2009 NBA draft analysis

2009 NBA Draft

Here’s the weekend draft analysis, just like I promised. Some may claim it late, I consider it a way to keep the masses intrigued. Plus, I had my wife’s b-day, a Sunday lesson to prepare, and a family reunion all going on this weekend. There wasn’t much time to break it down, but you better believe it was in my head, waiting to be released to my many adoring readers. So, once again, here it is and enjoy!

Winners

Bobcats: Gerald Henderson (12th); Derrick Brown (40th)

While I certainly think Gerald Henderson will have a productive NBA career (think a poor man’s Raja Bell/more skilled Dahntay Jones), the reason the Bobcats come out winners is because of their second-round pick, Derrick Brown. Brown has first-round talent and the versatility/athleticism (plays the 3 and 4) you crave on your team.

Rockets: Jermaine Taylor (32nd); Sergio Llul (34th); Chase Budinger (44th)

Rumors suggest the Rockets made numerous attempts to get into the first round, but ultimately they didn’t need to as they got some good prospects late in the draft. Budinger graded out as a lottery pick just six months ago, and has some eye-popping athleticism (he once placed a 47-inch vertical). Jermaine Taylor could fill the role of cheap scorer off the bench that the outgoing Von Wafer filled last season.

Clippers: Blake Griffin (1st)

Duh…even if he proves to be more Boozer than Malone, Griffin was still the most sure thing in the draft. Dude has sick athleticism for a PF and can handle the ball like a guard. He’s going to be good, it’s just a matter of finding out whether he’ll be just all-star good or hall-of-fame good. Defense is a question mark, but you could say the same thing about 90% of NBA players.

Thunder: James Harden (3rd); Mullens (24th); Robert Vaden (54th)

The Thunder withheld the temptation to pick the hype (Rubio), and instead went with the more established product (Harden). Comparisons to Brandon Roy are a bit much, but Harden is a solid player who will fit in well with the nucleus of Durant, Westbrook and Green. Mullens has project written all over him, but so did DeAndre Jordan (Clippers 2nd round pick 2008) in last year’s draft, and he showed well in his limited playing time during the season. Just sayin’…

Spurs: DeJuan Blair (37th); Jack McClinton (51st); Nando de Colo (53rd)

There’s a reason the Spurs didn’t even use 10 seconds of their two-minute limit when picking Blair. He was a steal and they knew it. He’s a rebounding machine that will play well off the bench, typical Spurs’ find. McClinton is supposedly an Eddie House clone, and Nando de Colo is an intriguing 6’5 PG, who could be the eventual heir to “you know who” (think Mr. Eva Longoria) at the PG spot.


Losers

Pacers: Tyler Hansbrough (13th); AJ Price (52nd)

For a team in desperate need of an exciting player; a player who can bring hope to a struggling franchise, it couldn’t have drafted any one more bland than Hansbrough. He’ll work hard, but he offers little potential, and will probably be nothing more than a solid bench man. Can’t say there was much better available at 13, though.

Hawks: Jeff Teague (19th); Sergey Gladyr (49th)

The Hawks replaced a defenseless, scoring PG (Bibby) with a defenseless, scoring PG (Jamal Crawford). So what did they do in the draft? They drafted a defenseless, scoring PG. What’s that saying again? “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.” I don’t even know what a Sergey Gladyr is, so I won’t even try…

Pistons: Austin Daye (15th); DaJuan Summers (35th); Jonas Jerebko (39th)

I actually think Summers and Jerebko are potential steals in the second round. Summers is another ultra-athletic, versatile player (can play 3 or 4), who has some maturity issues. If he figures it out, watch out…..Jerebko is thought by many to be the best Euro talent in the draft not named Rubio. My beef is with Daye at 15. He wasn’t strong enough to play in the WCC (that’s the West Coast Conference, for those who are wondering), and he’ll be at a huge physical disadvantage in the NBA. Charmin Soft is the best description. Can you say Nikolov Tskitishvili?

Cavaliers: Christian Eyenga (30th); Danny Green (46th)

The Cavs were exposed defensively in the playoffs when trying to guard the versatile likes of Rashard Lewis and Turkoglu. So what have they done to improve so far? They traded for an aging, 320+ lb center, and drafted a guy they’ll stash overseas for the next 3-4 years in the first round. Way to go Cleveland, LeBron + NY is only a year away! Oh…and I love how every scout or “draft expert” will tell you Danny Green is going to be a player in the NBA, yet not a one of’em could tell you why he should have been drafted earlier than the second round in a weak draft. Sounds like too many have been fooled by the Tar Heel hype to me.

