2014 NBA Draft Recap

Knicks Trade into the Second Round

            The Knicks were one of many teams to enter this draft with no picks in either the first or second rounds. However, a trade with the Dallas Mavericks sent Tyson Chandler and Raymond Felton to Dallas in exchange for Jose Calderon, Samuel Dalembert, Shane Larkin, Wayne Ellington, and Dallas’ two second round picks (numbers 34 and 51).

            With the 34^th pick, the Knicks selected Wichita State’s Cleanthony Early. Leading up to the draft, Early seemed to be a mid to late first round selection but, for unknown reasons, dropped to the second round. When the 34^th pick came up I was hoping the Knicks would select one of two players. Spencer Dinwiddie out of Colorado was one of them and Early was the other. Anyone who leads their team to an undefeated season entering the NCAA tournament should get serious consideration and I think Early was a great pick at the top of the second round. He is not going to be the focal point of an NBA team like he was at Wichita State, but his scoring ability and aggressiveness could keep him in the league for a while. He is going to bring a lot of energy to the Knicks and I think New York will embrace him soon after he steps foot on the court.

            With their second pick in the second round, the Knicks took Thanasis Antetokounmpo, older brother of The Greek Freak Giannis who is a sensation on the Milwaukee Bucks. Thianasis played in the D-League last year for the Delaware 87ers where he averaged 12 points, 1.3 blocks, and 1.2 steals in 50 games. The older of the Antetokounmpos is not as highly touted offensively as Giannis but Thanasis has become known as a defensive specialist. He is 6’6” with 7’0” wingspan which can help him become a menace for opposing scorers. Even if his offensive game does not develop as much as the Knicks might hope, his tenacity and dedication on defense should be enough for the Knicks to keep him around. Given Iman Shumpert’s struggles last season, Antetokounmpo may allow the Knicks to use Shumpert as trade bait.

            The Knicks also drafted Louis Labeyrie from France with the 57^th pick in the Draft after acquiring the pick from the Indiana Pacers. I am not even going to pretend that I know anything about this guy. My guess is that he never dons an NBA uniform. The Knicks do not exactly have the best history of drafting French players anyway (cough, cough Frederic Weis).

Winners

Adam Silver

            The NBA Commissioner had some big shoes to fill after David Stern, arguably the best commissioner in the history of American sports, stepped down in February after 30 years on the job. Silver was tested early when audio tapes of Donald Sterling, the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, revealed that he had made outrageously racist remarks. After a couple of days of investigation and with a possible walk-out by the players on his hands, Silver banned Sterling for life from the NBA and fined him $2.5 million for his comments. Silver came down hard on Sterling, who had never been a favorite among fans or players and who has a history of racism, and won the admiration of everyone around the NBA.

            Last night, Silver and the NBA put a smile on the faces of everyone who was watching the NBA Draft not for kicking someone out of the league, but for going out of their way to bring someone into the league. Former Baylor center Isaiah Austin was projected to be a mid/late first round pick before last week, when he was diagnosed with Marfan syndrome, a disease that affects the heart and blood vessels and that would end Austin’s basketball career. The big man, who had already overcome so much after sustaining an injury a number of years ago that had left him blind in his right eye, was set to become the first partially blind player in the NBA. After all of his work overcoming his eye difficulties, Austin’s hopes and dreams of shaking Commissioner Silver’s hand at the podium on Draft night had disappeared. That is, until Silver came out to make the 16^th pick in the Draft. Before he was ready to reveal the selection made by the Chicago Bulls, Silver had a surprise announcement. The NBA, for what has to be the first time in history, had a draft pick they wanted to announce. With what we can call the 15½ pick in the 2014 NBA Draft, the NBA selected Austin. Austin, who was present at the draft, was handed an NBA hat and got to live the dream of walking up on stage and shaking the Comish’s hand, all while receiving a standing ovation from the entire room, a great moment for the NBA and for Isaiah Austin.

Denver Nuggets

            The Nuggets are stocking up on assets and it may be to make a run for a potential trade for Kevin Love. The Nuggets, who held the 11^th pick, drafted Creighton sharpshooter Doug McDermott and traded him to the Chicago Bulls for their 16^th and 19^th picks. Those picks became Jusuf Nurkic and Gary Harris. I personally would have considered drafting Harris before McDermitt anyway, but the Nuggets snagged him in exchange for McBuckets and got an extra first round pick out of it as well. I know very little if anything about Nurkic, he is a big man from Bosnia & Herzegovina that has both power and quickness. It is a risk taking him with such a high pick and stashing him overseas to develop for a couple of years, but even if Nurkic does not pan out the way the Nuggets hope, the team will be happy they have Gary Harris.

