He doesn't do anything spectacular but a good Round 5 Value PICK Imo, another guy I was looking at maybe I should have traded........

this

Pretty disappointed in the Seikaly pick. I just think there are BP's out there.

This influx of unspectacular big men leaves me scratching my head as to why others haven't been taken.

In case anyone had any doubts about Hoford being a terrible pick, I give you LaMarcus Aldridge as exhibit A as to why it was.

IDK who Seikaly is either (fail @ nba history) but at least I believe he exists. Natt, no.

FWIW, Neil was stumped about who Natt was, and about 30 minutes later contacted me as to say "he played for a lot of teams"

IMO he's in on the conspiracy

Bobbo- those red flags are exactly why he dropped to the fifth and my team and my team now I has a real chance to beat the teams w/ the big dominant centers.

The way I see the draft, the teams fortunate enough to draft Shaq, DRob etc. are going to be better than everyone, unless you were drafting higher then I don't see the point in drafting a very good but one dimensional center that will get beat to hell by the best centers of this generation every single time. The point is to win, the only way to win imo since this is hypothetical and you can actually build the Suns with defense and efficiency across the board then why not do it? Other than Duncan Shaq was closest to losing to teams that got up and down the floor. The problem is that those teams lacked some key components such as defense etc. to close the deal. In this draft you can draft high efficiency guys that can play defense and make the big centers run their ass up and down the floor. Plus my team plays very big when running in transition 6'4,6'6,6'7,6'9,7'0.

I just didn't see the point in taking Deke w/ the first pick (which was best center available) and having no offensive threat down low and then having his bones broken by Shaq and him beaten by Hakeem in the African clash etc. Just didn't make sense.

td - i love the "beaten in the African clash" - +1 for effort and style

Rony is a good pick.

I mean, he's no Whopper, but good pick.

I'm surprised that of the 3 other players I was considering in round 4 besides Mark Jackson, all three are still on the board. Perhaps I overestimated the other three guys. Also, there is one other player out there that I wasn't interested in but I'm surprised someone hasn't picked him up although I'm sure I've probably overrated him.

only reason why i remember rony seikly was on this NBA All Star game i had on my gameboy as a kid. he and a couple other sleepers in this draft!

This is the exact OPPOSITE mentality you should have when building a team right now.

TBH when I made my list, I actually have 2 Centers and 1 PF/C ahead of Seikaly when I made this pick. But why would I take some guys that aren't versatile, can't get up and down the court, yet still would get posterized by the 1st Rd centers more times than not just b/c their TS% is .556 (made up for security!) instead of .538? So take him b/c though he may be BPA but only slightly instead of taking the guy that fits your team that you have been building for 4 rounds? I dunno.

I rank everyone's picks on a weighted scale. More heavily on how much better it makes the team now that they are starting to develop but also on how valuable the player was compared to the others at that position that were still available.

But Seikaly wasn't a guy who would regularly get up and down the court, his team ran a little but he didn't.

And he got clobbered by Shaq and Hakeem... especially Shaq, iirc.

There are better post players who play better defense left, imo. I wasn't saying that Seikaly wasn't the BPA, I was saying that there are players who had the same skillset, but did everything as good or better.

I think your argument somewhat implies that the result of Shaq/Hakeem vs Deke would be similar to Shaq/Hakeem vs Rony. As the proud owner of Deke and a fierce proponent of common sense, I would like to point out that this is very, very untrue.

Mutombo did have offensive game down low, particularly in his earlier years. I'd even go so far as to say he had more moves than Rony. And Mutombo probably has the best numbers of any center against Shaq, Drob, and Hakeem. Methinks people forget his game since it was so long ago.

yeah.

defense isn't either <pwned> or <not pwned>, there's different levels. not to mention some players will also get <pwned> by vlade, or cartwright, etc.

Let's check the H2H stats:

Shaq & Hakeem Vs. Mutombo

Shaq - 21.4 ppg / .526 FG% 3.8 fouls
Hakeem - 22.6ppg / .490 FG% 3.5 fouls

Shaq & Hakeem Vs. Rony

Shaq - 27.9 ppg / .620 FG% 4.8 fouls
Hakeem - 24.4ppg / .544 FG% 4 fouls

Didn't check turnovers.

Actually he did get up and down the court w/ Miami. Miami ran some, they weren't fast or anything but he was known as an athletic center w/ a unique skill set when he came into the league.

Everyone was beat by Shaq and Hakeem and this is MY EXACT POINT. Seikaly wasn't deficient he was a 13/7 guy against Shaq though was well Shaq offensively against Rony--Shaq destroyed everyone though.

Against Hakeem, Rony was 13/8 with a block and shot 50%, Hakeem's numbers are great too but this is obv not clobbered.

Add this to a high efficient team that plays big and long creating mis-matches at the 2/3.

The real knock on Rony is that his peak is short. What he did on the court was great though. You seriously can't mention Shaq and Hakeem though b/c then you are proving my point that I have been making w/ my previous 2 posts.

You mentioned the 1st round centers, I just brought up a specific one that you mentioned. But way to cherry pick the stats.

Rony was 13/7 against Shaq, but shot 38%! I didn't even check the others but can probably expect similar deficiencies.

Either way, it's difficult to argue against Rony until others have been taken. But I don't think the argument that you are picking a center based on his ability to run on a break is a valid one... it just happens too rarely, particularly on a team where that person is the team's leading rebounder.

Well I am the proud owner of reading comprehension.

I'll break it down for you:

Since Deke was going to get pounded by Shaq just as Rony was going to as well. To the degree doesn't matter now does it? Shaq destroyed everyone. And Deke wasn't going to score, let's be serious some can chime in about his low post game being forgotten b/c it was so long ago--that is just lol. We are talking about people who don't know who some of the people are being drafted, let's be serious. Dikembe's efficiency came from his ability to pound the offensive boards, which created uncontested put backs/easy put backs and dunks. His post game was very mediocre, I have no idea what you guys were watching. His defense was magical, but not against Shaq.

Against Shaq:

Shaq 21.4/12.3 53%
Deke and is excellent post moves that frightened Shaq 7.7/9 69%!!!! I wonder why! Maybe that a third of his rebounds were offensive? hmmm

In no way was a comparing Deke to Rony lol. I was talking about a situation in drafting.

God, so close and the guy I want is still there! Please drop! I have a #2 in mind too though...if both get taken in the next two picks I"ll be pissed.

Hmm starting to think me Assani & I may be looking at the same player.

First thoughts without looking over the stats is that I like the Mahorn pick a lot. I don't like the Howard pick much, as imo he never should've been a star and was better off as a role player all along. Stackhouse is ok value, but nothing great at all. K Mart and Aldridge are meh, although LA does have some upside I suppose. Seikaly is solid but nothing great. I guess we're at the point where you're not going to be getting great all around players anymore, so you have to take on some deficiencies with each pick.

#10000!