Ainge & West say not so great a draft ahead?

[BOTSLAYER]

Don't know what Ainge is up to (probably trying to downplay it to get his guy) but I heard all of West's interview on SVP & Russillo. As much as I like and respect West, he's basically ventured off into grumpy old man land where all his comments were "back in my day it was better!" without having any justification. He's wrong about this draft. What do all drafts have in common? They are based on potential. And this one is loaded with potential. There are between 3 and 4 prospects with multi-year All Star potential. Beyond that, 2 or 3 that could make an AS game or two, and beyond that maybe 5 to 8 guys that can be quality starters/role players for years to come. That is a loaded draft. It's foolish to say there's no Lebron or no KD because when people say that, they are thinking about what those guys are right now. Of course no kid is as good as the best players in the world. Go back to just before their drafts, Lebron wasn't "Lebron", KD wasn't "KD", Kobe wasn't "Kobe", etc etc. But they did have that potential. We have that this year. Only time will tell if any of them live up to it but its wrong to say its not a good draft.

I do disagree with this, Lebron was always Lebron. He was having interviews in the 3rd person at 16 FFS, LBJ has always been LBJ. So was Melo for that matter. The 2 were faced off in high school.


And he looked 40 in highschool, everyone thinks LBJ is Oden's dad, pretty sure that is backwards.

 

[Clayton]

I think anyone saying next year's draft class is 'weak' in any way is being disingenuous. It might not be as good as we thought but its still full of upside.

Its scary to think that playoff teams might be able to pickup raw draft prospects like Aaron Gordon, Zach LaVine and Willie Cauley Stein and mold them to their potential.

 

[LogicMan]

Clayton, I think thats the part of the draft I am especially wondering if they have it wrong. I see an Aaron Gordon is getting high praise right now, and in the mock drafts, he may fall to 20ish.

 

[Jims_Doors]

Jerry West phoned up Phillys GM back in 1996 to tell him Kobe wasn't 'NBA ready' and worthy of being a top 15 pick.

Then he trades Divac to Charlotte for their pick and nabs Kobe up himself....

sound familiar...?

Except for the fact that Philly themselves brought Kobe in for a workout and saw with their own eyes.

Even if the workout had been incredible....there was no chance Philly (who had the number 1 pick) would have taken Kobe over Iverson. Especially since Philly had just drafted SG Jerry Stackhouse the year before.

 

[True Lakers Fan]

I have never seen any of the picks NBA ready to be honest - they almost always need atleast one or two years to be get to the NBA ready status. Except for Lebron, Griffin and a few others, that went to teams so desparate that they had no choice, most better teams take a bit of time to groom the players, so I think I see where Ainge and West are coming from.