| 21 Jalen Rose Arun 22 Shareef the Chief Me 23 Baron Davis Luis 24 Yao Ming Ade 25 Sam Cassell Joe 26 Pau Gasol Howard 27 Andrei Kirilenko Justin 28 Gary Payton G 29 Peja Stojakovic Phil 30 Vince Carter Bear |
| aka Mr Overrated. Jalen Rose isn't a top notch player at several different positions. His turnovers make him annoying as a SF, his terrible fg% make him a poor man's odom. Maybe a very poor man's odom. Oh yeah and teams hate him. I guess he'll fit right in in Toronto, the land of people who play a lot of positions in a mediocre fashion alongside other mediocre players who don't care about winning (Carter, Williams, Marshall). As mentioned before, Big Dog is gone, making shareef a worthwhile pick again. I was also contemplating Rashard Lewis, but Shareef plays defense as well as scoring, rebounding and shooting well. Yes, he never makes a three pointer, and yes, I couldn't distinguish his name from that of leaders of terrorist groups, but still a good pickup. Well, this is probably the best pick of the draft, but at the time I thought it was terrible. His shooting percentages are awful, he's injured a lot, he turns over the ball more than any combo guard should. Basically, no matter how good he actually does, I'm always going to hate Baron Davis. Yes, he's leading or nearly leading the league for three pointers, assists and steals, but still, he shouldn't be good! Maybe now that Mashburn has returned, he'll go back to being the miserable fantasy pick he should be. This is reaching for a center. He did do better than I expected, but it's still reaching for a center. Rashard Lewis and Peja are still available for (insert curse word of your choice) sakes. Note on my pre-draft predictions: I predicted breakout seasons by Andre Miller, Ginobili, Eddie Jones, Keon Clark, Antoine Walker and Raef Lafrentz. Struggling from Lebron James and Sprewell among others. Of these, maybe 2 were correct. Gotta love my total lack of ability to predict things. If Cassell were trying to get into the house in Fight Club, Brad Pitt would have looked him up and down and been like "Too old, too ugly. Too stringy. We don't need any old, stringy, aliens so go home, old man." Cassell's fantastic numbers at the end of last year were due to the lack of talent around him once Allen got traded. Yeah Payton and Redd were alright, but they were basically just finishing out the year. Unfortunately my prediction that the glut of talent in Minnesota would kill Cassell's value totally failed to pan out and he's become one of the Twolves Big Three. So uh good pick. They love this guy in Spain. Maybe it's his scoring. Maybe it's his shot blocking. Maybe it's the whole "Good player on a terrible team getting a lot of stats" like Nick Van Exel when he was on the Nuggets. Anyway he's a good pick, and lot of foreign people would probably think more of Howard for picking him. The other best pick of the draft. I mean, obviously malone leaving opened up more for kirilenko but who saw this coming? I'd argue that Kirilenko is the best defender in the NBA, yes, even including Ben Wallace. Ok, well it's comparable at least. I mean, I think he gets more blocks than Tim Duncan. and he doesn't suck at scoring! It's ironic that not long after Kirilenko went into a slump, Justin decided to name his team after him, I guess since Justin's dropped like 5 places. Good call Justin. I was watching ESPN the other day and they were talking about how impossible it is to make predictions about winners of NFL games before the season, let alone the scores of the games. I feel the same way about Payton. Yes, he's an all star quality point guard even after 5 billion and a half years in the league. Yes, he's in LA now, which is like moving from the Sahara desert of talent to the Amazon rainforest of talent. Yes, I know that analogy made no sense. Yes, every other player on the team has suddenly become injured and he's now left with even fewer good players around him than in Seattle. What I'm saying is I had no idea if this would be a good pick before the season, and I'm still not sure after like half the season has gone by. So I picked up a Champions League (soccer) managing game that's a lot like fantasy the other day. There's this guy who plays for Lazio named Mihajlovic and I realized how weird it is that they use the letter "J" as a "Y" sound. Anyway, I was really conflicted on Peja. History of injuries on the one hand, one of the best combo guard-small forwards in the NBA (after Tmac, Paul Pierce, ok maybe I'm exaggerating, but still) and C-Webb is projected to miss a lot of time between injuries and suspension. Who noticed that Phil's first 3 (actually 5 or 6) picks were some of the best three point shooters in the game? Possibly related to Phil's secret plan to bring back the Crazy Crackaz team of old. He's one of those decisions I'd hate to have to make. High potential, high potential for disappointment. Last season he sucked. It actually seems like it's been a couple years since he was actually living up to his shoe deals and nicknames. As it turns out he's doing very well, though the Raptors have yet to actually turn into a good team despite that blockbuster trade with the Bulls. Never thought I'd be saying that: "blockbuster trade with the Bulls", but there it is. I think it was right about here when someone brought up that Bear would lead the league in points per game. Unfortunately he's also leading the league in injuries and overrated players. |