alright, I've given it enough time and nobody has said they would've taken Tarpley and BigCat still hasn't shown up.

They are up and get two picks. Tarpley is back in the available players pool.

Xorbie has PMed me the picks, so I'll post them now so we can get moving and let them add in a writeup later:

David Wesley and Benoit Benjamin

for realz. we had the ecision hours ago. wheres da pick yoooooo

**** on Benoit Benjamin.

I was snapping him up with my next pick as a face melter.

I change my vote and want BigCat in the draft for good FYI.

although david wesley sucks, benjamin was my BPA (and best center by a pretty good margin)

Benoit was solid, not sure about Wesley.

I'm not really sure I'm understanding this "OMG Alex's team is so great on offense" mindset. A comparison between Alex's team's first year(age 24 seasons) and this year's Orlando Magic:

-Rashard Lewis of the Magic>>>Rashard Lewis at 24
TS% was only 52.7 at 24...basically he was an inefficient chucker. This year he got it all the way up to 59.1%. All his bulk numbers were pretty similar.


-Hedo Turkoglu<<<<<<Kobe at 24
Hedo had a great year, but yeah Kobe is Kobe. Still on offense alone, Hedo was pretty damn good this year putting up 19.5 points on 57.6% TS.


-Dwight Howard>>>Al Jefferson
They scored about the same number of points, but Dwight had a TS% of 61.9 while AJ's was only 53.5. I was very surprised to see that their offensive rebounds were similar though, as I was expecting Dwight to be way ahead(in fact, AJ is actually ahead here!!)




Ugh...just realized that I can't go any further due to undrafted players on the Magic. But, as you can see the Magic win 2/3 of the matchups here and they're more efficient in each of them. And Alex's other starters are Dalembert and Hinrich, neither of whom is an offensive fireworkhouseboy.

Now I'm not saying that the Magic are better on offense than Alex's team. In fact, I'd gladly admit that Alex's team is better. However, its at least comparable, no? And the Magic were only 7th in offensive rating this year.

btw is AC Cobra even around? Pretty funny if we went to all this trouble only to find out that he hasn't been here either and its gotten us nowhere.

my thoughts pretty much, though Wesley was on my list. Solid 3 pt shot and decent scorer. Lots of steals.

Both very good picks. I think people are meh on Wesley cuz his career went downhill after the Hornets drafted Baron Davis and shifted Wesley to 2-guard (he was much better suited to playing the point). This is one of those things that definitely won't happen in this league though.

Yeah, 6 feet tall 2s don't do too well.

Assani, I think I, along with others, might be underrating your team (I didn't see it on any lists). To remedy this, I am curious about how you think your offense is going to run, because for the life of me I can't figure it out.

Wow...I was all set to disagree with you, but his numbers do take a sharp dive in Baron's rookie season and never recover.

Is there any other reason for this or is his decline definitely because of this? Why exactly did they play him at the 2 and not just trade him then?

I didn't see the T'Wolves much this year, so I can only speak about Al from his Celtics tenure. Al is better offensively than D12 because you can't give D12 the ball and ask him to score. With Al, you can. He's a very reliable post option, whereas D12 gets most of his points off of creations from teammates, because you can't just hand him the ball in the post and say "score" because he is turnover prone.

I'm not sure which type of offense works better for this league, but what's great about Alex's team is that you cannot double Al because if you do Kirk, Kobe, Rashard and Sammy all range from "reliable" to "elite" in terms of offensive proficiency.

If I'm Alex, I work the offense through Big Al first and foremost, and have everyone else work around him.

My personal top 5 and bottom 5 of the draft.

In no particular order

Top 5.

1. clarknizzle- Ewing and nance combo down low is possibly the best duo in the league, to go along with good toughness on the outside with caron and mookie, and great compliment player in allen houston.

2. Nicholas-2nd best big man combo in the league, but not by far. Great outside possibilities with rondo , jj, harris, and J rich. Complete offensively and defensively.

HU right now I think nicholas;s team is 5 an half point favorites against Clarks team. The big men cancel each other out, and nicks outside guys are more able to create their own shots opposed to spot up threats on clarks team.

3. biiiingchips- Doesnt seem to have a weakness offensively, this team is going to be tough to defend, mismatches possible at every position. Defensivly solid with olajuwon as the anchor and I like wests toughness inside, he is a bully. Rice will space the floor out and strickland is a great distributor. Rose is a great sub who can play 3 positions extremely well ( expcept for PG defensively )

4.van exel fan - The defensively toughness, and IQ on this team cannot beat reached by any team in this draft. Your talking about rodman, fisher, artest, perkins, even reggie although doesnt have the repuatation of a great defender was definately scrappy and could put up a couple of clutch possessions defensively. Im gonna go out on a lim and say this is the best defensive team in the entire draft. The offense is no joke either Reggie comin off screens, rodmans o boards, artests ability to score from anywhere, fishers clutch shooting. Definately one of my favorite teams.

5. kid colin - Too many great players, who play even better during playoffs. Gonna be hard to beat a team of Larry Bird, Sam Cassell, John Starks, an Dale davis in a playoff series. There is a ton of playoff experiance on this team and a team full of winners, and finishers under pressure.


Bottom 5.

Nath and Dtemp- Ew on having both dirk and boozer in a must win game. Add stevie franchises question marks and this team is not looking good.

