. I'm not going to toss Rice Jr's character into a septic tank because he did something 95% of the people on this board have also done. Secondly he was in the car with some ---- for brains idiot who discharged a gun. Now that is also not something I'd find him guilty of, what did he do exactly? But you can be arrested for being with someone doing that kind of crap so it isn't a case of innocence either. That is bothersome to me, but again, he didn't pull a Plaxico, his idiot friend did. Not great, not good, but nothing within 10,000,000 miles of what Aaron Hernadez is accused of.

The good news is apparently nothing whatsoever has happened in the past 16 months since that, so at least for the time being, he's had a clean slate.

I like the pick. I think he's turned into a legit weapon who can be a great weapon off the bench, and potentially a star in time. Tremdenous upside and great pick. There are a few targets that were borderline as interest as he was: Wolters, a great PG prospect, Franklin, a great weapon out of SDSU, especially if he can start hitting from 3, and Canaan, an interested PG prospect, but other than Franlkin, none of those really measure up to the raw potential Rice Jr has if he reaches said potential, or his possible floor so long as he can stay out of trouble. It's difficult to see Rice JR being useless as an NBA prospect. I think he's a virtual lock to be a roster player in this league for the next decade if he can stay the straight and narrow. Can't say that of any other prospect I have on my list with the possible exception of Franklin. Great Pick.

[The Consiglieri]

Hey, at least Ernie didn't do a draft and stash. 2nd rounders are more often miss than hit. If this dude has truly "grown up" a la Caron Butler, hell yeah. He could be instant offense off of the bench.

If he turns out to still be a thug, cut him. He was a 2nd rounder.

I like the move. Although I would have liked to have gotten a good backup point.

I don't have any problem with draft and stash moves. There are a lot of great speculative investments out their in international basketball, if the choice is between a guy who is a big time long shot to have the athleticsm, measurable, skills to make it in the NBA, or a guy who we'll have to wait on for a couple of years, but has some tantalizing qualities on offer, I'll take the international.

Draft and stash is fine, the spurs do it a ton, and for good reason, they seem to feel the training, and professionalism in Europe is top notch, and turns the players that have NBA level skills, or athleticism, into the best players they can be, unlike our AAU/1 and done or 2 and done college tiered system. If there was a euro on the board worth the stash, I would have supported it. As it so happens, the last of them went off the board about 7 picks before we took Rice Jr, so I'm fine with Rice Jr .

[DCsOwn]

CCJ, this post is aimed primarily at you, but it applies to plenty of other people on this board as well.

I understand if you don't like Rice as a prospect. I also understand if there were other prospects that were still on the board that you liked a lot, and would have preferred over Rice. However, I'm getting very annoyed with some of the things that have already been said around here.

CCJ, you need to come out right now and post exactly who you think we should have drafted instead of Rice. I don't need any explanations, as you've already given them in the past, I just want a simple list of every player that was still available that you would have drafted over Rice.

My fear is that you, and many others on this board, will suffer from some serious revisionist history if Rice doesn't end up being a good NBA player. We've seen it with this team plenty of times before. For example, we all whine about how we drafted Vesely over Leonard and Faried. But that's not fair, because it's a lot easier after 1 or 2 seasons in the league, to pick out those two names as guys who were overlooked in the draft that ended up being very good players, certainly better than the player we picked. But it's not fair to ignore all of the other prospects that were taken after Vesely. I know that in this particular case that many of us had targeted Leonard and Faried before the draft, so it's not complete revisionist history, but it's still questionable.

If Rice doesn't work out a few years from now, I don't want to be hearing about how Ernie made a terrible trade, and more so, how we passed on Player A and Player B. If you give me a list of the players who you would have preferred right now, then we can go off that list in the future to confirm your beliefs. Also, let's say there's 10 guys you would have drafted instead of Rice. And let's say 3 of those guys blossom into very good NBA players, while Rice struggles, and the other 7 guys struggled as well.

I will seriously be pissed off if I have to listen to you and everybody else here blame Ernie for the trade and Rice pick, and talk about how we could have had any of those 3 players (or perhaps, 2 of them if we didn't trade the 54th pick). I don't want to give you the opportunity to pick and choose whichever players end up being steals and go around parading about how you knew they'd be great and you would have picked them at the time, especially if 70% of the players you would have picked instead turned out to be busts as well. If you say that 20 guys taken in the 2nd round are sleepers and are gonna be good, then pretty much no matter what a few of them are going to end up being steals; it doesn't take any skill to do that.

