Just because people played basketball doesn't mean they understand the game well. Hell I remember getting into a huge debate driving home from a game once with my team over Amare being better than Duncan. This was right after the Suns/Spurs playoff series where the Spurs never double teamed Amare and he scored like 40+ most nights....and I was pretty much the only one saying Duncan was better.

Remember those great athletes on your high school sports teams? Remember how stupid some of them were? Yeah...those are the same type of guys who grow up to be pros. Now obviously thats a generalization, but its very true overall imo.


With coaches, I'll agree somewhat with you.

Naw I still have my 6th round pick too.

One more thing about Fat b/c I was the one that mentioned him in the "magic/jordan/fat" club. I absolutely did not mean to suggest he was on par with those guys, and his assist numbers are indeed inflated. Nonetheless, I brought up the 15/8/8 thing because regardless of pace I think its a remarkable achievement and to show Fat was also a great rebounder. His TRB% during his peak, approaches 11% which is amazing, and the highest for any PG in this draft, I think.

But yea, his shooting stinks.

D

so is KidColin here? Both of my 2 guys are still there, so I think I know who I'm taking, although I definitely prefer one over the other.

When I say Deng is not elite, what I mean to say is that unlike a lot of other "elite defenders" at the SF spot, Deng cannot keep up with a lot of the quicker guards. So when you stick him on this squad, you have some versatility (as you said you can stick KMart on maybe 5 or so PG and move Chauncy over to the two), but for the most part you aren't going to be able to cover the good SG in this league, of which there are many.

I will agree on his rebounding, which I have been ignoring so far. I'm not sure how much you'll need it with that frontcourt, but if can get you a few offensive rebounds per game especially then thats a big plus.

Definitely like his team overall, but yea this is a decent sized weakness imo.

If I recall correctly I think he did a very great job guarding Wade in the playoffs (one of the quickest SG's in the league).

I think Deng is really quick for his size, and his long arms/being 6'8 will be able to bother SG's who are shorter than him. Most elite SG's are 6'6 anyway and are not that much quicker than Deng anyway.

I think he will do almost as good a job as anyone on the really elite SG's like Jordan/Kobe etc.

My argument is not based on sheer value, as I mostly agree with your rankings, but on how the draft went down.
(I might just be results oriented)

The Jordan team is looking pretty bad. Maybe it's just because Steroid boy did a bad job but I think that it's hard to biult around him.
Basically, you won't be able to find a Pippen-type with your late secound round pick, and you' ll have to go big. Same goes with Lebron in some way. I think that Camby and Grant where solid value, but you're not thrilled to have either of them as your main big man.


On the other hand, Shaq is a great because it's so eays to built around him.
I think that Bobbo made a terrible pick with Coleman, but he still have easily the best team IMO
Since everybody went for big man you can find high quality SG and PG in the secound and third round. I was very surprised that many teams went for a PF/C combo with their first two picks.

Magic is instant offense for your whole team. He's so versatile that almost anyone will be a great fit with him. You can take the BPA in the secound round without thinking twice. Jordan needs more specifc players around him, so you might often end up with a better team picking Magic instead of Jordan.

But maybe I'm too resuslts oriented and going for the best player is the way to go with the first five picks.

Okay, but we're talking about former NBA players who have TV studio or announcing jobs, and in many cases they're talking about players they themselves played against. They may not be able to (or don't care to) parse and analyze statistics like we do, but usually they can watch a player and assess how effective a player is at different facets of the game, that we can only attempt to do by looking at stats and recalling games we watched on TV. Sure some former playres are not as good as others, but from the better ones, I would accept their points of view on certain players more readily than those of anyone in this thread.

They can also be dummies a lot of the times to.

I'd rather have Shaq then again I went with DH.....Other than Michael I'm going with a big early.

If anything, I think your argument has convinced me that its best to build around a big man and that perhaps Shaq(and maybe even Duncan) are easier to build around than MJ/Lebron.

While Magic can play multiple positions, you're pretty much going to play him at the point, no? So is someone like John Stockton not just as easy to build around?


Yea I think you are being a bit results oriented too. If this had been a 30 person draft instead of 40, I think the Jordan team would've had a bigger advantage. I think Steroid Boy just ran bad and had few steals drop to him.

I think I did fine building around Bird, fwiw. And Franchise around Stockton.

Hell, Assani has one of the biggest ? teams and he's building around the rock of all rocks, Duncan.

As an observer / enthusiast of this thread I think it would have been substantially better if you'd done a 30-team league.

Most players in a league don't know that much about the other teams e/c game films etc. Maybe it's different in the NBA, but I've heard stuff on NFL radio where guys know nothing about the goings-on of other teams.

Fair point, and I very much understand where you're coming from. With that said, earlier I talked about selective memory regarding players like Dominique where those who watch him swear he had the ability to completely take over games and was a great offensive threat, but that the stats showed us that we were simply remembering those games and forgetting about all of the games which were responsible for his lower TS%. I think former players may be even more susecptible(sp???) to this.

One area in which I think I value former players' opinions a lot is regarding defensive abilities of people they played against, as stats are obviously lacking in this area, and defense isn't an area that varies as much from game to game as offense. If a bunch of former players all claim that Player X was a very good defender, then I would lend a ton of weight to that(and that would override any stats imo).

please explain. My thinking was that it would make the teams too stacked and make things too easy. Hell even now I think its pretty easy to have a very complete 5 man squad with a solid bench. Obviously our teams aren't as top heavy(our #2 or #3 best players) as the best real NBA teams, but our benches are going to be out of this world imo.

PICK DAMNIT PICK!!!

IDK, if I was the Jordan team I would have went:

Jordan
Detlef
Emeka
Smits

negotiating trades, trying to figure out who you want so I can take him, being a productive member of society, etc. It's coming soon.

New rule suggestion: You can't post in the the thread when it's your pick, unless you're announcing your pick or saying when you're going to pick, etc

i like the deng pick. dude is black as night. english too.

hsp,

plllthhhhhh

You might be right, this was just my impression based on watching him get owned by Pierce who isn't really overly quick.