Re: Mock Drafts Comparison Of Celtics Picks - V. 1.0

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

Interesting! I see BSKBall has the three projected Celtics picks as Joe 
Forte, Kenny Satterfield and Trenton Hassel. That's surprising. Also, Jim 
Johnson (who's he?) has Jason Collins as the tenth pick. Mama mia. Way sees 
the Celtics grabbing Forte at #11 and trading the other two picks. I don't 
know if that's what he wants, or that what he still predicts will happen.

Another thing, Jamaal Tinsley and Shane Battier are all over the place on 
these mock drafts boards. In general I bet we'll see unprecedented movement 
up and down the boards in the coming weeks. There are so many unknown 
commodities this year.

I think the influx of early entry and prep players (and the lack of 
participation in a draft combine like what the NFL uses) makes it 
increasingly facile to make confident pronouncements that a "bad draft 
equals drafting NCAA Juniors/Seniors, a good draft equals drafting 
youngsters". Actually I think the influx of Kobe/Garnett wannabe kids might 
make the NBA draft trend more and more in the direction of the amateur 
baseball or hockey drafts, in terms of  greater "hit or miss" risk. I don't 
know when this will happen, but you can argue we are heading (apparently 
imperceptively) in that direction (geez, I thought Stromile Swift, Jonathan 
Bender, DerMarr Johnson etc. were much more "can't miss" than they''ve so 
far been).

Once you get a full influx of untested teenagers in every draft, it seems 
to me things are bound to get a lot more murky than back when Kobe, Garnett 
or McGrady entered the league. In the case of baseball, most GMs have 
gotten over this "monkey-see, monkey do" approach. You won't find baseball 
people who would pass on a Clemens, Nomar or Varitek just because they 
attended college. It is not like basketball doesn't have its share of 
recent college graduates who have succeeded admirably in the pros, but this 
doesn't come up much.

I don't know when the bubble will burst, or if the NBA draft will ever 
approach the "hit or miss" level of the baseball draft (wasn't Mike Piazza 
like a 40th round draft pick or something?).

I think those who said "draft any high schooler or Euro teen and you''ve 
got a good draft" five years ago should be praised, because they look 
brilliant and original in retrospect. But those who also said "buy shares 
in Yahoo! and Cisco" back then, or "the Spice Girls will RULE forever", 
also would have looked pretty brilliant there for awhile.

In some ways maybe we're approaching the very peak of the bubble, just as 
EVERYONE is preaching that drafting a teenager is as sure a thing as making 
millions off a dot.com IPO. To whit, this year we'll see not one but likely 
several prep players get drafted higher than anyone has ever been 
drafted...not Kobe, not Garnett, not Miles. If Felipe Lopez declared as a 
high school senior this year, he'd probably go top five! Do you remember 
the hype on that kid?

Of course, one can counter-argue that the depth and talent of this year's 
prep class has been widely acknowledged since these guys were all high 
school sophomores. I think that  was the first time I saw and posted an 
article (from TSN, I think) about that class. Thus this year could even 
further reinforce the mad rush to draft high school players in the future.

A final point before my morning coffee break ends, it wouldn't surprise me 
if our Phoenix first-round pick proves to be the saving grace of the draft, 
on the off chance we totally blow it with our #10/11 picks. It wouldn't 
surprise me if Arenas, Cisse, Gerald Wallace etc. eventually become solid 
NBA starters on playoff teams. I find the apparent depth of this draft very 
reassuring.

Joe

BTW, I used to harp on this point a lot but now I've lost track. What was 
the eventual result of the Ron Mercer trade? It now looks like we got an 82 
game starter in Bryant Stith (a free agent), the Denver pick, the 21st 
pick, and another current free agent Chris Herren. I guess we also lost 
Cheaney/Popeye, and Gaston pocketed a couple million dollars from Mark 
Cuban. Someone please correct me if I''ve missed something.

----

At 18:33 22/05/01 -0400, you wrote:
>At Number 10, the choice will be:
>
>BSKBall:                         Joe Forte
>CNNSI:                           Jamaal Tinsley
>DraftSource:                  Jamaal Tinsley
>TSN:                              Jamaal Tinsley
>Jim Johnson:                  Jason Collins
>ESPN Katz:                    Troy Murphy
>DraftNet:                         Pau Gasol
>Monter:                           Loren Woods
>Wayray:                           Trade
>
>
>
>At Number 11, the choice will be:
>
>BSKBall:                       Kenny Satterfield
>CNNSI:                         Michael Bradley
>DraftSource:                 Loren Woods
>TSN:                             Troy Murphy
>Jim Johnson:                Shane Battier
>ESPN Katz:                   Loren Woods
>NBADraftNet:                Jamaal Tinsley
>Monter:                          Michael Bradley
>Wayray:                         Joe Forte
>
>
>At Number 21, the choice will be:
>
>BSKBall:                           Trenton Hassel
>CNNSI:                               Gilbert Arenas
>DraftSource:                      Ousmane Cisse
>TSN:                                  Gerald Wallace
>Jim Johnson:                     Gilbert Arenas
>ESPN Katz:                       Jamaal Tinsley
>DraftNet:                            Samuel Dalembert
>Monter:                              NA
>Wayray:                             Trade