Philadelphia 76ers

            Before it was announced that Joel Embiid had broken his foot, he was almost the unanimous choice for the top pick. But two teams hesitated thanks to the big man’s injury and he fell to the Sixers third overall. The thing about Embiid’s broken foot, and the back injury he suffered at the end of Kansas’ college season, is that they do not seem to be injuries related to his stature. Unlike a player like Greg Oden, who suffered so many knee injuries as a result of his height and weight, Embiid’s injuries seem to be more of a matter of circumstance. He fell on his back, and it got injured, he suffered a broken foot, which could happen to anyone. When Embiid does suit up for Philadelphia, he and Nerlens Noel are going to make one scary tandem down low. Not many players are going to be able to get shots off in the paint over two guys who can seemingly dunk without jumping.

            The Sixers have been hoarding draft picks and continue to do so after trading 10^th overall pick Elfrid Payton to the Orlando Magic in exchange for the rights to Dario Saric, who was the 12^th pick in the draft; a future first round pick; and a 2015 second round pick. Saric signed a deal in Turkey and will likely not join the league for another two years, but the Sixers are in no rush to bring him over anyway. That first round pick Philly gets is actually its own pick that was originally traded to Orlando as part of the Dwight Howard deal that brought Andrew Bynum to the Sixers. This team is not going anywhere any time soon, which means that pick is going to be high up in the lottery.

            Philly also had an unprecedented five second round picks in this draft and used them very wisely. Those picks included K.J. McDaniels, a defensive guru, with the 32^nd pick; Jerami Grant, who could have been a first round pick and, if he develops a consistent jump shot, would be a very solid second round addition; and Russ Smith 47^th overall, who was then traded to the Pelicans in exchange for Pierre Jackson, who torched the D-League last year to the tune of 29.1 points per game, but because he is 5’10” (which must be a very generous measurement) he cannot find room in the NBA.

Losers

Sacramento Kings

            The Kings have wing players on their team who can shoot in Ben McLemore and Rudy Gay. Unless they have completely given up on McLemore, who is entering his second year after a disappointing rookie season, then I do not quite understand their thought process when they reached and drafted Nik Stauskas 8^th overall. Stauskas is not just a great shooter, he can put the ball on the floor and create for himself and his teammates. I just do not see the fit right now in Sacramento unless the team plans on making some roster changes. Noah Vonleh, who was projected to go in to the top 5 but was still on the board when the Kings were on the clock, would have fit in perfectly in Sacramento. With DeMarcus Cousins on the block, Vonleh would have been a great complement at power forward with his ability to hit the mid-range. Vonleh needs to pack on some pounds in order to be able to handle himself down low, but until then his length, which includes a 7’4” wingspan, will help him on the boards.

Zach LaVine

            You’re first reaction after knowing you will officially be part of the NBA next season is pretty telling. While almost everyone seems to be happy when they hear their name announced by the Commissioner, LaVine had a bit of a different response. The Minnesota Timberwolves drafted the UCLA guard 13^th overall. As soon as the cameras cut to him, you could see him say a certain two-word sentence to express his disappointment. The sentence rhymed with “shuck fan” (the second word was “man” and the first word… well I am sure you can guess what that was).

            If you are the Timberwolves, looking to gear up on young talent as you prepare to trade franchise player Kevin Love and begin your rebuilding process, you would hope your lottery pick would be happy to get an opportunity in the NBA with your team. I guess not. LaVine is moving from the ever-sunny streets of California to the harsher weather conditions in Minnesota and, although that is not the sole reason for his disappointment, he expressed his displeasure mere seconds after he heard his name called.

Rajon Rondo

            The Celtics held the 6^th pick in the draft and selected point guard Marcus Smart out of Oklahoma State. That means Boston now has ball handlers on their team that are at his best when the ball in his hands. All signs point to one of those players being traded and unless Smart is sent to Minnesota in a trade for Kevin Love, which is looking less and less likely, that means Rondo is on his way out. I can only imagine the look on his face after hearing that his team used one of the top picks in the draft to take a player who plays the exact same position and style as himself. Rondo seems to always be on the trade block, now we may finally see him traded and the Celtics go into full rebuilding mode. However, depending on where Rondo gets traded, maybe he will turn out to be a winner and wind up on a championship-caliber team.

