The Draft

The Fakers' embarrassing showing in the Finals will not be detailed. They were a joke and I expect a lot more from them next year.

Moving onto the draft....

This is shaping up as one of the more interesting drafts the NBA will have in recent years. There is a lot of talent available at the top of the draft (Beasley, Rose, Mayo, Bayless, Gordon, etc.) and even though the draft is Thursday it's still not clear who is going to land where.

Chad Ford on ESPN is up to his 6th! mock draft and Hollinger is back with his complicated statistical formulas and methods. He even has separate formulas for big men and perimeter players.

With so many teams talking about trading up or down I'm not even going to attempt to do a mock draft or anything like that.

Here are the 5 players I think will have the best pro careers

1. Beasley - he has so much talent and although he is a joker and a goofball from what I've seen he does work pretty hard. With giant post up big men in decline and the league becoming more up-tempo Beasley has the potential to be a dominant 4 in this league.

2. Rose - He has great size and athleticism for a point guard. He seems to have great court vision and his size and athletic ability also will allow him to be a capable defender at worst.

3. Bayless - He is quick and has great range. There are some questions about his size and his ability to the run the point but even with the rise of some great PG's it's not really necessary to be a "pure" point guard anymore. The ability to score is sometimes even more important than the ability to set other people up.

4. Mayo - He has an "NBA" body whatever that means haha. Seriously he does have good size and decent shooting ability. He didn't live up to the immense hype he had coming into college and at times he seemed turnover prone and unable or unwilling to take over when his team needed him to.

5. Gordon - He is really only placed here by default. I'm not that high on him but I don't see Love, Westbrook, Galinari (or however you spell that Italian dude's name) etc. being better. It does seem like he is a few cheeseburgers away from being out of shape. But he is a pretty good finisher due to his size and quickness and he basically has unlimited range.

Really the only things that seem sure about the draft are

- Rose or Beasley will go #1 to Chicago
- Miami will def take Rose if he falls to them. If Beasley falls they will take him or trade the pick
- Mayo will land somewhere in the top 5.

I'm excited for the draft and might do a running diary for the first part (I have a league bball game that night)