After punching in some numbers on my IBM 8088, I came to the conclusion that the rockets do not have enough picks to draft 10 petros. Vote for Petro!
I have heard that the governments of Brazil and Malaysia, via state-owned PetroBras and PetroNas, have designs on acquiring these lucrative properties. Morey will have to move quickly to outwit these savvy competitors.
collison is a fine role player and one of their best defenders last season - i am not sure if he is out for the year or what I havent seen him play at all this season, but collison would be playing significant minutes for any team in this league not just the Thunder. Aldrich and Mullens they knew would be projects but they have too many producing young players that still are developing (harden, durant, westbrook, ibaka) to give Aldrich and Mullens the time they need on the floor. I believe though both are playing in the d-league a lot which is good. Now with Perkins there they probably can afford to give either one of those guys some minutes next season as a backup to perkins.
Actually, Deandre Jordan was a very low risk with decent reward. He was a second round 35th overall pick, making $850,000 this season. Les could have bought Deandre Jordan. Per 36 min he's averaging 10.5 rebs, 10.2 pts, 2.4 "blocks" and TS% of 61%. That's not bad at all given the "risk". By comparison, Thabeet is a much greater risk given the financially reasons Juan Valdez discussed and that we gave up our most vocal leader both inspirationally and defensively.
We owe him a little over $5 million for next season. Doesn't work out? We don't have to use the team option on him. It's quite low risk for a 7'3" dude.
The question of the thread is how many Johan Petros do we have to go through to get to one DeAndre Jordan. 10? 100? In that case it would be high risk considering how many picks you wasted. And all for what reward? Some below average center who plays horrible defense, 61% TS since his only offensive move is dunk, blocks a few shot while getting abused 1on1? Just so we get to see a few highlights? Meanwhile we give up nothing besides capspace IF we choose for Thabeet. And if we miss the inspiration and leadership so bad we can try to sign Battier back this summer. There is no risk in trading him since he would have been a free agent either way. It is easy to only look at those cases that work out(sort of) and call them low risk, without considering the risk/reward of the strategy as a whole that got you there.
If we are talking about picks that you can essentially buy for cash (i.e. 2nd rounders, maybe low 1sts) and you have enough cash, it may be worth it to run through 10 Petros to get one DeAndre Jordan, or even one Greg Ostertag. Of course, hopefully, by doing your homework before the draft, you can increase those odds significantly-- maybe to 3 to 1 or 5 to 1. Anyhow, I don't think a team should have set-in-stone rule of either "always draft raw 7-foot projects with possible high ceilings" or "never draft raw 7-foot projects." It all depends on who is there when you are picking and what your alternatives are.
Here is another way of better assessing risk/reward. In the history of the NBA, how many centers at or below the 35th overall pick became productive players? Out of hundreds of picks. Is it 5%? I doubt it. But if it was then we might have to try 20 times and waste 19 picks before hitting one. Is it 1%? Probably lower. Is it still low risk? Especially when the "reward" could just be DeAndre Jordan. We all know there is a premium put on size in the NBA. So when size slips that low and get passed by that many teams, there are usually real issues. Low picks might not be worth much, but flushing them down the drain like toilet paper isn't smart either.
I agree, in reality it isn't nearly as cut and dry. I guess I was talking from more of a general nba team perspective. I think there are a few teams in the league who evaluate talent a bit better than the rest. If according to their own unique criteria they figure a 7 footer slipped through the cracks, then I would like those odds much better. Meanwhile, if you are a team who is just winging it with a low pick on a guy just because he is tall and can jump, then I'd refer to the odds in my previous post. As for DeAndre Jordan specifically, the Rockets passed on him and the Clippers took him. The Rockets and Clippers each representing one of the two types of teams I just mentioned. With that in mind I am okay with not taking on that "risk".
