Every year, the NBA draft is a epic mess of fashion faux pas, GMs falling all over each other to see who can out do each other in terms of making horrible picks, and fans going bat shit crazy when their GMs actually do make bad picks. This year, TSB has assigned Michael Lucas (@Mlukes14) and Hasib (@BaggyDizzle) to handle the NBA Draft recap. Mr. Lucas handled the Best Picks, Worst Picks, and Draft Winners while Hasib touched on the Draft Losers, the WTF moments, and the things that were funniest from draft night.
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Best Picks
Washington Wizards: Otto Porter
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– The Wizards needed a small forward, and Porter was the top SF in the class. He can shoot, pass, rebound, and defend which makes him the perfect fit for the Wizards. Porter can affect the game without scoring, and that’s a good thing because shots won’t come easy on a team with John Wall and Bradley Beal.
Dallas Mavericks: Shane Larkin
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– After wheeling and dealing a few picks, the Mavs picked up the Miami point guard with the 18th pick. Larkin fits perfectly into Dallas’ system. He excels in the pick-and-roll, and Dallas has the personnel to run that type of offense.
New York Knicks: Tim Hardaway Jr.
– I love this pick for the Knicks, mainly because it means they can let JR Smith walk away in free agency now and spend that money to address some other needs. But back to Hardaway Jr…He is the type of player that can score without taking a lot of shots, and let’s be honest, there just aren’t a lot of shots to go around on a team with Carmelo Antony. He can attack the rim or spot up behind the 3-point line. This was a great pick for the Knicks.
Worst Picks
Charlotte Bobcats: Cody Zeller
– This is a good pick in the sense that the Bobcats have officially secured the worst record for next season, and the most ping-pong balls in the Andrew Wiggins lottery. However, this pick was bad. The Bobcats would have sucked this year no matter who they picked, and Zeller is destined to be a life long 3rd big man. Zeller is athletic, but struggles against strong, physical bigs, and the NBA is full of strong physical bigs.
Indiana Pacers: Solomon Hill
– Hill was ranked in the 70s on Chad Ford’s draft board, and the Pacers took him 23rd overall. Hill is a decent athlete, but is nowhere near athletic enough to guard most of the wings in the NBA. There were other players that the Pacers could have picked that would have been better fits here.
Phoenix Suns: Archie Goodwin
– I watched Kentucky play a lot this year, and I was not impressed with Goodwin at all. Goodwin is an above average athlete, but he is an idiot on the court. He can’t pass, he can’t defend, and he’s a turnover machine. If you consider a 2-year career with limited playing time a bright future, then the future looks real bright for Goodwin.
Draft Winners
New Orleans Pelicans
– The Pelicans robbed the 76ers tonight…straight up robbery. They swapped Nerlens Noel for an All-Star point guard in Jrue Holiday and a first round pick in next year’s draft which is supposed to be one of the best drafts of all time. Personally, I think Noel sucks, so getting anything back for him was good, but they got a whole lot. Great move by the Pelicans.
Atlanta Hawks
– The Hawks had two first round picks, and they did great on both of them. They drafted Dennis Schroeder, the German point guard and Lucas Nogueira, the Brazilian center. With the possibility of Josh Smith and Jeff Teague leaving in free agency, the Hawks needed some insurance, and that’s exactly what they got.
Trades
– There were so many trades in the first round of tonight’s draft that Jay Bilas, Bill Simmons, and Jalen Rose were consistently 2 steps behind the rest of the Twitterspehere. Trades make the draft fun, and there was no shortage of them tonight. The best is when players would put on a hat, and by the time they went to do their post pick interview, were already traded. You just can’t beat that.