So please, CCJ (and honestly everyone else), if you're not happy with the Rice pick, then do us all a favor, and man up, and post a list of all of the players you would have drafted instead, preferably ranked in the order that you would have picked them. Otherwise, STOP COMPLAINING!

My 2nd round board posted a bit before the draft:

1. Tony Mitchell
2. Rudy Gobert
3. Giannis Adetokoubo
4. Shabazz Muhammad (it could happen, he's falling fast)
5. Glen Rice JR
6. Reggie Bullock
7. Tony Snell
8. Jamaal Franklin
9. Nate Wolters
10. Isaiah Canaan
11. Adonis Thomas
12. Mike Muscala
13. Pierre Jackson
14. Archie Goodwin
15. Myack Kabongo
15b. Alex Abrines

Do not like Murphy or Green.

Rice Jr was the top guy on my board at 35, with Franklin and Wolters and Canaan the next best targets. Thomas was a speculation interest based on his high school recruitment expectation (not fulfilled), and the rest were basically upside interests. Murphy and Green, 2 board favorites, were not that interesting to me after I did some research on them, but I did not see them play during the season so my analysis was limited with regards to them.

During the draft and after, I viewed Rice Jr as a borderline steal at our slot. Pelton, a metrics guy at espn that also loved Wolters, ranked Wolters 28th, and Rice Jr 15th, so there's that.

I don't really understand the backlash on him. He was a good prospect coming out of high school, didn't really develop into a great player at GT, but showed some promise, got derailed by his own idiotic behavior, though the two most incendiary instances that resulted with his expulsions have resulted in hyperbole lated, b.s. drivel from a lot of posters, including posters I'm very fond of. Being guilty of the Eric Davis indictment, "You are who you roll with," its certainly relevant, if your boys are morons, idiots and borderline criminals, and you refuse to detach yourself from them, you're going to get lumped in with them and go down with them, if you outgrow your boys, who refuse to evolve, then great things can happen. There's a difference between loyalty and stupidity, and loyalty goes two ways, if your boys with an athlete who makes it big out of nothing, you can call them out for issues of loyalty, but what about yours? Are you going to be a leach, a hanger on, are you going to try to drag them down, and set fire to their route out of poverty, or are you going to celebrate their success, and not sabotage it?

Well Rice JR is a weird case, as his father was a superstar. He doesn't have a tough background, though he clearly had a problem hanging out with idiots and criminals. But was he a criminal or a violent criminal? In the instances referred to, #1, I know of virtually no individual my own age who has either never driven drunk and/or never seen and not stopped a friend from driving drunk (and this includes buzzed), while awful, this is just a reality of the pre-college, post-college, and college years we all go through. Those mistakes happen ALL the time. I'm not going to toss Rice Jr's character into a septic tank because he did something 95% of the people on this board have also done. Secondly he was in the car with some ---- for brains idiot who discharged a gun. Now that is also not something I'd find him guilty of, what did he do exactly? But you can be arrested for being with someone doing that kind of crap so it isn't a case of innocence either. That is bothersome to me, but again, he didn't pull a Plaxico, his idiot friend did. Not great, not good, but nothing within 10,000,000 miles of what Aaron Hernadez is accused of.

The good news is apparently nothing whatsoever has happened in the past 16 months since that, so at least for the time being, he's had a clean slate.

I like the pick. I think he's turned into a legit weapon who can be a great weapon off the bench, and potentially a star in time. Tremdenous upside and great pick. There are a few targets that were borderline as interest as he was: Wolters, a great PG prospect, Franklin, a great weapon out of SDSU, especially if he can start hitting from 3, and Canaan, an interested PG prospect, but other than Franlkin, none of those really measure up to the raw potential Rice Jr has if he reaches said potential, or his possible floor so long as he can stay out of trouble. It's difficult to see Rice JR being useless as an NBA prospect. I think he's a virtual lock to be a roster player in this league for the next decade if he can stay the straight and narrow. Can't say that of any other prospect I have on my list with the possible exception of Franklin. Great Pick.

Agreed, although I should note that unless Pelton amended his ratings later, he actually had Rice rated 12th in the class.


