Slather me, Lather me, Blather me - 2011 Draft Thread 5

[nate33]

2 days to go...

[fishercob]

Took you long enough. Pine, delete mine.

[Jay81]

Weak title...no creativity. Close the thread

[JWizmentality]

Took you long enough. Pine, delete mine.

Wait, keep it open. That thread has shrine potential!

[JWizmentality]

F**k that was fast.

[pineappleheadindc]

Took you long enough. Pine, delete mine.

Wait, keep it open. That thread has shrine potential!

Too late. Sorry.

Weak title...no creativity. Close the thread

Nate, I hate to take Ji's side here on your thread, but.....

[fishercob]

While I'd like to see the words "slather, lather and blather" in the thread title I think it's more important that said title be true to nate's personality. He's part of the backbone of this community. And, you know, boring white people can be awesome too, okay!?

[nate33]

I'm on the road. Internet access only via cell phone. I'd like to embed some youtube videos butt itlltake me half an hour

[dangermouse]

Batter me with Draft Chatter

[sfam]

Are we all like 100% in agreement that we give the #6 and #18 to get Kanter? I know Nate talked about maybe trying to do this on the cheap due to potentially a trade war w/Cleveland and Utah being the suitors, but I'd just assume go for the #3 pick if its there and guarantee that we get Kanter. It would really suck if we turned down the #3 and the Jazz found another trade partner, or worse, selected Kanter themselves.

[Illuminaire]

I only see five guys in this draft who could become real difference makers. Irving, Williams, Kanter, Val, and Knight, listed in order of how I'd rank their potential.

I'd honestly be happy with picking Val at 6... but if Kanter looks like the real deal, throwing in the 18 is well worth the cost.

[montestewart]

While I'd like to see the words "slather, lather and blather" in the thread title I think it's more important that said title be true to nate's personality. He's part of the backbone of this community. And, you know, boring white people can be awesome too, okay!?

I think the thread's title is is infused with comic Pynchonesque irony, unexpected echoes of Damon Knight and Bertolt Brecht, and a many-leveled political and cultural critique. An implied lather of blather is slathered throughout. Nice job nate33. This one's going to do it.

[montestewart]

Are we all like 100% in agreement that we give the #6 and #18 to get Kanter? I know Nate talked about maybe trying to do this on the cheap due to potentially a trade war w/Cleveland and Utah being the suitors, but I'd just assume go for the #3 pick if its there and guarantee that we get Kanter. It would really suck if we turned down the #3 and the Jazz found another trade partner, or worse, selected Kanter themselves.

This is where we find out whether the new and improved GMEG, with the backing of Ted Leonsis, has a new poker face, but regardless, if you're not willing to play, if you're not willing to risk, it's hard to win. With their young assets and cap space, the team perhaps has more room to bluff and to call bluffs. Ideally, he does what he needs to do to get Kanter, still has McGee, and still has one or two picks in the draft, and if he chooses well, I might be feeling pretty good about GMEG at that point.

[dangermouse]

I'd totally do #6 and #18 for #3 or #4. Since it was very first discussed after the lotto Ive thought that it made sense for us and Utah. 100% for it and about 65% confident that it will happen.

I still don't understand why the Cavs want to trade down from #4. Perhaps they see Kanter as a PF and they would rather move forward with Hickson as their young PF, and rather than take JV with a high pick just trade down to pay him less when it is unlikey he will be suiting up this year, if there is a year.

[DallasShalDune]

While I'd like to see the words "slather, lather and blather" in the thread title I think it's more important that said title be true to nate's personality. He's part of the backbone of this community. And, you know, boring white people can be awesome too, okay!?

I think the thread's title is is infused with comic Pynchonesque irony, unexpected echoes of Damon Knight and Bertolt Brecht, and a many-leveled political and cultural critique. An implied lather of blather is slathered throughout. Nice job nate33. This one's going to do it.

Oooooo Pynchonesque. Me likey.

[SUPERBALLMAN]

6 & 18 for Kanter? I do it, but I'm not thrilled. I am anticipating that 18 pick. The other route is maybe move down to Bobcats 9 & 19, maybe end up with something like Singleton, Vucevic, Honeycutt. I am really high on Vucevic, and I'm not convinced Kanter will be better. I like Kanter alot more at 6 than moving up.

But if that's what we do I'm fine with it. Kanter & Nolan Smith at 34 would be a pretty sweet draft.

[eltacoman]

Biyombo Bismacking DC !

http://espn.go.com/espn/grantland/story/_/id/6679686/your-deal

Grantland: A lot of teams are giving you serious consideration in the draft. There's easily 10 or 12 cities where you could wind up. Let's play a game: I'll say the name of a city and you say the first word that comes to mind. Any word you want — just the first word that pops into your head. Cool?

Biyombo: Cool.

Grantland: OK, here we go. Washington, D.C.

Biyombo: No.

Grantland: OK. Detroit.

Biyombo: Detroit? Yes.

Grantland: Toronto.

Biyombo: Yes.

Grantland: Houston.

Biyombo: Yes.

Grantland: Wait. Hold on. Do you know anything about these cities? Or are you just randomly saying "Yes" and "No"?

Biyombo: When the teams come over here to work me out, I learn about every city so I'm prepared to meet with them. I take a lot of time to learn everything I can about the city and the team, so I know what's going on. I do a lot of online research.

[pineappleheadindc]

What. The. Heck.

Toronto yes, but DC no?

SMH

[Hoopalotta]

I don't how Kanter plays PF unless your going to have McGee play that role for him defensively. Either way I'm skeptical. If McGee has a tendency to get lost when he's 5 feet from the basket, I shriek to imagine how lost he'd look 20 feet from the basket.

