montestewart wrote:The Consiglieri wrote:There hasn't been one bad word about Noel. Not one. Until a week before the draft. Hmmm, where I have I seen this before? Suspicious? Perhaps a tad. To not consider him if he's there at #3 is insane to me.
Where have you seen it before? My memory is bad.
This is a notorious pre-draft tactic that has happened in multiple sports over the decades, its basically "pass the rumor down the line" a la middle school, hoping to infect people w/it. The most notorious example being "Marino is a coke head" from the '83 NFL draft. It got so bad, according to 30 for 30, blue chip first round OL prospect Jim Covert (ended up going 6th overall), during the interview process in Feb/March was asked by one GM, "So do you do drugs too?", when Covert responded w/shock to the question, the interviewer said, "we know your roommate does, we want to know if you do. Covert's roommate at Pitt was Marino. the drug rumors combined with a disappointing senior season at Pitt pushed Marino down from co-#1 status with Elway going into the season to nearly entirely out of the first round, with scrubs like Blackledge, and Tony Eason going ahead of him, and lesser QB's (though good ones) like Ken O'Brien and Jim Kelly also going ahead of him. ISince then it' been common knowledge that essentially because multiple 80's teams were first hit by coke in the fall of '82 (walsh has said a big reason his niners failed to even make the playoffs following their first super bowl victory in XVI, wasn't just the strike, but also the coke binging that began to get rampant league wide following it, and the strike didn't help), they assumed that the rumors were true and the coke was responsible for his crappy season rather than just an off year.
Sapp had marijuana rumors plunge him from #1 overall status in January '95, to out of the top 10 entirely by the draft. Randy Moss in '98 had similar rumors and untruth's spread about him, Dez Bryant was notoriously swamped by innuendo in '09. The most notorious examples are of course Marino, and Sapp, but there are many, many more, taking a tiny kernel of fact, or rumor, now much more easy with the net, ad spreading it to drive down player value so said player drops to you.
In the NBA, Nick Van Excel was both a victim and perpetrator earning the bad rep, but also having his value plunge with negative talk preceeding the draft, in '95 it was Wallace, not so much spurious rumors, as much as a negative focus, and accentuation of negative features, in '96 it was Kobe and the LA only rumors, which may or may not have been true, but artificially killed his value, I can't remember if Traylor was hit by it in '98 or not, Odom was annihilated by negative rumors and talk before the '99 draft dropping him from a near certain #1 overall to 4th, Eddie Griffin in '01 (I think, I cant remember specifically, of course he tragically died a few years later), can't remember if there was something about Q Woods in '02 and Telfair in '04, Bynum in '05, Love and Hibbert in '08, Rubio and Curry in '09 and perhaps its stretching it to say Lawson's slot was artificially dropped by short short short negativity before the draft, Cousins in '10, the anti-Leonard offensive potential in '11 (he was as high as #7 supposedly, then dropped to #15, and Drummond in '12.
Now some of these are speculative, but the absolute no doubt about it rumor fests were Van Excel-bad guy, Wallace-bad guy, Kobe-wont play for you, Odom-druggy bad guy, Bynum-player with issues, Love-limited white guy, can't play east coast ball, Rubio and Curry-wont come over, and too little and injury prone, Cousins-nut job, Drummond-doesn't care about the game, selfish etc. Now in the fullness of time, Van Excel was a guy with issues, but not so many that 20+ guys should have gone ahead of him, Wallace went at least 2-3 slots lower than he should have because of the view that he was a hot head, me first idiot, Kobe's rumored L.A. talk scared half the league into not even considering him, Odom was always going #1 in '99 than the druggy/bad guy talk killed his value that spring, Bynum, I cant remember the specifics, but I remember him dropping 4-5 slots lower just because of rumors of him being difficult, Rubio's agent, and the foreign issue (the latest rumor riddled deal) plunged him from 3rd to 5th or 6th overall before the draft, Curry was top 3, then fell because Davidson fell off and if memory serves, big worries over his health, Cousins was a nut job, but he was also, at worst, the 1B to Wall's 1A in that draft, and instead went 5th, behind two drastically inferior players (Wall and Favors were justifiable to some extent considering his cancerous personality, not Wesley or Turner). Then last year Drummond fell like a rock because of issues related to his supposed attitude, work habits, and lack of love for the game, nobody noticing the issues in play at the time (didn't even realize he'd be enrolling until five to six months after most of the guys (late august '11), team had no leadership minus Walker, Coach hounded out of town and into retirement, sanctions talk), note that Detroit has noted his love for the game, great habits and attitude and that he's a great practice player. Spurrious rumors? Now its Muhammad, who was banned for the season in December, and out of shape due to the suspension and pre-season injuries, who combined with his father, and issues at UCLA with both him, and his coach (UCLA famous alums placed blame almost entirely on Howlan), and has plunged from #2 overall to #8-#20, and just a week before the draft, now we're hearing about mystery guys that are bad around Noel, something we never heard once in the previous year, or in his final year in high school, him blowing off agents, and in general being a scum bag. None of these things were ever said at any point until immediately before the draft.
Since I've been paying attention there have been various forms of this, the most famous of which were Marino and Sapp, but they weren't the only ones.
Now it's Noel being sabotaged, after Muhammad and rumors about Muhammad ruined his position and dropped his value.
This happens to some extent in some fashion most drafts, and in the past two, it's been obvious. If he drops, whoever gets Noel will be stealing him blind from a bunch of suckers (barring the Oden worry).
) there really shouldn't much to be worry about...especially from DC fans who think RG III really is black jesus.
