[OKC Thunder] -- Serge Ibaka coming into Thunder madness

I'm interested to see what he can do, Draftexpress.com ranks him as the no. 4 "Rights held prospect"

Right behind Josh Childress, Tiago Splitter, and Nikola Pekovic.

And well ahead of no. 12 Lior Eliyahu, no. 21 Maarty Leunen and no. 24 Brad Newley

Ranking: NBA Rights held overseas

 

And he is actually 19, will be 20 in September.

 

Well to be fair, the Sonics got a new GM in 2007, Sam Presti, and from the looks of it he has done a pretty good job of rebuilding that team.

Also, Nick Collison wasn't really that bad of a pick was he? lol Not a great lottery pick, but serviceable I'd say

 

FishBulb, that ranking also has Eliyahu ahead of Carlos Delfino, which I find doubtful.

I don't know much about Serge Ibaka, but I hope he does well in OKC. He seems to be quite the physical specimen who has a long way to go to be NBA-ready.

W22_STREAK, I'm a Thunder fan for the exact same reason and I be following them again closely.

 

I look at this ranking as if there were a draft, this is the order they would go. (Potential, and age factored in.)

Either way, I don't know enough about these players to argue with anyone over it haha.

 

He reminds me of McGrady as a rookie.

 

Presti looks really good compared to Pritchard, to be fair most of that is because of the Oden/Durant situation, we don't know what Presti would have done had he been in Prichard's position.

I questioned Jeff Green over Yi at the time based on Yi's potential, but it certainly looks like that's a solid decision. The Westbrook pick took alot of guts but he's certainly a high ceiling player. Westbrook is probably Presti's best decision to date. I also like Presti's decision not to use up all their cap space this year on guys that do not fit on the team. My favorite Presti move was him taking on Kurt Thomas from the Suns for 2 1st rounders and then selling Kurt to SA. That was an impressive FU to Phoenix.

 

Champs 2013

 

Yeah, Presti is doing a hell of a job there in OKC. Don't forget another major move that he made (and a major reason why I like the Thunder, besides Durant) . . . making former Rocket Scottie Brooks the head coach. Brooks has done a great job turning an under-achieving, effortless group of youngsters into a hustling, hopeful team with nothing but good things ahead of them.

And while we're on the subject of DraftExpress.com's list of top foreign assets held by NBA teams, I wonder what it would take to pry the rights to Nikola Pekovic away from the T-Wolves. He might be a decent stop-gap measure at center for next season, with the potential to become a quality NBA player over the long haul.

 

Very little chance I'd suggest!

But since they've got plenty of bigs, PERHAPS we could entice them with a "rights switch" - giving them Eliyahu (who was Euroleaugue MVP for December) in exchange.

 

Yes. One thing I'm quickly learning is that Pritchard is just overhyped. Presti is the real deal, the Durant pick may have been just luck (with Portland getting Oden first), but he has made a lot of good roster decisions and drafting really really well. That Kurt Thomas move is probably one of the best moves in the entire GM history of the league, too bad a small market team did it so they didn't get hype.

I also really like the Krstic signing, 5 mill for a versatile F/C combo is not bad at all...