Hey-It coulda been worse!

[ohara]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/r ... od=1&set=4

Remember when all the Mocks had us taking him at #9? Boy did we escape a giant mistake there. It really coulda been bad.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/r ... od=1&set=4

Or we coulda gone here like our friends up in NY.

[Felton for Pres]

DeAndre has 43 PER. He's a keeper!!!

[countryboi]

we could use deandre right now...at least he gives energy and fouls

[e4Nf6]

I'm absolutely convinced that Deandre Jordan won't amount to anything in this league. He reminds me of Kwame Brown quite a bit.

For a guy to be as big/tall/fast/athletic as he is and fall as far as he did in the draft, you know he must be some kind of knuckle-head. And he is.

[chrbal]

I think Jordan will be more then "Never amounting to anything", but not much. Like a 6pts and 4 rebs a game kind of guy. But I could also see him being out of the NBA in 3.

"It coulda been worse!" This team worked out Rafael Arajuo for the 4th pick in 2004 and actually liked him.

[CarolinaCash]

Thank God we didn't end up like this team and pick this guy:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/rookies/blogs?playerId=3410&season=2009&playerRankingType=1&period=1&set=4

[chrbal]

I knew it was coming.

But on a side not, Kyle Weaver is rocking a 29.75 PER. Yeah, thats an effective stat.

[CarolinaCash]

chrbal.....I was waiting for someone to post that but I couldn't resist any longer. Also, what is PER?

[Benjamin Linus]

Player Efficiency Rating. Hollinger uses it as an overall player evaluation stat. It doesn't really amount to much and is out of whack for scrubs with low PT.

[Benjamin Linus]

Anyway to be optomistic I like to think how bad things would have been if we never traded up in the 2004 draft and instead drafted Livingston with our fourth pick. Imagine the position we would be in today. I'm guessing the following year we would have drafted Marvin Williams since we would have had a higher pick and no need for one of the PGs. We then probably would have landed the number one pick in 2006 and proceed to draft Bargnani. Hahaha Charlotte would no longer have a basketball team if that ever went down.

[CarolinaCash]

^I think Livingston's had a better career than Okafor. At least we wouldn't have been obligated to re-sign that scrub Okafor. He held us hostage for money he doesn't deserve. We had to sign him cause of a need for a big man with a pulse and the image of being cheap.

[Walt Cronkite]

Cash is drunk again...

[nugentrk]

If Okafor was drafted by an establish NBA team he might have been a better player today.

[chrbal]

Anyway to be optomistic I like to think how bad things would have been if we never traded up in the 2004 draft and instead drafted Livingston with our fourth pick. Imagine the position we would be in today. I'm guessing the following year we would have drafted Marvin Williams since we would have had a higher pick and no need for one of the PGs. We then probably would have landed the number one pick in 2006 and proceed to draft Bargnani. Hahaha Charlotte would no longer have a basketball team if that ever went down.

I don't know if they would've taken Shaun. They didn't seem to have to much of an opinion either way of him after they worked him out. My main concern was that they would've picked Childress if they stayed at 4. They had worked him out twice and seemed really impressed with him.

Then it would've gotten worse with the 2nd round pick (this pick was included in the Okafor deal). It could've been guys like Jackson Vroman or Rickey Paulding. Its more likely it would've been a big.

The crazy thing is that Bernie never thought Chris Duhon (currently a starting PG for the Knicks) would never be anything more then a career journeyman.

[Benjamin Linus]

Hahaha I love the hypothetical situations. Really Childress wouldn't have been the worst pick in the world. If that were the case then we would have most likeley drafted Chris Paul the following year. Still we'd have no big man but that could have been addresed in FA or in later drafts. But I'd take that.

[fatlever]

bernie said after the draft that he would have taken childress if he stayed at 4.

[Paydro70]

PER definitely doesn't work for scrubs, but it is a fair shorthand for a player's overall usefulness (not counting defense).

All I can really say is that it sure would be nice if we'd gone the way some pundits had us:
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/r ... od=1&set=0

Or, for that matter
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/r ... od=1&set=0

[chrbal]

For reference Linus. It would've been;
2005: Charlie Villanueva (no Okafor creates a huge need) and Rashard McCants (team love its Tarheels, what can I say).
If Childress was a Bobcat.

[Benjamin Linus]

damn hahaha that would have been so much worse. I guess that wouldn't really surprise me though knowing how our front office can be. But I still think we would have ended up with one of the two PGs. We would have had a much higher pick with Childress, along with the need for a PG, and there really wasn't much frontcourt talent in that range of the draft. But who knows we probably would have drafted Charlie Villanueva.

[fatlever]

i know bernie wanted charlie v at 13 badly. but the raps shocked the world and took him at 7.