Draft order is determined randomly, and I ended up with the 11th spot out of 11 teams. So I knew that I would not end up with a superstar, but that also gave me the 12th pick as well. I wanted either one of the top four picks or to be at the end, I did not want that middle section of the draft this year. That is because the players in the first round that should be picked there are all serious injury risks that I wanted to avoid (I'm talking about Kobe, Wade and Granger).
Recall a few years back I made the mistake of the draft when I accidentally picked Pau Gasol in the first round (a mistake due to not understanding the new Yahoo draft settings) when he could have been had at the end of the second round. (By the way, Gasol ended up with top 10 value that season). This year, at pick #11, I grabbed Gasol on purpose for my first pick. With Bynum out until December, Gasol will dominate the Lakers middle. I am expecting near 20-20 (points/rebounds) nights. That is the best I could do at #11.
ABOVE: This time I grabbed Pau Gasol with my first pick on purpose
The first round of our draft went like this: 1-Kevin Durant (no-brainer 1st pick), 2-Chris Paul (possible injury risk and unhappy in NO), 3-Lebron James (douchebag, but will still get his numbers), 4-Dirk Nowitzki (boring but reliable), 5-Dwayne Wade (a bit high considering injury risk and competing with Lebron for the ball), 6-Stephen Curry (a risk, but could be top three value by the end of the season, I really wanted him), 7-Kobe Bryant (with Jackson already talking about limiting his minutes for the first part of the season and him recovering from knee surgery, I wanted no part of Kobe this year), 8-Deron Williams(solid), 9-Danny Granger (it is not a matter of "if" but "when" will Granger get injured again), 10-David Lee (a bit high) and 11-Pau Gasol.
My full roster looks like this: Russell Westbrook at PG, Manu Ginobili at SG, Mo Williams at G, Gerald Wallace at SF, Corey Maggette at PF, Robin Lopez at F, Pau Gasol at C, Andrew Bogut at C, Wesley Johnson and Eric Gordon at UTIL, and I've got George Hill, the injured Andrew Bynum and Reggie Williams sitting on my Bench. Decent team, but I am not overwhelmed with optimism. I think Gasol and Wallace as my first two picks were as good as I could do at 11th and 12th. Westbrook and Bogut both have huge upside (if Bogut can stay healthy). I was excited to grab Hill at the end of the draft. He is the 6th man for the Spurs, but he is so talented and Popovich loves the guy, and he is ready to start when either Tony Parker or Manu get hurt (which they will). Also, word is the Spurs are trying to trade Parker, and when that happens, Hill is the starting PG. That could be the pick of my draft if that happens.
Thoughts?
ABOVE: George Hill could be one of my best picks if the Spurs are able to unload Tony Parker
9 comments:
No Rockets. How can you win with no Rockets. Actually, it looks like a pretty solid team. I agree that Hill could end up being your steal.
How did you end up doing last year in your league?
I'd be interested for your thought on LeBron and the decision. Like most people, my opinion of the man basically tanked after watching that press conference. In the scale of things that sports superstars do, however, switching teams (albeit in a tactless and public way) is hardly very high. So how come everybody (myself included) still resents LeBron so much more than we do others in the league who are, objectively, far worse as human beings?
It is best not to talk of my team's performance last season. Granger was my pick in the first round, and while he was amazing when healthy, he was injured for much of the season. I vowed never to own Granger again. I also owned Kevin Martin last season. Ditto. So, I blame my team's dismal performance last season solely on injuries.
On Jebron Lames's The Decision, I felt equally disgusted. I watched the whole thing with the fascination of watching a train wreck occur. true, he did not murder his wife or run a dog fighting business, but even before The Decision his arrogance really got to me. I found myself hating him because of how clueless he seemed to be, as if he did not understand that he was dumping a grateful, loving but homely woman (Cleveland) for the hot chick who only has to shake her ass to get attention but can act however she wants just because she's hot (Miami). And doing it on national television. And then acting surprised that people thought he was an ass.
My thought is that if Stephen Curry is a first-rounder -- and I'm not saying he isn't -- then I really have to look at stuff this weekend to prepare for my draft next week. I'm behind the times. I'm glad Curry did that well last year, though, because I like him.
If LeBron had just signed with another team and displayed some class while doing it, it wouldn't have been nearly as big a deal. But, surprise! A kid who was being told he was God by the time he was 15 or 16 isn't making smart decisions about the wider world!? Yeah, he came off like a big jackass. But also really stiff and awkward, like there really were people pulling the strings behind him. Hopefully he'll mature and ditch whatever group of friends and advisers orchestrated that idiocy. As for going to the Heat, I think it weirdly proves how unselfish he is as a player -- observers all want great athletes to be alpha males, because that's how we like to think we'd be with that talent, but I don't think James is that guy. Dwyane Wade is a sick player, and LeBron knows that. This isn't Jordan and Pippen. This is like Jordan and Magic, or Jordan and Bird...
In most of the polls and research I did, Curry was in the top 10.
I would just love to see the Miami Heat fail for the same reasons I root against the New York Yankees. It's more fun to me if the league is more balanced and every team has an equal opportunity to draft, trade and sign players. When one team has the ability to buy whoever they want or 3 players can get together and decide they want to win a championship together, it seems a little unbalanced and most people are going to want to see them fail.
Are you a socialist?
Dez, your feelings about the Yankees very clearly mark you as a Socialist, which is the best part of your hatred for the Yankees. I see your true colors, shining through (sung to a certain tune).
Dez,
I don't think socialism is a good analogy. Democracy doesn't work well without certain checks and balances. It works best when the competition is fair which is why there are anti-trust laws and other mechanisms to try to curb abuses. This is a case where 3 top players colluded to unfairly stack the top talent on one team and Miami was happy to oblige. I just hope it backfires.
In the case of the Yankees, they have unlimited funds to buy the top players in a very small marketplace. Again, that's not really democracy in action. It's certainly not fair competition so it's great when they fail in spite of their unfair advantages.
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