deciding real quick

Jordan Farmar

I haven't had a lot of input in this thread lately but I will comment on all the final teams as Assani does his write-ups. This draft was a blast and I learned quite a bit that I didn't expect going in. Team Fanmail starts practice tomorrow.

so this puts sammykid on the clock, but he hasn't made his last skipped pick. I guess he's earned another 24 hours of waiting, but I don't expect those to make a difference given that he hasn't used his pick for days. NoPairParker is after him and I propose we just let him pick.

Would someone PM / has someone PMed the skipped people to let them know they're up?

wow last few picks took everyone i wanted

can i pick now ?

I pm'd sammykid11

Is it me up or sammy kid.

Im taking ramone sessions. Its the 10th round and I figure its a good time for a gamble pick since I have my roster filled out solidly at every position.

He has proven to be pretty solid throughout summer league as well. He is emerging almost exactly like mo williams emerged when tj ford got hurt.

I wont expect him to give me 15 an 11, but a nice 8 an 6 off the bench with a steal or 2 would be nice and just in case wade or monta get hurt he can step in and bring double digit scoring and assists.

Damn, he hadn't posted in the official pick thread, so I thought I would be able to make a skip NopairParker joke. Anyways, pick is up, it's Eric Piatkowski, good three point shooter imo. I'll give thoughts on my overall team a little later.

Alright, here's my thoughts on my team, pick by pick.

Round 1: Tracy McGrady

I really wish I had gone in a different direction with this pick. When I was making my selection, I was wowed by his 23 year old season and took the alternate world theory of this draft much more seriously than most other people. Obviously his post 23 years have been disappointing and injury filled, but when making the pick, I pretty much threw those out and just asked myself if I went back to the summer following his 23 year old season, what would most people's expectations have been for him? At that point, they were sky high, so that's why I made my pick, I don't believe his back injuries had flared up at that point. I'm not sure who I would have switched to if I had the pick over, but I doubt it would have been the same.

Round 2: Tony Parker

Pretty happy with this pick. I thought about going big here but decided that I could wait until later, was hoping Laimbeer would slip to the third round but apparently that was too optimistic. Overall though, I feel pretty good about Tony.

Round 3: Hersey Hawkins

If I could do it again, I would have taken Kevin Martin, he's just sick and I'm not sure how I forgot about him. Not a bad pick, but I think one I could have done slightly better on.

Round 4: Bill Cartwright

After seeing the way my first pick and really all of the picks with medical issues were responded to, it was this pick that I decided to go for it now and completely stop thinking about building any sort of team down the line. Obviously he's a great efficient scorer, and as long as he doesn't break his foot in year one, I think it's a fine pick. I think his peak is much higher than the rest of the centers selected around him, and since I figured I didn't have any shot at being considered for the long term, I'd take that peak and run with it.

Round 5: Larry Smith

The one main weakness of Bill Cartwright is his rebounding. It's pretty mediocre for a center, so I went out and grabbed the best rebounder available. That's pretty much all he does, but he's very good at it and I figured I could get enough scoring from everyone else, so I like the pick.

Round 5: Cedric Ceballos

Another guy with a high peak and a history of injuries, he'll be my main spark plug off the bench. He can score with the best of them, and for a small forward he can rebound pretty well too. Health is his only concern, but we're all gamblers here, so let's gamble away.

Round 7: Jameer Nelson

Not much to say here, he'll probably only be playing 15-20 minutes a game at the most. Decent distributor, pretty good shooter for a PG at this point in the draft, assuming that his second and fourth year are more representative of his game going forward than his rookie and third year. Really though, he's competent, how much does a backup PG really hurt?

Round 8: Leon Powe

Great numbers, but again, durability issues that I'm gambling on. **** it though, he's Leon Powe, he's a grown ass man.

