[Woj Tweet] Houston and Portland working teams hard to get #3 or #4 pick

Aaron Brooks....MIP?
14TH.....LOTTERY PICK?
Why wouldn't they do it? Although i am hoping that they could swing it without using the #14th pick. Something like Harris and #13 for Brooks, Chase and a 2012 pick.

 

Cousins will be last year's Al Jefferson at worst. The guy is a beast on the block and the boards. Total manchild. Everything else needs work, though.

 

Beasley's main problem is being undersized at 6'7". Being a 6'7" PF in college where it's common to play against other 6'7" PFs or weaker bigs is fine for Beasley. He is too small physically to match up against 6'9-6'11" PFs in the NBA.

Turner has played PG/SG/SF. He has a 6'7" 205 lb body. That's NBA size for SG/SF. His 1.36 assist/to ratio is not great. The ast/to ratio has actually improved from 0.99 to 1.36 from his 1st year to his 3rd year. He was asked to distribute the ball in college. If Philly drafts Turner, Jrue would be the playmaker.

 

Putting some pieces together.

Both POR and HOU seem to have interest in Bosh

Toronto needs capspace and a young C (#3), if Bosh leaves.

NJ has capspace to absorb salary, a young C (#3), but wants to win now.

Both POR and HOU can offer TOR more than NJ can on its own.

 

Not much of a hype machine. Oden was Legit coming out of College. Dude could have came out of HS and still been a top 3 pick.

It's like saying Bush was a hype machine...and he was...but in college dude was legit.

It's easy to say now who was clearly the better player.

 

Working hard to get the 3rd or 4th pick doesn't necessarily mean trading up. Perhaps Morey wants to keep the 14th and draft twice in the first round.

 

Not sure if this has been mentioned, but perhaps these aren't separate inquiries. ie Brooks to Portland and Favors/Cousins to Houston with some combination of assets going to New Jersey or Minnesota.

 

Exactly.

Pritchard lives and dies by the BPA code. He honestly believed that Oden was the best player available at #1, as did most other NBA personnel.

 

Beasley is 6'10"

I hated the Oden hype with a passion. Durant was clearly better.

 

Rubio + 4th pick

for

Budinger + 14th pick + Hill + Battier + Llull

I would gut our roster for a shot at Favors/Cousins + Rubio

 

No he's not. His pre-draft measurements were 6'7" without shoes, 6'8" and change with shoes. I'd say he's about halfway in between both and it's easy to tell this anytime you watch a Heat game where the players are just casually standing around. 6'9" and 6'10" players tower over him.

That said, I don't really buy the Beasley-Cousins attitude and motor comparisons. One of the main reasons Beasley sucks is because he's a soft four that plays away from the basket yet won't fight underneath the cup like traditional fours still have have to do when not trying to score. Beasley's game on offense pretty much goes like this: set-up from the elbow or 20-feet to ISO then either jumper, one dribble left or the occasional post-up. There's little aggression in his game and he almost never crashes the boards which is a problem when playing so far away from the basket. Conversely, aside from a couple extreme examples the center position requires players to almost exclusively operate within 10' of the basket. The point is at 6'11", 260 there aren't going to be many players pushing Cousins around. Even if he brings the same soft, "Hmm...shall I care tonight?" demeanor that Beasley brings his size and position on the court alone pretty much insures he'll be a double-double player at the very worst. Between Player A playing inside 10' of the basket and Player B operating 15+ feet -- I'll take the guy playing inside since his position on the court doesn't essentially limit his contributions to only scoring alone.

 

smoke and mirrors.

 

Go to the link on the for the NBA draft measurements.

http://www.nba.com/2009/playoffs2009/06/01/chicago.combine.givony/

Beasley is 6'7" even. He's an inch taller than Chuck Hayes.

 

You must be using his NBA profile.

Even though he was officially measured at 6'7" at the NBA draft camp in Orlando in 2008, his height was inflated by 3" in his NBA profile.

 

If you count Beasley's basketball shoes as part of his height, he is 6'8.25".


http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/draft2008/news/story?id=3424913

 

Just going by recent history, houston doesn't have enough to get to #3 spot. I mean ray allen went for the #5 but he was a former all star. There is a reason those teams are top 3-4 in the draft. Thats the area where you can get a "franchise player" and all those teams could use one. Philly could really use cousins or turner is wall goes 1. Actually, i think turner probably fits the bill better in washignton than wall, but thats just my opinion. NJ can take cousins and pair him with lopez for a future 4/5 from hell.

 

Well, if ESPN says it, it must be true huh?

He definitely needs to mature, but how many freshmen in college don't need to grow up? The guy has amazing hands, runs for floor really well, extremely good footwork. Other then John Wall & Udoh, I'd say no one has more upside. I watched Kentucky play about 25 games this year, Cousins was the most improved player from the start of the year to the end of the year on that team.

 

Turner handled the ball almost exclusively for Ohio St. & anybody who handles the ball as much he did college or pro is going to turn it over a bit. Just look at the NUMBER of turnovers per game that some of NBA's better PG. It's higher than you may think. Plus that Ohio St. bunch wasn't exactly loaded with NBA talent eitther.

 

Rumor has it they play with shoes on in the NBA. I'm waiting on ESPN to confirm.

 

I think the phrase is "hindsight is 20/20".

You can say that about every draft. Matter of fact is, it's nearly impossible to find a legit Center coming out of college that dominated like he did. Yes he was hurt most of the year, but the way he played in the tourney, absolutely dominating teams. Portland at the time made the right choice, if Prichard picks Durant and Oden turns out to be better, he's out of a job. The way he went about it, you can't really blame him. Don't forget, Orlando was being killed for picking Howard over Okafor, you don't always pick the guy that puts up the best numbers in college.