http://www.sportingnews.com/voices/dave_dalessandro/20000123.html "ALL-ROOKIE TEAMS: Our First Team is Steve Francis, Elton Brand, Lamar Odom, Adrian Griffin, Ron Artest. For all the criticism he’s received, we’ve gone head-over-heels over Francis’ talent. He plays the youth card with runaway enthusiasm, and you half expect him to play with a baseball cap on, back to front, so that he can whizz up and down the court on a skateboard. The second team comprises Anthony Carter, Wally Szczerbiak, Andre Miller, Baron Davis, Chucky Atkins -- though we expect Kenny Thomas and Jason Terry to crack this second group, if their coaches have any sense. " By ave D'Alessandro Slowly but surely the national respect for Francis is gathering steam. I can't say that's a bad thing.
Oh my bad. Good news, Darion Miles will also declare if he can be drafted in top 8 like Gerald Wallace.
You know what was messed up? Michael Dickerson was left off the 1st team. He had a solid rookie season for a solid playoff team, and he got left off...what the hell was that?
Am I the only one totally unimpressed by Ron Artest? The guy looked awful against us. I checked his stats thinking it may have been a fluke, turns out it's not.
Actually Artest is doing better than I thought he would. I thought he would be a little slow for the NBA and was helped by fine players around him, but it looks like he will be a decent NBA player (again, the scouts know a lot better than I about these things). It is early, but Chicago is the one team whose draft this year might be competitive with ours. Of course they used higher picks to do it and I still probably would rather have the 2 guys we have.
Artest is playing great. He started out the season slow (which has depressed his stats), but he has recently been a good and consistent contributor. I think Chicago did a great job picking him: at #16, he's better than pick 10-15.
