The 2012 NBA Draft: 6th & 11th picks, and some random 2nds.

[No-Man]

Drummond is way more athletic than Jordan, I mean, WAAAAAAY MOOOORE.

[SinceClyde]

The more everyone talks about Drummond the more hype he gets, and then he goes before 6. Stop talking about him

[GEE]

As for their two lottery picks, man that's a tough one, evidenced by the discussions on these boards.

I share the concerns with Drummond...

As for not being a good move to pick one of the pointguards at #6, I won't go that far since I recall when Seattle(yes they were still Seattle then) drafted Westbrook and no one thought he was worthy of going #4. They simply said he was the player they wanted and didn't care about rankings. So if either Lillard or Marshall wow them and they feel one of them is their guy then I wouldn't dismiss passing them because they aren't ranked at #6.

To be honest I don't have certain players that I feel are a must based on where the rankings currently are. Just like a Dion Waiters has shot up from the mid twenties to mentioned as a lottery pick I suspect by draft day the names will be shuffled around a fair bit and we could be talking about someone we haven't yet discussed.

This is exactly how I feel about the early mock drafts and all the hype surrounding the top 10 players on the list. I've watched a ton of college ball, and make my picks having seen these guys play. Stats help quite a bit also.

#6 Kendall Marshall
#11 Arnett Moultrie

Package #40 & #41 for a late 1st and draft Festis Ezeli

[LOOSH]

#6 Kendall Marshall
#11 Arnett Moultrie

woof

[PhilipNelsonFan]

Trading No. 6 (and one of the seconds, in all likelihood) to Houston for No. 14 and No. 16 would be kind of cool, especially since the talent between all three picks is roughly the same.

For another tack, I'm sure Boston would listen closely about a move down to its two selections. Moultrie (and my guy Evan Fournier) would both be available then.

This Drummond debate will not go away anytime soon but looking over DeAndre Jordan's career arc to what Drummond is now, is it really a risk worth taking in the most important draft for the Blazers since '07?

[GEE]

#6 Kendall Marshall
#11 Arnett Moultrie

woof

Not sure what you mean by that LOOSH.

#6 - My thinking is, that it's highly unlikely we land DWILL or Rondo. The other PG's that will be available to us like Dragic, Lowry, Felton, Collison, etc. are good, but doubtful to ever make an all-star game. IMHO, I think Marshall has the best pure PG skills I've seen since CP3. He reminds me alot of Jason Kidd coming out of college. On that note, I would also want to sign a VET: Kidd, Dre, Nash, or Billups as a player/coach to groom the kid.

#11 - Moultrie is a stud. Reminds me a little of KG with his size, lenght, shooting ability, and he moves like a SF. He's been moving up on alot of draft boards, and with upcoming workouts, I expect he could go late-lotto. To me, he would fit great with LA and Hickson.

If we could also land Ezeli, a smart 7 footer with good strength that likes to bang in the paint, I think we would have a solid young team that should make some noise.

PG VET / Marshall / N.Smith
SG Mathews / E.Williams
SF Batum / Claver / Babbitt
PF Aldridge / Hickson / Thomas
C Moultrie / Ezeli / Freeland

[Norm2953]

If the draft came down to choosing between Drummond and other guys after the more consensus guys like Davis, Robinson,Beal, Barnes,MKG, go, Portland needs to take courage and pick Drummond assuming he checks out Health wise.

I think it more likely Drummond's athletic upside will triumph over potential questions over Robinson and MKG being tweeners will allow Portland to pick one of the 5 consensus players as the BPA.

[JD45]

If Drummond is available at #6, that is probably the guy I would choose.

But I cringe to think about all those posters who continued to complain about Greg Oden having "no heart" or "passion for the game." If they really thought that about Oden who was the dominant college basketball player in his 1 year, how will they react to Drummond.

[Fitz303]

Again, everyone is speculating about how good he is going to be. He has a 2 minute highlight mix against high school kids. Yay. So has 200 other high school basketball players that never made it in the nba.

He was awful in college. He shows little to no actual basketball skill the entire year and a attitude/work ethic to match.

Stop dismissing what we know for a fact to speculate about something we don't. He couldn't dominate 6'6 unathletic college players 4 months ago and all of the sudden he's a legit NBa basketball player?

Give me a break!

LOL.. As I said, the video was more to show a lot of skills that he possesses that he didn't show a whole lot of at UConn (passing/ballhandling). You can dismiss it comepletely if you would like, but the skill is there. You base everything you see on 1 freshman year of college? Ok, so by that logic, Roy Hibbert isnt an NBA player

Hibbert Freshman - 16mpg 5ppg 3.5rpg 1.3bpg 47% FG
Hibbert Sohpomore - 24mpg 11.6ppg 7rpg 1.6bpg 59% FG
Drummond Freshman - 28mpg 10ppg 7.6rpg 2.7bpg 54% FG

Yeah, if you dont dominate "6'6" unathletic college players" by your freshman (or even sophomore) season, you're clearly going to suck forever.

[Jsun947]

Roy Hibbert wasn't a basketball player. He was a big guy trying to learn basketball. By his Sophmore season he was a better basketball player than Drummond was last year. He had serious problems with conditioning. People would have been just as stupid to draft Hibbert after his Freshman year as we would to draft Drummond now.

There is a reason Hibbert stayed in college for four years.

[Wickzki]

Can it not be said that for the vast majority of players entering the collegiate game? That they're "trying to learn basketball"?

Drummond reminds me more of McGee than he does DeAndre Jordan.

[fishnc]

#6 Kendall Marshall
#11 Arnett Moultrie

woof

Not sure what you mean by that LOOSH.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRa75_Hlr28[/youtube]

[Blaze01]

Yeah I would take Barnes, Lamb or Jones before Drummond at #6...big risk\reward guy...too big for a fragile POR franchise....

