Villanova1L wrote:-= original quote snipped =-
I don't know if this is right either. A lot of #1s are based on potential, not best player right then. There is definitely an argument that Rose has a higher ceiling, and if a team has a similar player to Beasley why not go Rose?
I think by best player he meant best player/prospect available, which is the general connotation implied by BPA. It's not necessarily the best player at that very second, but the player most likely to be the best player in the long-term. And when a team is drafting #1, odds are they're not very good. My general philosophy is, unless you're a 50-win team and/or have a legitimate 1st, 2nd, and 3rd option that can lead a team to compete for a title, you should go BPA in the draft. Quite frankly, if you're a 25 or 30 win team, so much can change between the time you draft #1 and the time you actually compete for a title. You can't draft by need at that stage of development, thus reducing the available talent pool to choose from, minimizing your chances of getting the best player. At that stage, you need to add players who can be core components to a title contender, as that is the hardest thing about building a team (getting good enough 1st, 2nd, and 3rd options to lead your team). Until you have those guys, everything else should take lesser priority.
Also, most guys you're looking at with the #1 pick are capable of playing two, or maybe even three, positions well enough in the NBA. This goes for the vast majority of elite players in the league. You need to add the best players available when you're rebuilding, and worry about fits later. If Minnesota considers Beasley to be far and away the best player in this year's draft (purely a hypothetical), they can't not take him because they have Al Jefferson. They're just way too far away from competing to draft for need at this stage, especially when Al is capable of playing the 4/5 and Beasley should be capable of playing the 3/4 in some capacity. They might both ideally be 4's in the NBA, but you worry about fixing those things later. And playing Beasley 24 minutes at the 4 and 12 minutes at the 3, while playing Al 24 minutes at the 4 and 12 minutes at the 5 isn't the worst thing in the world. That's probably the minute breakdown they'd be playing on most teams anyway. Again, this under the hypothetical that they view him as the clear-cut best prospect, which isn't necessarily the case.
The one exception to this rule might be getting two small-sized pure point guards. If you have a Chris Paul and the best player on the board is a 6'0 pure point guard, but there's not a huge dropoff with the next best player, who's a wing or a big or whatever else, then it might make more sense not to go BPA, just because getting major minutes for two 6'0 pure point guards isn't very viable in most situations. That said, if you have Chris Paul and you project the #1 pick as the next John Stockton and the #2 as Kenyon Martin and the #3 as Adam Morrison and the #4 as Stromile Swift, you're taking John Stockton there, unless someone blows you away with a trade offer (I'm talking an established or budding star in or entering his prime). In that scenario, you've just got to let the guy develop, showcase him, and get maximum trade value later.
A lot of hypotheticals going on in there, but I think that sums up the gist of it.