Did Baker's off the court issues really hurt the team? I mean, the guy sucks because he took tooooons of money off the Celtics, but we're not really dealing with money...was he a bad chemistry guy as well?

Colin,

This thread is so long that I don't wan to sift through everything since I couldn't find the recaps, but weren't some of the guys you listed taken before Coleman? I think Odom is generally underrated and would have been preferable if he was still available, and shareef would also be a good option if he was available. I am not going to preent to know enough about Okafor's career to comment on him. The nice thing about DC with Shaq is that you have two pretty athletic tanks in their primes. They should clean up the boards and match up better defensivley with some of the bigger teams. Also, I realize this might sound like a stretch but I think having another strong post presence with Shaq is great because everyone is going to be in serious foul trouble! Look at how much better Amare's stats have been with Shaqs arrival, and he is currentley a shadow of his former self. I really think matching him up with another good post player makes a lot of sense. You sacrifice some efficiency with DC, but he does have some postive advantages too IMO. I'm not arguing it was a great pick per se, but everyone hated it so much and I think it was overdone a bit.

I agree 100% about Josh Smith and think it was a poor pick. I was defending the team in general, because everyone seems to have written them off. Despite that poor pick, I can see this team being one of the premier teams in the league. I think there are a few teams they will have some serious match up problems with (Such as the Shaq team, the Hakeem team, and any other team that ends up being huge), but on the whole this is very good team and everyone seems to have completley written them off. Smith was a waste though, I can't argue that.

The one thing not mentioned about Ratliff is his inability to stay in games. I really wanted Ratliff next round b/c of his shot blocking ability but he missed 32, 25, 78, 1, none, 19, 27, 56 games after starting relatively healthy. He's really good and the only reason he dropped so far is his inability to stay on the court. He is a really good defender though.

His career was ruined by severe depression and alcoholism, so I think he qualifies as a "bad chemistry guy."

no - he was not bad for team chemistry....everyone just keeps focucing on his downfall - but he was really really good for a solid 5 to 7 years...and thats alot more than other guys picked. Plus - I thnk picking him up with the 131st pick was of great value.

I said this before - -that Im more than happy to get 5 to 7 very prodcutive seasons out of Vn before he takes that nose dive to the bottle.

4x All Star
2x All NBA

but everyone keeps forgetting his success - and remember his downfall. Im getting 5 to 7 years of very very high production.

he played terrible ball?

its 16-7 against coaches I think, so we need some more votes to settle it.

gg,

there's a spreadsheet linked in the first post of the actual DRAFT thread, as well as recaps by yours truly. You can open that up and see the whole draft. Dudd or whoever else edits it keeps it very up to date.

there's a lot of hilarious in this article

http://www.sonicscentral.com/heavyd27.html

Round 5: Pick 172

Mehmet Okur, PF/C



To round out my starting lineup I'm going to go with Mehmet Okur.

I'm pleasantly surprised that Okur fell to me here as I had considered him for a while with my 4th round pick before deciding that Jackson was a better fit for my team.

Okur is a very efficient player who can step outside and hit the three or the jumper pretty consistently. His offensive rating of 112.9 ranks him as the 73rd best in NBA history. In addition, his career PER of 17.6 and TS% of .555 both rank very highly among remaining players.

The biggest weakness with Okur is probably his defense, but with Malone making numerous all defensive teams along with the all time steals per game leader on my team in Alvin Robertson, I figured I could go with a more offensively minded player here.

I think Okur fits my team well as he gives me another player that can step out and hit the jumper, something all three of my bigs can now do. This is important as since my guards aren't known for their shooting ability, I have some flexibility now with my offense.

- 1 time NBA All Star
- Career PER or 17.6
- Career averages of 13ppg and 7 rpg

Lineup:

PG - Mark Jackson
SG - Alvin Robertson
SF - Antawn Jamison
PF - Karl Malone
C - Mehmet Okur

that article was in 2002 ...when Vin was well into his downfall.

I guarantee you cant find anything like that when he was in his prime (in that 5 to 7 year period)....while he was a 4x All Star and 2x All NBA Teammer.