NBA Fans Who Don’t Follow International Leagues (i.e., Everyone Except Fran Fraschilla)

            When the best thing that can be said about a prospect is that he is “two years away from being two years away,” as ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla said about the Raptors 20^th overall pick, maybe he is not yet first round material. It seems like every year there are more and more international players being picked in the first round solely due to potential and based on the idea of stashing them overseas for at least one year in order to develop them. Although that may make for sound basketball decisions later down the road, it makes the NBA Draft infinitely more boring. Not only are fans hearing names of players they have never seen or heard of before, they will not even be able to watch these players in the NBA for another few years. Dario Saric, Jusuf Nurkic, Bruno Caboclo, Clint Capela and Bogdan Bogdanovic are all international players taken in the first round of last night’s draft, all of whom will likely not be playing in the NBA next year and, like me, all of them you probably had never heard of before last week. You can even throw 5^th overall pick and Australia native Dante Exum into the mix, who will likely play for the Utah Jazz next season but is still a player everyone, including NBA execs, knows very little about.

            What makes the MLB Draft so far less interesting than the NBA and NFL Drafts is not necessarily the length; while the MLB Draft is an astounding 40 rounds, the NFL Draft is three days long; but rather that no fan watching the MLB Draft is going to see any of those players play in the Big League for at least another three years. That leaves him, more or less, irrelevant until he is called up to the Majors, or at the very least Triple A. Watching the NBA Draft reminded me of this, all of these international players being taken in the first round (I won’t even mention the second round) who will be completely irrelevant for the fans for at least a year, if ever. That takes away from a lot of the excitement surrounding the Draft.

            The fad of drafting relatively unknown international players reached a low point when ESPN could not even get their international players straight. Draft host Rece Davis apologized for ESPN during the broadcast because when Bogdan Bogdanovic, the 27^th pick in the first round, was drafted the network mistakenly showed highlights of another player. Some of the highlight videos used for these international players were so grainy and indistinguishable that they looked like they were filmed using an old Razr flip phone.

            I am not sure how to fix this problem, but maybe the solution is along the lines of making a rule that says that if you declare for the Draft and are drafted in the first round, which comes with a guaranteed contract, you need to spend the proceeding season on an NBA roster.

Sleepers

Gary Harris

            The fact that he slipped to number 19 is perplexing. In just two years at Michigan State Harris demonstrated that he could do just about everything on the court. Although injury prone, he regularly played through the pain and showed tremendous heart and determination in doing so. Harris can get it done on both sides of the court. He is a great good shooter who can also handle the ball and get into the lane off the dribble. On defense he is tremendous; in college he would regularly check the opposing team’s best wing player. This past year he was voted to the All-Big Ten First Team and All-Defensive Team. Off the court, Harris is not going to cause any problems. He is a high morality kid who will understand his role, whatever it may be, and give you everything he has got.

P.J. Hairston

            Hairston’s college career at North Carolina, where for the 2012-2013 season he was named All-ACC Honorable Mention and All-ACC Tournament Team, was cut short last year when he was kicked off the team for a string of off the court issues that climaxed when improper benefits issues were attached to his name. Hairston, who became the first D-Leauger drafted in the first round, who played great for the Texas Legends as he averaged 21.8 points per game, can flat out score. At 26^th overall, any player who can average 20+ points in his first professional season is of good value. Hairston is not going to be able to get by many players off the dribble but may be able to use his size, 6’5” and 228 pounds, against smaller defenders. Defense can prove to be a weakness because he will have trouble keeping up with quicker small forwards unless he drops some weight. The biggest question concerning Hairston, however, is his off the court demeanor. In his interviews now he acts like he is a changed person who through an eye opening experience and gets that he has to be more responsible. We shall see if it is just talk or if the Hornets really found a lasting scorer at the bottom of the first round.

Spencer Dinwiddie

            Like Embiid, teams probably overreacted to Dinwiddie’s injury, which resulted in him falling to the second round. Dinwiddie was a first round talent before he tore his ACL midway through Colorado’s season. However, he left his mark on the college world before his injury with a cold blooded three pointer to take down mighty Kansas and Andrew Wiggins. Dinwiddie is a scorer who needs to become more of a facilitator, but that is a pretty good problem to have. He is very quick and will be able to get into the lane; with his high intelligence he just needs to make sure he can find the open player when he does.

Roy Devyn Marble

            Among the entire second round, outside of Cleanthony Early and Spencer Dinwiddie, I think Marble has the most upside, even if he was drafted by the Magic 56^th overall. Like Harris, Marble was named to the All-Big Ten Team last year. He is not going to blow you away with any speed or quickness, but is a big time shooter who can create his own shot whenever necessary. As part of Iowa’s breakout team last season you could just give him the ball and watch him work on the offensive end. Defensively he is no juggernaut but he is no liability either. He is a guy that wants the ball in his hands and likes the big shot. He works hard on offense and at the end of the second round he is definitely someone worth watching for.

My pick for Rookie of the Year: Jabari Parker. He is the most NBA ready of any player drafted and will be able to get the stats on a Milwaukee Bucks team with few other scoring options.