Re: Dejuan Wagner & Alton Ford & Springer Suggests Trade

[Alexander Wang <awang@MIT.EDU>]

At 10:33 AM 5/14/01 , Kestutis Kveraga wrote:
>"If the Celtics need good reason to think deal before draft, they should look
>no farther than Jerome Moiso. The rookie, who was chosen with the 11th
pick in
>the 2000 draft, was seldom used and it's unclear what role, if any, he will
>play in the future."
>
>+++The thought that she's comparing #11 in the worst draft in recent
memory to
>#10-11 in  the best one apparently never enters her mind. Nor does she
consider
>the fact that Moiso was a Pitino pick - a man who haughtily thought he could
>mold anyone with a great physical ability into an NBA player (I suggest
>androgen supplementation therapy for Moiso, or being coached by someone like
>Pat Riley). Wallace/Papile are presumably free of such delusions of grandeur
>and may have the ability to judge other important attributes of a player as
>well. At least they should get a chance to show it,  if their "picks" in past
>drafts (overridden by Pitino) are not revisionist history. 

I agree that the comparison between the drafts is poor -- she only needs to
look back a couple more years to see Paul Pierce at #10! 

Personally, I don't even think you can conclude that Moiso was a bad pick
(yet). The comparison that I look at is Keon Clark -- both super-athletic
forwards, coveted by Pitino/Wallace, who had short and decent, but not
dominant college careers, and questionable motivation. Clark's rookie year
was pretty similar to Moiso's, even on a horrible Denver team where playing
time should have been easier to come by. Since then he's made gradual
improvement to the point where he's a useful rotation player. Now, Clark
was chosen in a much stronger draft than Moiso and maybe he's a better
talent. Still, I don't really think that you can judge Moiso as a bust
after one year and at the same time cite McGrady and O'Neal as positive
examples; I mean, these guys didn't look great after their rookie years
either (though granted, they were high schoolers). I seem to remember
Wallace commenting on Moiso's upside also, which indicates to me that they
didn't expect immediate results. I don't think Moiso is going to develop
like McGrady, but I do think he's going to be a useful rotation player by
the time his rookie contract is up, which is not bad for #11 in a very weak
draft.

It does seem like this draft will "seem" weak a year later, because so many
of top prospects are high schoolers. Even the best high school players like
McGrady and Bryant gave their teams very little their rookie years, and
many seem to give their teams nothing (Harrington, Bender, Rashard Lewis).
Garnett seems like the exception.

Alex