[Draft Express] Houston making "major push" to acquire #4 pick

We cant continue to get players like patterson hes undersized .. George we have 3 small forwards already and george isnt a 2 guard.. We need Size on the inside deperately if we want to beat the lakers

 

Monroe is over hyped. mainly because he was the top high school player coming out. Hes good dont get me wrong but in the NBA playing power forward is going to be tough for him. If he was more athletic he could be a real good 3 man. They said hes a great passer... who cares?

Cousins is as talented as they come, he has great footwork and can run the floor and not a great leaper. Can bring real toughness to a team if his attitude is right and work ethic right. I think hes going to work his ass off but once his rookie contract is up and gets paid hes going to coast through the league collecting checks.

 

Derek Favors would be a better choice for US if we were to trade up to that area, but if we stick around the mid rounds I wouldn't mind Whiteside/Aldrich/Paterson.

We need toughness on DEFENSE first and foremost (and with size and height/length preferrably-unless its Paterson). Cousins is offensive-minded

 

well cousins certainly is the opposite of athletic in fact, he is so unathletic it makes me really wonder what morey thinks of him. he is a paradox of a player. he is amazingly productive per 36 or 40 or whatever, but he is one of the most unathletic top draft picks ever under 6'10. if you just go by production and coming from an elite program then it is cousins and it's not even a second thought.

favors is a guy who is a bit shorter and not as long, but is much more athletic and less polished. granted, i haven't watched favors a ton, but just glancing at him he seems like amare without the jumper, but much better defense.

i dunno...i hope we get in the dilemma of choosing between the two!

 

To say Cousins is unathletic is just wrong. They guy is large, but also pretty quick for the size he is.

 

This one goes out to all the Cousins fanboys here.

Rod Thorn, one of the most respected NBA GMs in the league, and the man who drafted Michael Jordan,had this to say about him:

While praising the 6'11" Kentucky center, he essentially eliminated him from contention, pointing to deficiencies at the power forward position. "It’s a leap of faith there to suggest that he can play the 4. He can shoot the ball well, and he can face the basket. But I don’t think he’ll take it from 20 feet and go by people, and defensively it could be even more of a problem."

Whoever pointed to the draft combine agility drill and court sprint times and claimed that he's quicker and faster than Al Jefferson is an idiot. The man is too slow and unathletic enough to be a PF.

 

That vert is scary. Pretty sad when I have a higher vert than a potential top 5 pick.

 

i keep reading he's a legit center and/or has legit center body...but i'm not seeing it...maybe it's because a lot of centers nowadays are 6'10 and 6'11, but AS of now Cousins doesnt look like a center to me. This is the first time i've heard him being referred to as purely a PF....and yeah i agree with a lot of what he said. He's got issues getting up in the air and if it wasn't for his long reach he'd have issues finishing above the rim. In the NBA he just might anyway. He plays like he's anchored down or something...

 

Yup, all the PRO scouts are wrong and should be fired

 

Luis Scola says vertical jump is overrated.....so is the left hand....
:grin:

 

That's another issue, he plays well below the rim with his lack of vert. Add to that his agility issues... Cousins is going to be forced to play at the 5 whether he likes or not by whoever drafts him. Can you imagine him trying to stay in front of guys like Al Jefferson, Amare, Bosh, Pau, and Boozer? Those guys will run circles around him.

 

He is quick for a big guy his size. And he doesn't have to blow buy anyone he just has to roll over them. reports out of New Jersey after the Favors Cousins workout is Cousins pretty much won it.

As for thorn being the most respected Gm in the league. Respect don't mean crap in judging talent. Thorn took a very talented Nets team and guided them to one of the worst teams in NBA history. 12-70 most respected. That's 100% Thorns work in progress. I'll listen to Morey and almost every other GM over him.

 

There is value in guys who don't fit the common mental image of what a position "should be" but who are efficient nevertheless.

In recent years we've seen this exploited where undersized productive 4's fall into the second round, while big oafish stiff 7 footers get picked up in the first round because they look the part.

It is better to be good than to look good. But I think there are a lot of posters (and people in general) who can't differentiate between the two.

 

He can barely dunk on a fast break,that's bad. He will be able to compensate to some extent with his post moves,but he will have trouble against quicker players. The extra fat that he is carrying won't help either,along with his behavior. I do feel that he is passionate about the game,but he has gotten by because of his skill level so far. The NBA is going to be tough.

 

LMAO, you just killed any kind of credibility you may have had there.

And Morey never came out and said anything about Cousins. So far its all been speculation by either one of the beat writers for the Chron or Cousins fanboys who haven't even seen him play apart from some youtube highlight reels.

Your tears when we don't trade for Cousins will be delicious. Morey will not trade for him, sorry to crush your dreams.

 

The best analog for a player like Cousins succeeding that I can think of off the top of my head is Brad Daugherty, who had a big fat rear end, and couldn't run fast or jump high, but was quick, had a polished game, and was able to be physical when needed.

Daugherty had a pretty good NBA career despite those handicaps.

 

The guy has a 9'5'' standing reach-- on inch longer than Greg Oden, who everyone knosws is long-- so uness he can't jump more than 7 inches, I'm pretty sure Cousins can get above the rim a little.


And even if he stays below the rim most of the time, not sure if I care. The guy clearly functions well as an NBA player.

 

At worst, he'll be like Yao on defense, except he is tougher and much longer and stronger though. But against guys with strength and quickness (like Dwight Howard and Kris Kaman to some extent) he'll be outmatched. Usually that isn't too big of a deal, but when it comes to taking a guy like that in the top 5 its somewhat risky (his overall talent outweights it by a lot though), not to mention his attitude problems

 

The workouts can be overrated...especially because it was mostly about cousins shooting so well....and it's two guys working out, the dynamics of a 5 on 5 nba game are thrown out the window...not the same thing...you can probably go down along list of prospects who killed in workouts and bombed in the league or vice versa.

The combine itself showed he put up average numbers when it came to speed, compared to other bigs, not to mention he skipped the lifting part, so he could be hiding something there too....Really both the combine and workouts are flawed, but if youre going to consider one to evaluate him you should consider the other as well.