Bobcats War Room - Fourth Pick, 2009

[August Us Seazr]

I can't believe I did this! I prepped this thread in the office yesterday. Apparently..... SOMEONE WHO SHALL REMAIN NAMELESS forgot to hit the SUBMIT button. I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO sorry!

While I'm off topic... let me share something with you. Since February, my wife and I have been dealing with the illness of her parents. The past two weeks have been a roller coaster ride. One trip to Duke, one trip to a local hospital, five different doctors appointments. <<<<<<<<< He went that a way!>>>>>>>>> Family obligations may get in the way of my doing this every day right now. Fortunately, it's still April. I will get this done just as fast as I can because I love doing this. Now, back to business.

The Bobcats Nation has spoken. Our third pick is James Harden of Arizona State. Also off the board are Blake Griffin and Ricky Rubio. Every other draft eligible is fair game at four. So, who on the board is "Must Have" for us. Or do you trade out. By the way, if the lottery goes the same way as order of finish, this would be the OKC Thunder pick. But we have a lot of people who can make us better here. Now I'm going to let you pick a star for the Bobcats. Good Picking!

[August Us Seazr]

Demar DeRozan.

I know I voted for Thabeet the last time. I realized it could be too early for him. He may also be a bad fit for us. Something Paydro said about zero potential for star power has me thinking Thabeet isn't the guy for us at four either. So, I want a guy who, when we draft him and he gets a year or two of experience, gives us this kind of tv promo..."Stay tuned for Demar DeRozan and the Charlotte Bobcats vs. ???????????????"

We have four guys to consider at the position where a guy can break through and BECOME a star for us. Gerald Henderson, Tyreke Evans, Stephen Curry and Demar DeRozan. The first three give us either a straight shooting guard or a combo guard. That's ok. DeRozan can be a 2-3 guy. He can spell Crash. That can be useful. He has 2 full inches over Henderson and Evans, and 4 inches over local favorite Curry. Four is too early for Curry. The other three could become stars and be legitimate picks at four. Henderson has the bloodline, but how many second generation stars (other than Kobe, and his dad wasn't THAT big) have made it BIG in the NBA? So it's down to a personal decision between Tyreke and Demar. I vote 6' 7" over 6' 5" for our shooting guard of the future.

[BigSlam]

Sorry to hear about your in-laws AUS. Hope all is well soon. No hurry to get these up every day, we know you'll get to them when you can.


I went with the Hamilton clause and think we should trade the pick. I was almost tempted to go with Thabeet with the interest of trading EO50, but I'm really not 100% sure how much better Thabeet will end up being than Gana.

I think that other teams will have enough interest in guys like Thabeet, Gana, DeRozan etc that we could maximize our outcome if we traded the pick and get more bang for our buck.

For the record - I'll probably be voting this way for the next 4 or 5 picks.

[e4Nf6]

In theory I agree with trading the pick, I don't think there is a great deal of difference between picks #4 through 13 or 14. However I think it's a little silly to put "trade the pick" in our mock. If we do that for 4 or 5 picks and then select somebody finally at say #9, he is still the fourth player picked, so why not just get on with it?

All the guys available are either unproven potential that could go either way (Jennings, Evans, Derozan, Clark, Hill) or decent players with somewhat limited upside. (Thabeet, Curry,)
I went with Derozan, completely unproven, but the most promising of the bunch in my opinion.

[BigSlam]

Valid point e4 and duly noted.

Vote changed from the Hamilton to Tyreke Evans.

[Paydro70]

DeRozan is my 3rd choice, but I think his potential is greater on defense than offense. I want a real superstar scorer, and I think the only guy with that in him is Evans, so I will continue to vote for him until he is selected.

[GoBobcats]

Demar DeRozan.

I know I voted for Thabeet the last time. I realized it could be too early for him. He may also be a bad fit for us. Something Paydro said about zero potential for star power has me thinking Thabeet isn't the guy for us at four either. So, I want a guy who, when we draft him and he gets a year or two of experience, gives us this kind of tv promo..."Stay tuned for Demar DeRozan and the Charlotte Bobcats vs. ???????????????"

We have four guys to consider at the position where a guy can break through and BECOME a star for us. Gerald Henderson, Tyreke Evans, Stephen Curry and Demar DeRozan. The first three give us either a straight shooting guard or a combo guard. That's ok. DeRozan can be a 2-3 guy. He can spell Crash. That can be useful. He has 2 full inches over Henderson and Evans, and 4 inches over local favorite Curry. Four is too early for Curry. The other three could become stars and be legitimate picks at four. Henderson has the bloodline, but how many second generation stars (other than Kobe, and his dad wasn't THAT big) have made it BIG in the NBA? So it's down to a personal decision between Tyreke and Demar. I vote 6' 7" over 6' 5" for our shooting guard of the future.

I like your point of view, so i went with DeRozan as well.

[arh1109]

I think DeRozan is atleast a year away from efficiently contributing and thats with 30 minutes a game of playing time. We need someone nba ready who can contribute to a playoff team, DeRozan might be great in a few years, but by that time Larry will be on the way out. Tyreke Evans is the more Nba ready of the two able to fill our needs faster therefore I'm taking him.

[Walt Cronkite]

Quickly caught up on the prospects. I think it's too early for us to take Thabeet or Hill (I like Hill more) so it came down to the Freshmen guards (Evans and DeRozan). Evans seems to be a ball hog, while DeRozan looked solid. I know DeRozan struggled early, but I caught him a couple of times during USC's pac-10 tourney run and I was impressed. I think Bell will be starting anyway, so we'll have a year to develop his talent and I think LB would do wonders for him.

DeMar DeRozan gets my vote.

[Dexmor]

DeRozen?

This should of been

Blake
Thabeet
Harden
Hill

Rubio we don't need and Thabeet is slipping to late on this board. Charlotte seems to not like having big men.

[Walt Cronkite]

I'm not sold on Thabeet. If things hold and DeRozan gets selected at 4, I plan on voting for Evans at pick 5. I might consider Hasheem after that, but I'd probably give the edge to Hill. I guess I'd be comfortable with voting for him at 7, although he'll be competing with Jennings and Clark. So... looks like he's more likely to be voted in within the next couple of picks than for me to ever drop a vote on him.

[Paydro70]

I have no idea what Thabeet would bring to the team that Emeka does not. There's an excellent chance that he's just a role player on the NBA level and we don't have any particular need for a shot blocker, so I think he should be pretty low on our board.

Hill is unimpressive. He is a pretty good rebounder and he's athletic, but he's really not much of a scorer. He's never going to be the go-to guy we want, and considering he's probably not better than Diaw at anything but boarding, I don't see why we'd want him over any of the top shooting guards.

[Walt Cronkite]

In the video I watched of Hill I thought he had some nice moves in the post. He wouldn't be a go-to guy, but I did mention that I'd be considering him AFTER the guys I think could be go-to scorers (DD and Evans) are off of the board.

[fatlever]

only reason i would take thabeet would be to trade okafor for a nice sg. it might easier to replace mek than it would be to find a nice sg who can step in right away and be our guy.

i think thabeet/diop/nazr/ajinca could probably hold down the 5 spot next year if needed.

[Paydro70]

Walt - I agree with your assessment, I was disagreeing with Dexmor.

[August Us Seazr]

I'm back for now. Let's finish some old business. Our fourth man onto the board... is Demar DeRozan of the University of Southern California. Maybe if you voted for someone else, pick five will be YOUR breakthru... I hope so. On to pick five.