12. GLEN RICE JR., SF, NBDL
Rice's Projections | Age: 22

WIN %

WARP

FORD'S RANK

Rice's draft profile | Top 100 prospects

.473

1.6

24


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rice's projection is based on a combination of his performance at Georgia Tech in 2010-11 and 2011-12 and last year's D-League translations. Rice was much more effective as a pro, and he's already demonstrated NBA 3-point range.

http://hawksquawk.net/community/topic/3 ... sing-warp/

He also had this to say when Rice was selected:

https://mobile.twitter.com/kpelton/stat ... 2645918720

[DCsOwn]

http://www.bulletsforever.com/2013/7/2/ ... on-wizards

"He is a multi-skilled player offensively, he can shoot it obviously, but what impresses me is how reacts to contact and can finish around the hoop."

[FreckleFace]

Well I'm hearing that his twitter account is fake.. Thank the Lord.. I'm all in on GRJR now

[AFM]

Makes sense. I can't find any info stating that that's his twitter account. His dad has one, but never links to his son's account. I don't think GR JR has a twitter.

[The Consiglieri]

https://twitter.com/NYPost_Berman

Marc Berman
‏@NYPost_Berman


If Hardaway wasn't there, #Knicks would've snapped up Bullock. If both weren't there, Glen Rice Jr. was next. Plumlee not on radar.

Very down on Hardaway Jr and I'm a Michigan fan. Just never saw any consistency to any aspect of his game. Some athleticism, a hard and smart worker, some defense to his game, but seemingly everytime I saw him catch and shoot a 3 it was a hellacious brick. Never even seemed to really get hot. Not a fan at all.

[DCZards]

Well I'm hearing that his twitter account is fake.. Thank the Lord.. I'm all in on GRJR now

That's good news. It did cross my mind that we probably needed to confirm that those tweets were actually from GR Jr.

[dobrojim]

my acct rep says if GR jr has a twitter acct, mgmt will be all over it.

If what was posted is actually him, mostly for me the homophobic s#it,
I have a serious problem with it and him. Will wait for confirmation.

[doclinkin]

Hmmn, this is the profile image from that account:



Some kid. Maybe him? Hard to say. Doesn't look like him to me.

[AFM]

That's definitely not him LOL.

THat kid looks 12.

[The Consiglieri]

Thing I love about CCJ is that he has the courage of his convictions and will argue very strongly when he feels he is right. Then will revisit a topic and admit when he is wrong later. If it becomes clear he was wrong. And will go from happy to miserable and back again all with equally articulate emotion.

IN this case, to me the bottom line is this: hate GMEG's decisions all you want, Glen Rice Jr is on our team now. He's ours. Learn to like it, or not, but it's a fact. And the kid just _may_ not deserve the contempt with which he's been discussed. Caught in a crossfire.

GRJr hasn't yet read a word of these boards I'd bet, but CCJ is the one on here who most believes that athletes and their families do read what people say and write about them. And in the reasonable frustration of what looks like a misstep by our front office, he's been willing to hold a kid to a standard that he admits he doesn't hold for all players, and is deliberately unwilling to take a look at what the kid says of his own story, in part I suspect because it's easier to remain righteously pissed about the situation than to look the young man in the face and tell him he's a thug and a bad dude.

I too think Wolters will be a hell of a player. Sure I'm concerned that DC is a tougher place to keep squeaky clean than Rio Grande River Valley, that Rice may make a bad decision later. I also dislike his defense. But -IF- he improves his defense, and -IF- he avoids trouble, I think he'll be a real nice addition to the team. Debatably more important than Nate Wolters would have been ( * next post)

I don't plan to rip him NOW, I personally am not waiting for him to fail just to have an excuse to say 'I toldja so'. Kid made a dumb mistake and has done everything he needed to to rectify it. For now. To me that shows character, or the beginnings of it. So I'll credit him for evidence of a turnaround.

I have an issue with CCJ eviscerating Rice Jr, and giving Cousins a free ride. All evidence available suggests that Cousins is a vile, irredeemable cretin with a personality disorder, or if not that, a raging scum bag of unbelievable proportions. He's gotten a free pass from CCJ since the winter of '09-'10 and still does so, even consistently at the expense of Wall that CCJ's tried to pawn off for scrap in hypothetical deals for years.

CCJ is one of my favorite posters around here, always interesting, always nuanced, always creative and insightful, but this just feels like a blind spot, it feels like Rice Jr's got carpet bombed verbally by CCJ because he wasn't on CCJ's list, particularly CCJ's favs. I don't buy the character argument for a second because Cousins is a known monster, while Rice Jr's question marks are equally troubling, but not necessarily as bad, considering that most of the hits are related to "you are who you roll with" issues, rather than things he personally did that were anti-team. Cousins has been a cancer, and a raging expletive I can't say since he first made his appearance at Kentucky. For whatever reason he gets the love but not Rice Jr. My guess is that it's because Cousins was an extremely attractive prospect with tremendous upside and raw ability that was tantalizing, so the very obvious and blatant character issues have been consistently brushed aside.