Draft Losers
Philadelphia 76ers
– What the hell is going on with this team? I feel like Paula Deen is making personnel moves for this team on the low. That’s how bad the decision making has been in the past year for this team. Last year, they traded one one of the best defensive players in the league and a versatile small forward in Andrew Iguodala for Andrew Bynum, who they proceed to lose for the entire year due to a knee injury. So what do they do next? How about trading away their all star caliber point guard (who only happens to be 23 years old) for Nerlens Noel, who happens to also be coming off of a…..wait for it…..waaaaaaaaaait for it……..you’ve guessed it……a knee injury. You can’t even make this stuff up.
Sergey Karasev
– Holy crap, I did not understand a single thing this guy said. Even the large Russian contingent that live in Brooklyn looked at each other perplexed whenever he spoke. It was like watching Ivan Drago with the subtitles off but with even more broken English. The English was so broke, the mechanic was like “It may be time to buy some new English.”
Shane Battier
– Look, I get it. You have 2 rings, you’re a master flopper, and you have a fine Duke education. However, you’re no Greg Gumbel even though you sound an awful lot like him. Sit your ass down. Also, I don’t know whether to call a plastic surgeon or put butter on the rolls on top of your cranium, B. I feel like when he was a baby, his mom dropped him on a Ridges potato chip that was on steroids. Wear a hat or a bandanna or something.
3 Biggest HOLY CRAP/WTF Moments at the NBA Draft:
The Cavs selecting Anthony Bennett 1st overall
– I actually really like Anthony Bennett as a basketball player. The guy reminds me of a bootleg Larry Johnson…..an extremely bootleg version of Larry Johnson. Thing is, no one thought he’d go first overall. Everyone was talking about Alex Len or Nerlens Noel. When Bill Simmons almost keels over from a heart attack, you know this was a HOLY CRAP/WTF moment. I doubt even Edward Snowden even knew about this. I still feel blindsided.
Nerlens Noel dropping to the 6th pick of the Draft
– No one saw this coming. He was projected to go in the top 2 of the draft. However, this led to the Nerlens Noel sad face. What? You don’t know what I’m talking about? Let me introduce you:
Awwwwwww, poor baby. It’s like he saw Simba’s father and Bambi’s mother die at the same damn time. His agent needs to find a way to parlay this into a Kleenex endorsement pronto.
Players’ hair
– Oh boy. There were three players in particular. Nerlens Noel is going to try to compete with Iman Shumpert for the best flat top in the NBA. I feel like I could use it as a 7 foot stepping stool. Let’s not forget about Lucas Nogueira’s afro. He hasn’t played a single minute in the league yet and he already has the best afro in the NBA. It was glorious. And last but not least, Kelly Olynyk’s long brown locks. I’m still not sure if he realizes that the WNBA draft was 2 months ago. Looking like and playing like Rebecca Lobo.
Top 3 most LOL worthy things at the NBA Draft
David Stern fully embracing his inner heel in Brooklyn
– This was David Stern at his best. He loves the booing and the hate. He feeds off of it. It makes him stronger. He was egging the Brooklyn crowd so much (mainly because they were not that energetic the whole night compared to Madison Square Garden in previous years). The only thing missing was David Stern walking out to the podium while Vince McMahon’s WWE theme music blared from the speakers.
Jay Bilas, Jalen Rose, and Bill Simmons
– In my opinion, this trio killed it in terms of entertainment. When they first saw Lucas Nogueira’s afro in the stands, Rose and Simmons immediately went into an impromptu back and forth, cracking on the kid’s do. It was a thing of beauty. When Bill Simmons started to get down on Shabazz Muhammad about his age discrepancy, Jay Bilas dropped the “It’s not like his driver’s license has McLovin on it”. Also, when the Hawks picked Shane Larkin after selecting Dennis Schroeder, Simmons comments “Did the Hawks hire David Kahn to consult them on the draft?” Outstanding.
The fact that I could beat Nerlens Noel in an “Over the Top” style arm wrestling contest
– Holy crap, he’s rail thin. That goes for 95% of the players in this draft. Didn’t their mothers feed them anything? I don’t even want to imagine what these kids looked like before their freshman 15.
