Good morning, ladies. I hope you all had a wonderful draft night. I was a little down last night, but I think that had less to do with our draft than the realization that we're going to be without the NBA for a long time. I used to be an "everything" sports fan, but over the past several years my interests have narrowed to the NBA and the Wiz. I guess I'll start watching more college ball and maybe some football again for a bit.
Anyhow, I want to echo thoughts of several different people here; my apologies for not crediting you individually.
Firstly, we're building -- no, RE-building -- an identity. For years, we decried this team as a no-defense, no killer instinct, style over substance, jumpshooting puddle of mediocrity. Looking at who we've added the past two years, it's no secret that overhauling the culture was priority one. Firstly, no one can accuse us of being a team of (good) jumpshooters
. Seriously, we've got snarl now. We've got nasty. We've got defensive pride. We've got foxhole guys.
Teams are not going to look forward to playing us. Even if they're going to beat us a lot because we're not there offensively yet, we're going to get up in you and then we're going to get up further in you. You're going to have to go back to the bench and explain to the brothers why some white boy named Jan dunked on you. You're going to have to look and Booker and Singleton in the eye and know that they'd sooner die than give up an easy rebound or driving lane. You're going to get posterized -- maybe Vesely, or McGee or Wall, or Booker, but there's a decent chance someone in your own locker room will snicker at you for having nuts on your forehead. You're going to need some extra time with the trainers after Seraphin and Booker and Singleton give you body blows all night. You're going to get frustrated looking for easy passing lanes because there are going to be limbs frickin everywhere.
Long term, it's hard to imagine Mack, Crawford, Booker, Seraphin, Singleton and Vesely (not to mention Young, Blatche, McGee) all here in three years. So what? Teams will always want guys that play the way they do. If we're prepping a consolidation or a fit trade, we're going to hear "nah, I just don't have a need for a guy like that."
As to the Vesely pick itself? Sure, I'd have rather had Enes. But he wasn't available and I'm cool with the assertion that the price was too high. Enes is an intriguing piece, but given where we are I'm in no way comfortable saying he's worth giving up Singleton and whomever out of the ballyhooed '12 draft class. And given who else was actually on the board and went between Vesely and Singleton, I really cannot complain.
So now comes the hard part -- waiting to see these guys develop. Who knows how long it will be until we see them on the floor together.
