For those ragging on the Biedrins pick:

1) He compares pretty favorably to other players taken above him after 4 years in the league. Look at his stats here compared to Gasol, Chandler, and Camby after their first four seasons.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/...byma01&y4=2000

2) He just turned 22!! Kid still has upside. You can teach him to stay out of foul trouble. You can't teach 6-11 who can move and catch like he can.

3) It's slow today. Enjoy this humorous montage of Biedrins highlights.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEBnVkzUjik

Biedrins also brings the much needed guido haircut element to a team

Worst. commercial. ever.

That part that cracks me up is when he drinks the G2 at the end, he has a look on his face like ugh, this drink sucks.

"Living the G2 life" tilts me all the time, more so in the Nomar and Mia commercial.

People who commit fouls as much as Biedrins don't normally stop committing fouls. It's possible that in a better system with better wing defenders he'll commit less, but check out this article on Anderson Varejao:

http://82games.com/chaikin2.htm

Biedrins commits a similar rate of fouls. FWIW Varejao then lowered his rate to 10 fouls per 100 minutes, which is still in the high range. He probably did it by trying to take less charges though.

can someone post my pick in that thread?

i am on phone and thread is too large and slow

i am taking ironman joe johnson...20/5/5 sgs are not common...good defense...great 3pt shooter, esp when surrounded by good players a la phoenix

can play 2 or 3 equally well...be 1st or 2nd or 3rd option...can take over games as well

just entering prime so should only be better in next few years

mother****er Joe Johnson was one of my two players (although the lesser of the two). What a steal great pick

I think this is about where he should have gone, not a steal though.

What? No way, he is a late 2nd round talent. I think someone like Manu is a better player, but Joe Johnson is pretty close to him and he went mid-second and everyone loved the pick.

Johnson - good bulk, bad D, bad efficiency. Certainly not a steal here, but pretty reasonable. I don't know how happy he would be being a 2nd or 3rd option given that he wanted out of a perfect situation in Phoenix.

Johnson is a good defender, especially when he doesn't have to shoulder the entire offensive load. He is also much more efficent when surrounded by great players, instead of being surrounded by a ton of bad ones.

I do agree with ur last point though about how happy he would be, since he wanted to be the man though I don't know how much that will matter in this league (assuming players are under contract forever and Johnson wouldn't be able to be the man on any team in this league anyway).

Who cares about defense, you got Zo and Buck Willaims (who I am told was good) behind you. Joe Johnson perfect pick (well I think a few other players are about as good here, depending on how you want to build your team).

I think JJ is a very good pick.

Also I only see 1 better possible pick here, and Clark will probably end up with him anyway, so tilting.

Joe Johnson is nowhere close to as good as Manu **** Ginobili.

He def is, put Manu on the Hawks and I guarentee u his percentages look a lot worse.

Not really. His last year in PHO he had a TS% of .556. Since then he's had TS% numbers of .537, .558, and .535. That's not that big of a difference, especially when you consider there's no way in hell he was ever going to shoot .478 on 3s ever again.

Then why don't Joe Johnson's?

I know stats don't always tell the whole story, but still.... Regarding D, he's been awful the past few years based on both DRTG and defensive win shares. Re efficiency, his TS% has actually been higher in Atl than in Pho. It went from awful when he was a younger player, to halfway decent but not that great the past few years. His last year in Phoenix was also the only season where he had positive WSAA. I mean, he is certainly a reasonable player to take at this point in the draft, but his advanced stats make him look a lot worse than his general reputation among casual fans.

He also has gotten better since the Suns. And while I agree he won't shoot .478 on 3's again, his true shooting percentage was also hurt in the Suns system because he only got to the line 2.2 times a game.

So his efficiency is both better off and worse off for being on a bad team now?

Now I'm not going to compare his defense to Pierce's (because Pierce is a better defender), but it is the same type of situation, in that Johnson's D was a good amount better on the Suns (yes I know drtg doesn't show it, but I remember people always raving about his d on the Suns, and he was the Suns defensive stopper and best defensive player besides Marion).

Once Johnson went to Atlanta and had to shoulder most of the offensive load, his defense obv dropped because it's almost impossible to spend so much energy on both offense and defense. Like Pierce, when he was playing on those old Celtic teams that went to the ECF, he was one of the best defensive wing players in the NBA. Then he had to shoulder the offense during all those bad Celtic teams once Walker left, and his defense dropped. Now that he has a ton of help this year, his defense has become what it was back during his early years because he doesn't have to spend so much energy on offense.

I'm saying that Johnson has improved since his Suns days and if he was still on the Suns, he would be more efficent than he was on the Hawks. It's pretty common knowledge that most players who get more talent surrounding them, end up being more efficent.

Likewise if Manu was on the Hawks, his efficency would be worse than it is with the Spurs.

JJ is a nice solid pick here. Not really a steal, imo. Nice for Nick as it fits his needs perfectly.

YAY NICK!! Thanks for getting your pick in, lets roll out some picks now.

Pierce's career-worse DRTG is better (lower) than anything Johnson has put up in the last 5 years. Since his rookie year, Pierce has had only one year with fewer DWS than Johnson's career-high.

I'm not saying the effect isn't real, but how real is it? Do you think Manu would go from being one of the most efficient players in the game to about average just by switching teams?