Yeah, look at all those sorry 7-footers: Chamberlain, Shaq, Russell, Lou Alcindor, Patrick Ewing, and who can forget that worst bust in history ever, AKEEM OLAJUWON!?!?! I kid. Man, you know that what you said ain't true. They're all Super men.
You are so right. Wow, i'm starting to see what Jerome Solomon was talking about. Disgustingly uneventful draft( except for everybody else). I'm sorry guys, but thats how i feel. This is going to sting for a while.
Btw, can some explain why Patterson supposedly can't be a star player? I see nothing in his resume to suggest he can't be one of the best. He doesn't have bad athleticism. His height/reach/vertical/wingspan looks just fine for a PF. But he has two things that no one talks about, but is HUGELY IMPORTANT for a developing player. Especially one on a team that still wants to contend. 1. He has high BB IQ. He simply plays smart basketball, PERIOD. We all say you can't teach height, but you also can't really teach on the court instincts and decision-making. Some players have it. Others don't. Patterson plays smart basketball. 2. Patterson can be a role player. I know for many, this is a turn off. But for the me, this is a good thing. No rookie short of a Lebron/Duncan type will just come in and dominate on a playoff team. And usually, coaches will neglect player development for the sake of extra wins. But Patterson can be a role player. And he can "develop" his game in the way Landry did: garbage man first, expanded role 2nd year, and featured scorer 3rd. To me, there's no reason to think Patterson can't turn out to be a star. Sure, it may take a few years, but he's definitely in the perfect environment to succeed.
Hakeem is 6-10, Ewing is about the same without shoes, Shaq is an injury prone. Bill Russell is even shorter than Hakeem. Still, like you said, those guys are supermen. The problem is no 7 footer in the current NBA is a superman and none of them could ever stay healthy.
Morey is not saying Pat will be a 6 time all-star by saying he is 6th best player in the draft. If you go back 6 years or more and rate the 6 best players for each draft, I doubt the 6th player is a 6-time allstar.
I was pretty pumped Patterson fell that far. I was really hoping we could get Davis, but he was picked at 13. Patterson was the best player available.
Jason Friedman, on the Rockets.com chat, insisted that he looked at the Rockets board a few weeks ago and Patterson was 6th. Now, maybe Freidman is party of an organization wide conspiracy to pump up Patterson's trade value, but I doubt it. The Rockets seem genuinely happy to have gotten him. Feigen is reporting that they actually tried to trade up to the 9th pick to secure him. Is he the 6th best player in the draft? There seems to be a general consensus on who the top 5 players are (most everyone in the media had the same top 5 players at the top of their board), but after that it gets more murky. If we focus only on upside, I don't think it makes sense to say he's the 6th best player. And there's an argument to be made that when you are drafting in the lottery, your focus should be upside. But relative to most other lottery teams, the Rockets are trying to add depth that can help immediately. So, who are the best players right now?
I agree with you CAT: this was a very solid pick. In fact, this was the type of pick that should have been made 5 years ago when they shipped off Cato and left a gaping hole at the 4 and tried to plug it up with Juwann Howard. While it did nothing to address their need for more size at the 5, I think the folks who expected that are being totally unrealistic. This draft was loaded with 6-8, 69 PFs and the centers that were left at the 14th spot were project players at best and they already have one of those in Hill. I am curious as to what this means for Scola. The question that sticks in my mind is how come Kentucky didn't do better in the NCAA tourney with so many players going in this draft.
Man, how do you project upside? How do you project ceiling? For me, it's all in the mind and the attitude. Cliche, but for me, it is a god damned fact of life. Patterson has a 6 foot 9 body. He has the standing reach and the wingspan. He seems to have a very solid body, solid athleticism and a top class mindset. So who is the best 6' 9" power forward he can hope to be like? Maybe Elton Brand (in his prime)? Maybe Karl Malone (a cleaner version, but with the same grit, toughness and determination)? Charles Barkley lite? I am actually salivating over the possibilities! For me, the mindset is the highest ceiling determinant ever possible in the world of sports I actually predict Patterson will improve year after year after year
So who are the 6 best players do you have on this draft that will have at least 6 All-star appearances? serious question. I don't think you will have answer.
Don't know too much about Patterson, but my limited impression is he may be similar to Kurt Thomas - good defense, pretty reliable jump shot, physical player. More athletic than Thomas though, since Thomas was never known to dunk as much. Probably better defense too, as it took Thomas several seasons to understand team defense at the NBA level.
I hate to get too excited...but i think this guy will be the greatest basketball player to ever live.
Thabeet is 7 ft 3; how good was he for the Grizz? Gasol will be taller than 99% of all the PF he faces in the league. At 6 ft 9 1/4, 240 lbs, with a 7 ft 1 wingspan, PP is plenty big for a true PF. Like any great post defender, he'll need to play smart and tough.
leebigez, I don't necessarily disagree with you on this point. But having a high ceiling assumes that a player will reach his absolute fullest potential. And that RARELY happens. Some other players with ceilings higher than Patterson's include Gerald Green, Kwame Brown, Chris Wilcox, Eddy Curry, Eddie Griffin, Dejuan Wagner, etc. None of them ever reached anything close to their full potential. Patterson, on the other hand, has a high ceiling of his own (albeit not quite as high as Hill's) AND appears to have a much higher probability of reaching most of that potential. I think the probability that Patterson fulfills, say, 80-90% of his full potential (I know, these numbers are somewhat arbitrary, but you get the picture) is much higher than the probability that Hill fulfills 80-90% of his (somewhat higher) full potential. Also, Patterson being the #6 guy on their board actually makes perfect sense and is in line with what the front office was saying BEFORE the draft. Gersson Rosas was interviewed earlier this week about the talent pool in the draft. He said that the team was working hard to move into the top 5, where they thought there was at least 3 All-Star level players. After that, he said, there was a pool of talent "in the 6 to 17 range" where they thought they could still get a very good player. I just so happens that they had Patterson as "the best of the rest" in this draft. I'm just curious to know whether they had Greg Monroe or Wesley Johnson ranked #5. Interesting that one of them was ranked below Patterson on Morey's draft board. Either that, or Morey doesn't think Derrick Favors will ever be a star.
I don't see why people are so convinced he has a low ceiling. He took a smaller role for the better of the team, but his sophmore stats suggest he can do more. 17.9 PPG 9.3 RPG 2.1 BPG 61% FG% 77% FT% His standing reach and athleticsm are both above average for a power forward. And his measurables were across the board better than Carl Landrys. I don't see why he can't be as good or better than Landry. His numbers are also comperable to Jordan Hill. I love the pick, I think he's gonna be a pretty good player, although the Rockets still don't have a Yao backup which is a problem.
leebigez is so consistently wrong, I almost have to think he's joking half the time. Patrick Patterson was SIXTH in NBADraft.net's rankings and SEVENTH on DraftExpress. There's nothing really surprising about Patterson ranking sixth with Morey.
