First Team- Okafor Gordon Howard Deng Iguodala Second Team- Josh Smith Josh Childress Nenad Krstic Jameer Nelson Al Jefferson I know, not a big deal, but thoughts? I can't believe Childress got selected over J.R. Smith, or even Beno Udrih. By the first half of the season, most people had written him off as a bust.
BTW, I remember hearing before last year's draft that it was the weakest in years, and many GM's i.e. Isiah Thomas "researched" the draft and decided to trade their picks. But now it looks like an incredibly deep infusion of talent. What's up with that?
They always say that. Besides JR Smith and Ulrich there is still Livingston, Harris, Telfair, Varejao, Ariza, Duhon, Allen, West, Vassilis Spanoulis, and a handful of other Europeans that should become good players once they get used to the NBA. Overall there are maybe a couple of greats, a handful of All Stars, and a bunch of good players, that's a pretty good draft.
Before, during, and after the draft a few posters on this board were slamming Jameer Nelson and saying he wasn't NBA material. Having seen him play quite a bit here in Philly, I begged to differ. It's good to see him prove the doubters wrong.
Udrich has zero business being a first team selection. He's averaging just under 6 and 2 in 14 mpg. That's underwhelming, to say the least, and I think he's a good pick for SA. Al Jefferson did have a solid year and should have gotten more burn, but it's tough to put him above Deng (5 more PPG), and impossible to say he came close to Okafur and Howard. Team success has little, and should have little, bearing on voting for these teams. Only played 30 games because of his knee. Victim of numbers, I guess. He did have a good year, arguably better than Jefferson. Evan
Playing on a bad team should NEVER be used against rookies. Most good rookies go to bad teams, why use it against them that they can't turn that team around? On the other side you can't give credit to a guy like Udrich because he was lucky enough to get drafted by the Spurs.
You cannot be serious. I am comfortable when I say Josh is and will be better than JR. Truly I do not see what the noise is about JR. And for good measure check out their stats. Josh leads all rookies in blocks per game (and he is a small forward). Childress will not even be as good as Josh. JR Smith looks to me like another JR Rider [sp].
josh smith has no jumper what so ever. it's either a dunk or a.........dunk. he's a better rebounder and shot blocker but j.r. has a much more complete offensive game he has a good jumper but a lack of a PG hurt jr a lot. he didn't get a lot of really good looks. jr got much better as the season went along. i just see jr as a much more complete ball player in the long run. josh will have to work really hard at shooting and he can become good if he puts the work in but i still think jr will be a better player.
