RE:French Connection

["j.hironaka" <j.hironaka@unesco.org>]

At 14:15 19/06/01 -0400, Berry, Mark  S wrote:
>Which brings me back to the original post... what does everyone think of
>Tony Parker? We've gone round and round on the prospects at 10 and 11, but
>anyone willing to roll the dice on our second straight French import? Maybe
>he and Moiso could work out some trick plays communicating in French. :-)

Actually Sagana Diop also comes from a francophone country (Senegal). 
Imagine one quarter of our 12-man roster could be French speakers, making 
those strange farting sounds everytime they shrug their shoulders and so 
forth...

Judging at least by the reported workouts, I hope any longterm concerns 
about Sagana's foot injury may be unwarranted. I don't know how these 
"superman" drills go, but 93 consecutive dunks sounds like a lot. He is 
starting to sound better than Chicken Curry, if you believe what's reported 
on the Net, and hence could climb back up the draft charts now that he's 
finally working out for teams.

Assuming Gasol pulls out of the draft (nice work Celtics) perhaps the 
players with the least firm lock on being drafted top-9 are Joe Johnson, 
Jason Richardson, Tyson Chandler, Shane Battier....although it is quite 
possible none of the above will fall down to Boston's pick.

It now seems like Joe Johnson is the only guy in that top bunch that Boston 
will workout, and it doesn't sound like they are all that confident he'll 
still be there. The others I guess either turned Boston down or we weren't 
interested in learning more about. One thing I'm fairly confident of, 
Boston will not pick Steven Hunter if that's whats left.

I do hope Boston fully explores in advance what it will take to move into a 
higher pick on draft day, depending on how things go that day. I wouldn't 
be surprised to see lots of picks get swapped throughout the league that day.

Joe

p.s. Recalling last year's draft, there were of course quite a few 
negatives surrounding Courtney Alexander. I felt I was perhaps the harshest 
Jerome Moiso critic on this mailing list hands down going into last year's 
draft, but despite this I would not have preferred  Courtney Alexander in 
Boston as much as a few others on this list. There was pretty wide 
consensus on the newsgroups and major sports websites that Alexander would 
be the betting man's ROY candidate, because so many young players taken 
ahead of him were "works in progress". I think you might find better 
overall talent in picks 20-29 this year (Trepagnier, Hassell, Arenas, 
Forte...) so maybe it was worth skipping over him.


(pasted)
Courtney has had some off-the-court problems. He assaulted his Girlfriend 
(choked her and kicked her in the ribs) and was sentenced to 4 days in 
jail, he was "allegedly" booted out of Virginia by coach Jeff Jones, and if 
that's not enough Courtney is already referring to himself in the third 
person. Here is a sample of this as Courtney discusses his transfer to 
Fresno State: "It came down to Courtney Alexander not feeling comfortable 
where he was. Because of that, I had to move on." It reminds me of that 
Gary Payton looking guy who did that Budweiser commercial "$100 Million 
will not change Michael Tucker, and Michael Tucker...blah...blah..". 
Personally I don't like the baggage this kid brings, and I don't like his 
cocky attitude. In Courtney's defense, Fresno coach Jerry Tarkanian had 
this to say: "He's probably the best player I've ever coached. He's without 
question the best wing player who ever played for me. He has become a 
leader and more mature". The bottom line is that Courtney is a gifted 
player and will be a Lottery pick. If you ask me, he's another J.R Rider 
waiting to happen. Hey Courtney! Will you give me 1 Million dollars for 
this Bud Light?
Scout: Tom Wilson from NBAextra.com


Shoots too much. Has a nice midrange game, unlike many college players, and 
he should adjust to the NBA 3 line pretty well. A bit of a scary pick, 
because he's so focussed on scoring. If he can't be instant offense in the 
NBA he might not contribute at all.
Scout: Kenneth Bowers