I'd see it as this:

PF Blatche (32 minutes) Booker (16 minutes)
CE McGee (28 minutes) Kanter (20 minutes)

This is a much needed infusion of realism.

While I agree with those who think he can play the 4 for spot minutes, Kanter is a guy who worked out with Grover for a few months with an eye specifically towards the combine and weighed in at 260 with 6% body fat, coming down from 270. That is no sort of prototype defensively at power forward and he's quite likely to get up to 265 or 270 if he's not already. In fact, I believe he said something about getting up to 270 "the right way", so that's a pretty solid presumption.

But he's almost surely a lot more able to knock Kaman off the block than he is to chase down Bosh. There's nothing wrong with that, but the idea that we're going to take this guy who's probably bigger than ZaZa Pachulia and a respectable, but not elite athlete and start him at the 4 seems like a collective distortion where we're just conforming our expectations to match with our positional needs.

Big picture, him being more of a center is OK as we need value here more than anything. I'm not saying that we should have a problem with him based on this. It's also possible that he's able to play the 4, but people are overlooking the point that he's an extreme physical outlier at the fringe of precedent if he's able to do so for long stretches at 270. It's just so much more likely that, seeing that he's got the bulk of a center at 19 years old, he's actually a center. That's the easy default position.

As to McGee guarding 4's, he can do it to an extent, but I think you take him out of his effectiveness in that he's not waiting in the paint to pick up penetration and taking steps towards the incoming evil-doers but rather back-peddling with a lot less time to react. Back-peddling and sliding at 7'1" is not the most natural of things. I'm not saying he can't do it or that it's entirely unworkable, but I just think he's better picking guys up who are 8 feet out in front of him.

Anyway, I had to burst some of these depth charts people are running here.

Edit --> Chad Ford is also on the 6 & 18 for 4 rumor:

As I wrote in my mock draft, news that Jonas Valanciunas won't play in the NBA next season makes it unlikely the Cavs will select him at No. 4. However, it doesn't mean the Cavs still won't draft him. I'm hearing the Cavs are exploring moving down a few spots in the draft to take him. The goal is to secure another first-round pick to compensate them for not getting Valanciunas to play this season. One potential scenario has the Wizards giving up Nos. 6 and 18 for the No. 4 pick. The caveat? Enes Kanter has to be there at No. 4 for the Wizards. If he's not, there's no deal.

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_ ... raft-picks

Edit again and even once more --> Mike Lee shoots down the similar rumor with Utah;

But a person with knowledge of the Wizards’ thinking denied that the team has been in talks with Utah.I asked a rival Western Conference executive about the possibility of Utah dealing the third pick and he pointed out that the Jazz would probably have difficulty getting one of the players it has targeted at sixth. Point guard Brandon Knight probably wouldn’t slip past Toronto in that scenario.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wiz ... _blog.html

[Hoopalotta]

On the recent Vesely debate:

Vesely has two high quality NBA skills. He can finish at the rim, and he moves well without the ball. Physically, he's long, athletic, and explosive. Someone mentioned that he could be like Marion. But the more I think about it, the more I think Vesely's skill set resemble those of another former Phoenix Sun... Amare Stoudamire.

Think about it. When Stoudamire was young, he hadn't developed his jumper yet. He was just a cutter who could catch and finish Nash's passes with authority. Like Vesely, Stoudamire was also a poor rebounder and a suspect defender. Nevertheless, he became significant offensive weapon almost immediately.

Yeah, I think we've gone a bit too far into thrashing him, though STAT seems optimistic.

I knew that there were some Serbian League stats out there, but hadn't seen them till this:

http://www.eurobasket.com/player.asp?Cn ... erID=78508

So, he was terrible on the boards in the Euroleague, but it might have been a bit of a fluke that he was as bad as all that. Looks to me that, if you hit all the leagues together, you've got 7.6 rebounds per 40 without any pace adjustment or anything. That's not so bad and he's just a poor defensive rebounder more than anything.

Defensively, I don't know, the synergy numbers were pretty nice to where I don't know how you can game plan against him with those iso and post-up defensive numbers. That's up in the air to me.

His free throw shooting was horrific, but in comparison to the NCAA players, his spot up shooting was skewed downwards in that he's shooting 22+ foot 3-pointers compared with 19 foot 3's. It doesn't really make him any more efficient for our purposes, but it would make the NCAA guys worse in a direct comparison. He's a 32% 3-Point shooter on what are surely almost all open spot ups from near NBA range. Not particularly good news, but it's a start.

I'm also skeptical that he's got a low Basketball IQ. He starts at 21 years old in Europe and fills his role on a Champagne-ship team - seems respectable there.

He's got small hands, but there's actually a lot of guys who turn the ball over on 14-16% of their possessions, with Derrick Williams being one example (admittedly while playing a larger role).

Small Hands Evidence:



I just love posting that picture.

As to finishing:

Finishing at 74% at the rim is pretty beast.

Define 74% finishing at the rim? He finished 74% of the time he got to the rim (which ain't too impressive) or 74% of his buckets were at the rim (in which case can we discuss his overall shooting percentage)?

if you screen for guys playing more than 20 games a year and 20 minutes a game in the NBA, .74% would be top 15 league-wide.

http://www.hoopdata.com/shotstats.aspx? ... 20&mins=20

You gotta chop some off for going from Europe to the NBA, but that's still projects towards the very high end.

Now, I'm not saying we run out and get him and start high-fiving amongst ourselves, but the hate - which I've been in on - is probably out of line with the fundamentals.

I will say that I'd prefer to take a risk on him to that of Leonard and I'm mixed on him versus Marcus Morris. He does have some sort of upside in a super-role-player sort of way despite his apparent bust potential. That it would come to that at the 6th pick is concerning, but that's where we're at.