Of course if Beal or T-Rob slipped to #6, I would take them...

[UGotThrilled]

I would love to see Drummond's answer to the question: "How do you see your career in NBA going?" If he says "I dunno, I guees I'll do whatever the team wants" then pass on him. If he says something more along the lines of "I know that my strength is on the defensive end. I am going to be committed to shutting down the other team's best post player, and I want to be a great shot blocker. Offensively, I have a long ways to go, but I will crash the offensive glass and work hard on getting teammates open by setting screens." then pick him, but don't try to force him to be a post-up player that he isn't.

[GreenRiddler]

Again, everyone is speculating about how good he is going to be. He has a 2 minute highlight mix against high school kids. Yay. So has 200 other high school basketball players that never made it in the nba.

He was awful in college. He shows little to no actual basketball skill the entire year and a attitude/work ethic to match.

Stop dismissing what we know for a fact to speculate about something we don't. He couldn't dominate 6'6 unathletic college players 4 months ago and all of the sudden he's a legit NBa basketball player?

Give me a break!

LOL.. As I said, the video was more to show a lot of skills that he possesses that he didn't show a whole lot of at UConn (passing/ballhandling). You can dismiss it comepletely if you would like, but the skill is there. You base everything you see on 1 freshman year of college? Ok, so by that logic, Roy Hibbert isnt an NBA player

Hibbert Freshman - 16mpg 5ppg 3.5rpg 1.3bpg 47% FG
Hibbert Sohpomore - 24mpg 11.6ppg 7rpg 1.6bpg 59% FG
Drummond Freshman - 28mpg 10ppg 7.6rpg 2.7bpg 54% FG

Yeah, if you dont dominate "6'6" unathletic college players" by your freshman (or even sophomore) season, you're clearly going to suck forever.

Couldn't have said it better myself, some people are just gonna have to accept that if Drummond is there at 6 we are gonna take him DEAL WITH IT!

[GreenRiddler]

Can't wait till the workouts! Does anyone know when the first workouts usually get scheduled? First week of June, 2nd or 3rd?

[GreenRiddler]

Did anyone see this? OMG how could this affect the outcome of who they (Cha Sac) pick?
http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/221336/Agents_Placing_Greater_Importance_On_Team_Instead_Of_Draft_Slot

[DusterBuster]

Did anyone see this? OMG how could this affect the outcome of who they (Cha Sac) pick?
http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/221336/Agents_Placing_Greater_Importance_On_Team_Instead_Of_Draft_Slot

It's not new really. Just instead of the players being public about where they do and don't want to play, now they've quieted down and the agents are taking the lead in that. It makes sense in a lot of ways, agents want their players to go to a team that gives their clients the best chance to succeed. If their client goes to a team where they're guaranteed to start from Day 1 and play big minutes. That means more chance for them to put up big numbers and a better chance for them to cash in on a big new contract. The real money for agents and players isn't in rookie deals, those are small potatoes compared to the big contract extensions after the rookie contract.

You look at a guy like Thabeet. There's nothing to say that he would have big a huge success had he not been drafted by the Grizzlies, but he certainly would have had a much better shot at being productive had a team who needed a C drafted him. The Grizzlies were just taking (what they thought was) BPA even though they were set at C with Marc Gasol.

As for any effect on the teams who are going to have a tough time getting players in for workouts, I think the effect will be minimal. Every team has done tons of research on their draft candidates that bringing them in for workouts isn't a necessity. They'll just draft whoever they feel is the best fit for their team, regardless of if they want to be there or not.

[DusterBuster]

As a side note, apparently the Wizards are likely going to take MKG or Beal. Considering the Cavs pick right after them, I think it's a safe bet to assume that they take whichever of those two the Wiz don't pick. So the draft is starting to take a little shape in the Top 6 now.....

1. Hornets - Davis
2. Bobcats -
3. Wizards - MKG (or Beal)
4. Cavs - Beal (or MKG)
5. Kings -
6. Blazers -

That leaves Robinson, Drummond and Barnes to go between the Cats, Kings and Blazers.

The Bobcats need proven talent, regardless of position. I still question if they'd take Drummond second with all his questionmarks. Not to mention they need scoring and a Drummond/Biyombo duo would be horrific on offense. I think they'd go with Robinson. He's got a better offensive game and makes more sense as a pairing. They could screw up the Cavs and Wiz plans by taking MKG 2nd overall. This would mean the Wiz take Beal 3rd and the Cavs would likely take Barnes or Drummond if they are done with Varejao, my gut says they'd take Barnes 4th.

The Kings need a SF and PG mostly. If the Bobcats take Robinson, Wiz take MKG, and Cavs take Beal, then the Kings take Barnes no question imo. If Barnes goes to the Cavs because of the Bobcats taking MKG, then I think the Kings pick between Robinson, Drummond or Lillard. Lillard is shooting up draft boards QUICK and they need a PG, so he makes sense there. Drummond and Cousins are a bit too similar imo, so I don't know if they'd go with him.

Long story short, there are a lot of different scenarios in which Drummond drops to 6.

[DeBlazerRiddem]

I was wondering something... if we don't take Sullinger at 6, would he fall to us at 11?

7 - Would GSW take Sullinger with Lee and Bogut? I guess they are semi likely, but what do others think?
8 - Raptors have a ton of PF/C's already and need another wing, so its unlikely
9 - Detroit needs a defensive PF who can stretch the floor (ie Henson) to compliment Monroe, not another post scorer.
10 - Hornets might have taken Sullinger if they didn't get Davis, but with Davis they probably want a PG at this spot. I imagine they would want Marshall's playmaking to get the most out of Davis.


If Sullinger is our target at 6, we might not lose anything if we let him drop to 11.