re: Tayshaun prince

["Berry, Mark S" <berrym@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mark, Arenas, Richardson and Murphy (a more mature college player) were
taken in the same draft as our collection of busts. After two seasons,
Arenas is one of the hottest free agents on the market, Murphy is a regular
double-double guy and Richardson is the second-leading scorer on one of the
most improved teams in the league. Arenas and Richardson were playing
significant minutes as rookies.

Look at the rest of that draft. High schoolers like Chandler, Curry and
Brown are much further along than any of the moderately college-trained
Celtic picks. So is Richard Jefferson, another young guy.

I'm not discounting a need for seasoning when drafting young players, but
after two years, you expect them to show SOMETHING. The league is full of
freshman/sophomore draftees-even high school draftees-who have shown much
more in a short amount of time than Johnson, Brown and Forte have shown. 

I just don't think your argument holds up. Heck, Joe Johnson may have been
the most physically ready player in that draft-he had the body for his NBA
position, plus all the ball skills and shooting ability and range. He had an
understanding of the game. That's the reason he got so much early playing
time. But it didn't take that long for it to become obvious that he was a
drifter out on the floor. If things came to him, fine. If they didn't, fine.
And that's the kind of player he remains.

To be honest, I can't believe this is still a debate. How anyone could look
at those picks as anything other than a disaster is beyond me.

Mark

--- --- ---

Mark P. wrote:

I think you're missing one crucial difference between the rookies who have
"seized" their opportunites and those who haven't.

Tayshaun Prince and JR Bremer were seniors coming out of college -- with 4
years of coaching and learning. Joe Johnson and Joe Forte were Sophomores,
Kedrick Brown technically a sophmore, but that's playing against Junior
College talent.

For Freshman and Sophomores, the model of seizing opportunities seems to be
2-3 years down the road, rather than 1-2. Look at G. Arenas, Jason
Richardson, Mike Miller: Sophomores who came out and even with ample playing
time took 2-3 years to develop into bona fide NBA starters. Now take that
"ample playing time" away from the equation with a player like Kedrick and I
don't see why we'd expect him to develop any quicker.