Im not doubting that when Vin went down - he went down HARD!!!...but I picked him specifically for solid 5 to 7 years of production...and there was no one that had his kindve prodcution in a 5 to 7 year stretch (especially not available at the 131st pick)

I still stand firm on my Baker pick - and think it was a very good one.

man i didnt follow the thread for like 3 days and now its too overwhelming. anyway random thoughts.

first related to the above:

im not super crazy about coleman but am i nuts for thinking he's on a whole different level than any of these guys? i mean i've watched them all and even when you factor in DCs problems he's still head and shoulders above any of these guys imo. i always thought of him as "special" and i don't feel that way about any of those guys.

also related to the ggbman critiques. rod strickland was not a selfish player. he may have been a selfish guy, but he was def not selfish on the court. 9ish assists/gm in his prime. and he was definitely a pass first pg for most of his seasons. another alcoholic, which is unfortunate, but when he had his head right he was nasty.

a general observation is that anyone who picks "troubled" guys seems to get lambasted whereas people who pick guys known as super hardworkers/good lockerroom guys seem to get very little extra credit. is there data to suggest that bad guys do more to hurt teams than good guys do to help them?


ive lost track of all them teams and who has who, but whoever got corey maggette reasonably late hit a homerun. such a stud.

lastly, somewhere assani said that he believed himself a better evaluator of talent than the guys on tv. do lot of you believe this about yourselves? if so, are any of you pursuing a career in basketball scouting/coaching? so many of you are so passionate about this stuff i think you should give it a shot. imagine getting paid to do this.

Love this pick. Malone and Okur good inside outside game. I actually had Okur on my list in the 3rd round (not that high, but he was up there).

wishful thinking, imo. i already posted above why he was horrible for team chemistry.

regarding his peak: you're right, his first 5 seasons were very good. unfortunately, that's still only 3 eligible years. you keep saying 5-7 years, not sure where you're getting that from. also before people found out about the alcohol problems, he was already fat (>300 pounds at age 27)

OMG Okur was my #1 guy.... .

the "data" for me is that they missed games and began declining way earlier than they should. THAT'S the problem I have with these picks. I don't want to hear arguments like "we'll get help and maybe he won't be a booze hound" because it ain't going to happen.

And regarding your other point.. no, I don't think Coleman is head and shoulders above these dudes. Better, for sure, he could carry a mediocre team when they never could.. but they're all great and can probably stay on the court and might be better at playing 2nd/3rd banana behind Shaq and whoever else.

I considered Okur back in round 3. Too much of a pussy, though.

I like Okur + Mailman.. don't like Okur + Mailman + Jamison. Maybe turn 'tawn into a 6th man?

pretty good idea IMO

Jamison would be a pretty sick 6th man.

Hey guys I'm down to 3 tables in the 50K guaranteed, so I don't want to do a write up right now, but I'll keep the draft moving. I take Leandro Barbosa

My team:
Marbury
Barbosa
Kukoc
Barkley
Willis

Just want to mention that I think Kukoc and Barbosa would be pretty sick together.

weird team, but ok. good luck

Barbosa is a guy I just thought about like 20 mins ago and started researching. That was a waste lol.

I'm interested in trading down, might keep the pick but PM me any offers. Looking to get back a 5th round pick btw.

Lap,

I don't think DC was head and shoulders above these guys, but I do think he was as good/better than them. (Except maybe Odom, who doesn't work himself into games sometimes but is better value when he does IMO) Obv. he has downsides as people have pointed out, but I think people have underrated him in general.

I agree with what you are saying about Strickland mostly, I mostly feel that he just fits poorly with this team, not that he was a selfish PG. A lot of his offense was getting to the hoop, and a lot of his assists were dishing off dribble penetration from what I remember watching. I might have overstated how much he doesn't fit in here, but I think this team should have the best half court offense in the league. Strickland dribbled a lot, and the most effective PG for a team like this just gets the ball in the post quickly and the hits the open J if it comes back out to him or swings to ball around the perimeter. It's more that his strengths don't align very well with this team.

yeah i agree with all of this - that wasn't my point. i was more interested in why guys who are great teammates/great lockerrom guys don't get any extra credit when their opposites get tons of negative extra credit.

like juwan howard gets picked - everyone basically says he sucks and thats that. why doesn't his drafter get credit for having one of the "best guys" in the league and why doesn't that increase the value of the pick?

I definitely agree with this. However, I don't think many(if any) people are drafting low bulk guys and claiming that they'd extrapolate their stats. Regarding my team in particular, I added up the total points per game average of my starters and got 81.7 points, which considering I will play a slow pace is perfect. In fact, if I draft a scorer off the bench then I could even get by with just 70 or so PPG from my starters.

Regarding low effiency/high bulk guys being able to increase their efficiency with a better supporting cast, that is true but its not going to be drastic. Maybe a 10% increase in TS% is possible, but they're not going to suddenly go from poor to good efficiency. Furthermore, some of these 10-15ppg on 55% TS guys will only be forced to score maybe 8-13ppg now and will go up in efficiency as well(in other words, it doesn't only help the high bulk/low efficiency guys).