Round 9: Steve Stipanovich

Solid backup center at this point in the draft. I feel like a broken record, but again there's durability issues, although he was extremely durable until his knee injury. His Pacer teams were solid defensively in his time there, he scored and rebounded at a solid if unspectacular rate, it all depends on whether or not you consider him predisposed to knee injuries or not. Regardless, a better pick than Will Perdue.

Round 10: Eric Piatkowski

My token sharpshooter off the bench. Don't know how much I'll need him, but whatever, it's the tenth round, he showed up first on my b-ref searches, I'm taking him.

Overall, I think I have a below average defensive team, and an above average offensive team. Don't really have any black holes on offense, almost everyone can score efficiently or grab offensive boards at a good rate. Durability will be the key factor for my team, if we can avoid any major injuries for the first few years, I think we could make a run at a playoff berth in this league, but the window will close quickly.

Anyone else agrees, disagrees, whatever, feel free to chime in.

Don't really like TBach's picks at all. GG is terrible, I know he's young but he was traded by a horrible MN team, and was not great in Boston either. He is way too cocky. SL I guess could have high side but even his last season was prfetty mediocre and now he has blown knees. He's not a bad passer and I guess has upside but I think other guys could have been picked with the last 2 guys on your team.

Alright since I got some time to kill Ill do the thoughts on my team.

1. Dwayne wade. I wanted my number 1 player to be a wing that can defend and finish games with consistancy. I didnt want someone who was a proven play off failure. This man has done it already, he won it all being the best player on the team. My favorite part about his game is the amount of times he gets to the foul line 10 attempts a game is great . His only weakness is 3 point shooting and he is smart enough not to shoo many of them, he only averages about 1 attempt a game and its probobly a shot clock winding down or buzzer shot. I could have went with yao ming, but yao also has injury conserns and having a guy like yao on your offense really limits what you can do.

2. Andruw bynum. 1 of 2 mistakes I made in this draft. I should have went with Larry Nance, but being a laker fan and watching bynum I see a lot of potential on what is already great numbers. Perhaps I could have traded down and got him 20 picks later.

3. Tom chambers- After picking bynum on potential I wanted a guy who had proven to be effective. Tom had an incredible peak where he was top 10 in MVP voting 2 straight years and an all NBA member twice. Solid defender, and the key was he is very mobile for his size so he gives me a lot of options.

4. Monta Ellis. The guy has a 53% fg year for a guard. A little dissapointing that he averages less than 2 steals per game, but he is fast and super quick and fits in to the defensive scheme I will have. Which is to be scrambling and trapping and causing havoc. Great rebounder for a guard also which is a weakness on my roster so all my guards will need to help with rebounding.

5. Gerald Wallace. Again keeping with the theme of fast athletic guys, I went with wallace who is a vert efficient scorer on offense. Gets to the foul line a lot, and rebounds well. He has proven he can average 2 st and 2 blks a game. A defeinate great fit on my defensive scheme of things where he can block shots from the weak side or cut into passing lanes for steals.

6. Ben Gordon. I wanted an outside player, since all of my other players are slashers that like to get in the paint. I want gordon around the perimiter to knock down threes at an alarming rate. He will likely be in my starting lineup. Defensively I dont like him all that much, but he is fast and quick so he does fit the mold.

7. Orlando Woolridge. My best steal in the draft. The guy is a sick good efficient scorer. Had a lengthy career where he was good even in his last year so he had more left in his tank theorethically. Another guy who got to the foul line a lot.

8. Thurl bailey. For my backup center I wanted a guy who I could go to in the post to score. Thurl is just the man for that. Most of his career he was a bench guy and did very well. His best 82 game season he only started 3 games and averaged 19.6 points per game. Durablity was also a great value in picking him he didnt miss almost any games the first 7 years or so. Also gets 1.3 bpg and 6 boards off the bench which is solid.

9. Steve Johnson. After making this pick i really regretted it and should have went with my first choice wchich was loy vaught to help out with rebounding. Steve is still a great pick he is incredibly efficient on offense he shot over 60% from the field 3 differnt times and a career 57% shooter. He finsihed his career averaging 12 points on 8 shot attempts.