My issue here is that Cousins character concerns arise on the court as well as off it. There's little evidence the same is true of Rice Jr in the past (there's no evidence of continuing problems, for now, with Rice Jr, whereas with Cousins, his issues as a coach killer and a world class vile individual have continued well the just completed season). Anyway, love CCJ, but there's a real blind spot here.

[Saqs]

If that twitter post history is an indication of this dudes mindset and character, he's definitely ripe for losing his mind once he gets familiar with Park, Lux, Bar 7, Stadium, etc. The nightlife is gonna eat him alive.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Thing I love about CCJ is that he has the courage of his convictions and will argue very strongly when he feels he is right. Then will revisit a topic and admit when he is wrong later. If it becomes clear he was wrong. And will go from happy to miserable and back again all with equally articulate emotion.

IN this case, to me the bottom line is this: hate GMEG's decisions all you want, Glen Rice Jr is on our team now. He's ours. Learn to like it, or not, but it's a fact. And the kid just _may_ not deserve the contempt with which he's been discussed. Caught in a crossfire.

GRJr hasn't yet read a word of these boards I'd bet, but CCJ is the one on here who most believes that athletes and their families do read what people say and write about them. And in the reasonable frustration of what looks like a misstep by our front office, he's been willing to hold a kid to a standard that he admits he doesn't hold for all players, and is deliberately unwilling to take a look at what the kid says of his own story, in part I suspect because it's easier to remain righteously pissed about the situation than to look the young man in the face and tell him he's a thug and a bad dude.

I too think Wolters will be a hell of a player. Sure I'm concerned that DC is a tougher place to keep squeaky clean than Rio Grande River Valley, that Rice may make a bad decision later. I also dislike his defense. But -IF- he improves his defense, and -IF- he avoids trouble, I think he'll be a real nice addition to the team. Debatably more important than Nate Wolters would have been ( * next post)

I don't plan to rip him NOW, I personally am not waiting for him to fail just to have an excuse to say 'I toldja so'. Kid made a dumb mistake and has done everything he needed to to rectify it. For now. To me that shows character, or the beginnings of it. So I'll credit him for evidence of a turnaround.

I have an issue with CCJ eviscerating Rice Jr, and giving Cousins a free ride. All evidence available suggests that Cousins is a vile, irredeemable cretin with a personality disorder, or if not that, a raging scum bag of unbelievable proportions. He's gotten a free pass from CCJ since the winter of '09-'10 and still does so, even consistently at the expense of Wall that CCJ's tried to pawn off for scrap in hypothetical deals for years.

CCJ is one of my favorite posters around here, always interesting, always nuanced, always creative and insightful, but this just feels like a blind spot, it feels like Rice Jr's got carpet bombed verbally by CCJ because he wasn't on CCJ's list, particularly CCJ's favs. I don't buy the character argument for a second because Cousins is a known monster, while Rice Jr's question marks are equally troubling, but not necessarily as bad, considering that most of the hits are related to "you are who you roll with" issues, rather than things he personally did that were anti-team. Cousins has been a cancer, and a raging expletive I can't say since he first made his appearance at Kentucky. For whatever reason he gets the love but not Rice Jr. My guess is that it's because Cousins was an extremely attractive prospect with tremendous upside and raw ability that was tantalizing, so the very obvious and blatant character issues have been consistently brushed aside.

My issue here is that Cousins character concerns arise on the court as well as off it. There's little evidence the same is true of Rice Jr in the past (there's no evidence of continuing problems, for now, with Rice Jr, whereas with Cousins, his issues as a coach killer and a world class vile individual have continued well the just completed season). Anyway, love CCJ, but there's a real blind spot here.

Many of the Wall trades were not bad. Kyrie Irving is not a bad swap. Some of the ideas involved players and picks. Lowry or Lawson and picks is still defensible. The ideas involving players like Pau would have sent other salary and gotten back a pick. I'm sure I had quite a few crap ideas. I can recall Brandon Knight for Wall. But not all the ideas were crap.

Cousins last game at Kentucky was a Final Four game were IMO he was the best player on the floor. Wall had a bad game that game. In comparing Cousins and Rice Jr, the player you call "world class vile" actually stuck with his team and was not booted from the team. As far as calling Cousins a coach killer goes, what happened to Paul Hewitt at Ga Tech? He and the coach who replaced him both suspended Rice Jr.