Spring Break and The Big Hate

Spring Break is here! I thought I'd write a post while I have some free time. Warning: It's long and it's about sports, women may lose interest. Enjoy!

The Big Hate
By: Matt Andreason

These are perilous times we live in aren’t they? We have an economic recession costing millions of people their jobs; we’ve got a president with unprecedented socialistic ideals leading a republican government; and who can forget we’ve got millions of Muslim radicals primed to literally blast the American population at any given time?

Pretty sucky world isn’t it? Luckily, one segment of the population unfazed by a world of grief seems to be our beloved professional athletes. Protected by heaps of money, a well-paid entourage and buoyed by a president whose most glaring achievements thus far are that he’s black and he's “cool,” athletes have little to complain about these days. That is if your name isn’t Shaquille O’Neal.

What perilous times could an athlete possibly face who’s amassed the amount of money of a small country during a surefire 18-year hall-of-fame career? How about irrelevance. Welcome to Shaqville. That’s right, the Big Aristotle is on a direct course to the land of triviality and he’s not taking it very well.

The new guys, who’ve waited so patiently to take the reins of basketball’s elite, have officially taken the mantle. The process hasn’t been easy on the big guy, as it seems no one can escape his unforgiving wrath as he tails off into the wind; not even squeaky-clean Dwight Howard who idolized Shaq as a toddler.

Howard, Shaq’s literal heir apparent, crafted his game and personality so carefully after his idol he even dubbed himself “Superman” as a tribute to his hero. How does one react to such glowing admiration?

"When it's all said and done, I'll have four or five titles," Shaq said. "It doesn't matter to me who tries to take my (Superman nickname). We all know who the real (Superman) is."

He wasn’t done either. After a recent game against Howard, Howard’s coach, Stan Van Gundy, called Shaq out for “flopping,” a defensive technique that Shaq has abhorred in the past. It was Van Gundy’s way of protecting his guy (Dwight) who’d been under constant fire from Shaq as shown in the quote above. As you can imagine, Shaq wasn’t amused and had some heated words for his former coach.

"When a bum says some (stuff) and I respond, you can (expletive) cancel that 'cause I know how he is in real life. We'll see when the playoffs start and he (expletive) panics and quits like he did when he was here. Do I look soft to you like you can say something and I'm not going to say something?

"I said this a long time ago but I was actually talking about him (Van Gundy). When the general panics, the troops will panic . . . All the players hate him.

"Usually, I let (stuff) go. Not that. Not him."

Consider this your “I feel better about myself today” medicine. Remember that even though we all don’t have superstar money or in some cases even a job, most of us (my few readers) do have character. Shaq’s recent example shows all the money in the world doesn’t buy a cent of happiness. It’s the smaller things (family, religion, etc.) that prove our true character.

How to take the fantatic out of the fan pt. 2

How to take the fanatic out of the fan

Matt Andreason

There’s a reason the word fanatic was shortened to fan. It’s my belief the move was symbolic, with fanatic representing the extreme, and fan representing the condensed version of our rooting behavior. If you’ve been to a sporting event recently, you’ll see my perspective is not always the majority. As a self-proclaimed "professional sports observer" I’ve broken down fanatics into four distinct groups. These four groups can disturb, annoy, drink, and do a number of other things to poorly represent a fan base. The only question is how do we eliminate the fanatics and welcome them back as simple fans? Let's find out how one might do it.

Group 2

Contradictory Fanatics: Years ago I attended a BYU football spring training game as part of a family function. As the game progressed there were some inflammatory comments made by a fan a few rows back. You see, BYU’s backup QB was making some poor throws, and this particular fan was letting his displeasure be known, loudly. Every bad play, you would hear comments such as, "Go back to Junior college!" "There was a guy wide open, why’d you throw it to the other guy!" "How are we going to win any games if Beck goes down and this guy has to step in?!" As fate would have it, this quarterback had a sudden change of luck as the game proceeded. His errant throws from before became long touchdown passes that delighted the partisan crowd. At one point this quarterback had thrown 15 straight completions. As you can imagine, our fan from the beginning suddenly had a change of heart and couldn’t seem to praise the quarterback enough. His previous disparaging comments were replaced with remarks of heaping adoration. "Is there a quarterback controversy on the horizon!" " I promise there isn’t another team as deep at quarterback as us!" "Put him with the first team starters!" A convenient reversal of position for our contradictory fanatic. The fate of him and other contradictory fanatics?


Solution for fanatic cleansing: Randomly turn and comment on this gentleman’s or woman’s dress attire. Do so throughout the entire event while switching comments from disgust to flattery. These efforts can be rude (yet wildly entertaining), but believe me, for the sake of getting back to true fan ethics it’s worth it; and most importantly, it works.