10. Ramone Sessions. Just agamble pick here, dont know how its going to be percieved. I could have went with a guy who had a 20 point 8 asissts and 2 steal season, but chose sessions over him because of more raw talent and posible longevity.


Overall my team will be run an gun spread offense with a lot of slashing to the bucket and getting fould alot. Gordon will be around shooting 3's. I will be bringing Monta and Gerald wallace off the bench to put some punch in my bench offense. I will start ben gordon at the 2 and orlando at the 3.

Defensively I will be giving a lot of trouble to teams that have a core of inside guys as the key to their offense. I will not allow any postups and will be double teaming all game long. Althogh monta and gerald are coming off the bench they will play a bulk of the minutes in the game. They along with wade are way to fast to allow any open 3;s after the double team and will be forcing a lot of turnovers and bad late shotclock shots.

I dont think my team has a chance to win a title, but it is a playoff contender. My offense is way too efficient and is capable of averaging 115 a game. Defensively there are going to be good games where I force 25 turnovers, and there are gonna be games where the other team is getting dunks and easy layups all day due to all the gambling.

pretty obvious tbach just said "**** it". I was wondering about Shaun Livingston. I'd categorize his injury as of the freakish variety.

Yes, I've been waiting so long to have the "Is Jayson Williams murder-prone" debate

yeah, but he's only 22, so no matter what you're getting that ****ed up knee.

I've said this a thousand times, but while you're 1/2 right, I think a more clear and precise list of "what wins" would be:

1. Post defense
2. The ability to get to the FT line consistently

And under my definition, we don't have to exclude the 6 Chicago title teams because Grant/Rodman were great post defenders.

I just did a fairly detailed analysis of one team...comment on them/that analysis and then I'll post the next team.

A+ imo!

I think post D (all the teams had it) and efficient scoring (TP and Manu are extremely efficient on top of TD, Jordan was, Shaq is, Hakeem was (although not to the extent Shaq was), Magic was, Kareem was) is what wins titles. Efficient scorers usually come in the form of big men although some 3 point specialists also score efficiently but not in bulk. Great big men for the most part all have great post D and are really efficiently scoring not only from the field but getting to the line.

The reason MJ was an exception to the rule is he was efficient from the field in huge bulk, while most great wing players from his era were not anywhere near as efficient as he was. Also he had really good post D for all his titles is the reason he won as well. In his prime Jordan was about a 60% TS% on a huge bulk of shots while most players in that range play in the post and don't take nearly as many shots (Reggie, Stockton, Mullin, Penny in his prime, are exceptions but they didnt' take nearly as much bulk nor for the most part had as good post D as Jordan did on his Bulls' teams).

Round 10, pick 375: PF/C - Charles Smith



Charles Smith fills out my frontcourt rotation pretty nicely. He put up solid PPG and DRtg over the course of his career, although he wasn't a great rebounder for his size. He should give me a solid 10-15 mpg for around 6 years before the wheels come off.

Final Roster:

Starters-
PG - Gary Payton
SG - Nick Anderson
SF - Larry Johnson
PF - Rasheed Wallace
C - Tyson Chandler

Bench-
PG/SG - Randy Foye
SG/SF - Morris Peterson
PF/SF - Antoine Walker
PF/C - Antonio Davis
PF/C - Charles Smith

****! I'd been thinking about taking Smith since the 8th. I was gonna insta-fist-pump take him this round. Now I gotta do more research.

Always felt sorta bad for Charles Smith. Was on his way to being a stud til he got hurt. Then the trade to the Knicks apparently destroyed his psyche or something and he ended up getting stuffed by like every player on the Bulls in that one Game Five.

Matt Carroll.

this thread is dying a slow death, lets get the picks over with so we can get the results in.

Yeah, I'm biding my time until my pick (like 10 away? :/ ) Got to say, NPP's team really impresses me, after the Bynum pick I thought his goose was cooked but he has a v strong team.