If you can show me anywhere that Cousins has had a legal issue after three NBA seasons, let me know, Consiglieri.

I'm not saying he's a great guy, either.

[The Consiglieri]

I don't know if Cousins has had legal issues, he may be like T.O., and never be involved in criminal actions, but still be a coach killing, team cancer and world class scum bag. I've never disagreed with you about Cousin's ability, probably to a fault (he has some massive liabilities in his game), and back then I was right w/you in arguing that the 2010 draft had three potential long term franchise #1 overall caliber players in Wall (if he could fix his jumper and his T.O. issues), Favors (massive raw ability, defense/rebounding, and ideal everything in terms of most measurable), and Cousins (monster weapon in the paint).

The problem is that in '10 where we were commencing a full scale flushing out of all the character issues the team had. In 2013 the character and chemistry of the team is radically changed. Back in '10 the team was loaded to the gills with idiots, at least 4 of them massive problems, in '13 there are literally zero idiots. Our fav, McGee, might have turned out very different if he hadn't ended up in such a dysfunctional locker room, there were no stories about him being an epic idiot at UNR when he was out here after all, same can't really be said of Young or Blatche who seemed me first, lunk heads from the jump. At this point a player like Rice JR can be absorbed, if he disrupts chemistry or is a bad egg he'll be punted out a la the Spurs Stephan Jackson move last spring, and we shouldn't cry over it, we haven't hit on a 2nd rounder that contributed in seven drafts after all.

I also happen to think that Rice Jr's bad history is of a different sort than first assumed. The DUI related issue was something virtually any of us could have been arrested for as teenagers or in our 20's. I'm not going to kill him on that. The gun arrest was something a clown did, not him, but again, you are who you roll with, so he deserves plenty of stick for making that mistake, especially when his status with GT was on a knife's edge to begin with. However, the vast majority of NBA players tote weapons, ditto NFL. That's why all of these stupid gun arrests happen in the first place. If he had pulled a Ray Lewis, a Rae Carruth, or a Aaron Hernandez that would be one thing, but he didn't, he just did something most athletes do, sit in a ride where guns are present. The only issue was some drunk idiot fired the weapon which is crazy, but no more crazy than what Dick Cheney's buddies do during Hunting season.

I would really stick it to him verbally if I thought he was a really bad guy, or had clearly done horrible things. I can't prove either of those indictments, so far he just seems to have brutal judgment, or at least "HAD", and while that sucks, I think he's had a clean 16 months, and I already rated him as superior to all the targets you preferred as a prospect, including Wolters, so he gets my nod.

It could be a mistake, but in the end, if it was, in the fullness of time I imagine we will have lost either nothing of value, or very, very little, as I don't expect virtually any of the alternatives to produce quality NBA careers (I think Wolters, and Franklin might, but there odds are no better and to some extent definitively worse than Rice Jr's).

[DCZards]

Most of Cousin's Sac teammates don't like him. Several have said they longer buy his frequent apologies for acting like a knucklehead. He's a team cancer.

Rice's nbdl coach said his teammates loved his personality. He said GRjr was the most popular player on the team.

[montestewart]

Most of Cousin's Sac teammates don't like him. Several have said they longer buy his frequent apologies for acting like a knucklehead. He's a team cancer.

Rice's nbdl coach said his teammates loved his personality. He said GRjr was the most popular player on the team.

One big difference between Rice and Cousins is Cousins was a lottery pick, would likely come here only in exchange for significant assets, and would quickly require a decision on huge contract. Maybe worth it, but still that's a lot to think about. Rice cost a 2nd round pick. Even if he's a mess, the team seems to be made of better stuff than to let one marginal malcontent tear it apart. If he starts acting up (not that I'm predicting that), he gets buried outside of the rotation, and if he doesn't respond positively, he'll soon be gone enough, at a relatively small cost.

Not to give a pass on misbehavior, but very few that have made it to the NBA eff up the way I did at their age (maybe I'm alone in that department). My primary gripe with the Rice acquisition has little to do with his character. The team needs lots of things, but competent PF/C depth seemed and still seems a bigger need. If it was anyone else but EG, I'd assume that some combination of Okariza, Vesely, Booker, Seraphin and other assets will bring that in, and maybe leave intact the 2014 pick (which I expect to be a good one, since I'm such a pessimist). If that happens and Rice turns out to be a good scorer off the bench, then there goes my objection. Oh yeah, then there's that PG business...