No pair parker- Dont like my odds against a team like biing chips who will have a mismatch against anyone my players every possession in the post, I will have to double team every team all game long.

shark doctor- I like alot of these players individually, but as a team I dont see how it can work. CP3 running pick an rolls with ratliff or baker ? I dunno. Rip will be solid. I dont see a team that shark can beat.

sergz. Although I like not like anything about this team. DK doesnt have what it takes to win a title, couldnt do it with AI and now with a worse partner in Arenas I dont think this team can get it done.

tbach24. Arvydas could barely move by the time he got in the NBA. Lot of question marks on the team with hill and durant. Dont like doc at point.

They actually take the big dive Baron's second year. Baron came off the bench as a rookie, then he pushed his way into the starting lineup in his second year, sending Wesley to the 2-guard spot. His performance deteriorated sharply from there. I don't think there is any way to definitively prove that it was the position switch that did it (as opposed to just aging), but that seems very likely given the data.

Basically I think it'll work like those old Magic teams with Shaq/Penny with Duncan playing the Shaq role. I'll definitely try to establish Duncan early and often, especially against weak interior D. I like the fact that everyone on my team is an above average passer, so the ball should rotate quickly when hes doubled. Harper can hit the 3, Kirilenko has apparently added the ability hit the 3 this year, and McCray can hit the midrange(think how the Spurs offense runs with a couple 3 point shooters and then Parker being the midrange threat).

Or I can iso Penny. He can post up a ton of players and passes very well out of it.

Moreover, I envision a lot of alley oops from back door cuts to Penny with so many good passers on my team...hell maybe even AK47 will get into the act too and throw down some oops.

Basically its two stars, running isos for either of them and then quickly rotating the ball on double teams, lots of slashing and ball movement, Outlaw will be the garbage man picking up offensive rebounds.


I am definitely missing another 3 point shooter there(and I will 100% draft one sometime), but I think I can make up for that in that AK47 and McCray can create well too. I envision AK47 and McCray playing how AK47 plays in Utah currently: He very much lets Deron Williams run the show and lets Boozer be a main scorer. He gets his share of easy baskets due to his athleticism. But maybe once or twice per game the ball will end up in his hands and he'll flash some playmaking ability.


I'm kinda torn on whether or not I want to run a fastbreak. Penny can definitely get out in the open, and McCray, AK47, and Harper can too. And I have the steals/blocks guys to make fastbreaks happen, as they often occur off of them. But at the same time, I want to focus on D and really letting up no easy baskets and playing good Spurs-type basketball. So it'll be a mixture. Definitely in the lower 1/2 of pace I think, but with the ability to get out and run too.

NoPair, I think you skipped someone in your bottom 5. You of all people should know better.

Also I just noticed that I can also go to this lineup in addittion to the other two:

PG Penny
SG McCray
SF AK47
PF Outlaw
C Duncan

I really do love the versatility I have.

So is Karl Malone's team doomed too then? And also, regardless of wheter AI is better or not than Gil, my supporting cast is miles (like thousands of miles) ahead of the AI/Deke Philly team. Theo Ratliff was the second leading scorer on that team, and the only players on that team who have been drafted so far besides Deke, AI, and Ratliff were a washed-up Toni Kukoc and Raja Bell, who played 30 minutes that season (not per game, the whole season).

If by "reliable post option" you mean scores good bulk in an inefficient manner, then I agree with you.

One on one is not the end all to basketball. A guy like Reggie Miller doesn't have much one-on-one game at all, yet he went in the first round(and it wasn't due to his defense). Being able to score off of screens or teamate creations is just as valuable as being able to score by yourself.

If the Magic had a top flight PG or other creator then I might agree. But if Dwight can put up those numbers with UNDRAFTED PLAYER at PG for them, then I'm pretty sure he could put them up on any team.

I know you Celtics guys love AJ, but theres no way hes a better offensive team basketball player than Dwight Howard.

Anybody watching NBATV right now? The Rockets looks like they're taking Ming....Jason Williams is gonna be a stud, though.

I also think that some people are overstating AJ ability to create his own shot, either that or underrating Dwight Howard. They've had very similar usage percentages their entire career, AJ pulled slightly ahead this year, 27 to 24, but they're both still high usage players and D12 is worlds ahead when it comes to efficiency.

Have you seen the T'Wolves lately? They have 2 guys who got drafted in this, and both suck. The Magic on the other hand constantly have 4 guys who either chuck up 3's or feed D12 for easy baskets. That's IDEAL offense to maximize a big man's TS%. Al on the other hand is stuck on the T'Wolves who rated 27th offensively in the league. Half the starters on their squad are Rondo bad at shooting. The other half wouldn't be able to pass after an intensive month long session with Magic Johnson. He's in the ****tiest possible situation yet still put up 21 a game on 53.5 TS%

wow benoit was like the laughing stock of the whole league. since im not immersed in all of this i have no idea if everyone else i ever thought was good has been taken but wow BENOIT BENJAMIN! also interesting that a bunch of other people REALLY WANTED HIM also.

It's not just this year though, Dwight has played on some mediocre teams as well and put up much better efficiency numbers at similar usages. Obviously Boston sucked as well, but at some point you have to look at the player and not the team, and with a gap as huge as it is, I think it's mostly the players.