<div class="quote_poster">M Two One Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">Well, I just checked nbadraft.net and they put up their 2008 mock already. They have Batum at pick #3 and Mayo at #4. If Batum improves, expect him to hit #1 on that list in the future. If you've ever been able to watch him play, the dude is sick as hell.</div>
NBADraft.Net is crap.
IMO, it's gotta be Mayo #1, Batum #2. I actually saw them both play live in Memphis against eachother not too long ago, and both dominated their respective competition, Mayo just probably moreso. A lot of people were quick to jump all over Mayo after his poor McDonald's All-American game, but then he went on to dominate both the Hoops Summit (6-12 FG, 20 pts, 3 rbs, 4 asts, 2 stls in 21 minutes) and the Roundball Classic (11-18 FG, 5-10 3pt, 27 pts, 3 rbs, 6 asts, 2 stls in 26 minutes).
Usually I can't stand point guards who are more of scorers than distributers, but Mayo's got a lot more talent than the typical point guard in that mold. He's on the level of a Gilbert Arenas or an Allen Iverson.
Actually, all things considered, next year's draft won't be so bad. It's got a stronger lottery as a whole than this year's. Even though the very top of this year's draft (meaning Oden/Durant) is a million times stronger than the top of next year's draft, the overall quality of the lottery is a lot better. The talent doesn't drop off from the #1 pick to the #14 pick the way it does this year.
I'm just doing this off the top of my head and on the fly, but I guess my lotto for next year would look like this:
<font size=""1""><div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">1) O.J. Mayo (USC)
2) Nicolas Batum (France)
3) Derrick Rose (Memphis)
4) Michael Beasley (K-State)
5) Darrell Arthur (Kansas)
6) Chase Budinger (Arizona)
7) Brook Lopez (Stanford)
8) Roy Hibbert (Georgetown)
9) Darren Collison (UCLA)
10) Eric Gordon (Indiana)
11) DaJuan Summers (Georgetown)
12) Donte Greene (Syracuse)
13) Gerald Henderson (Duke)
14) Wayne Ellington (UNC)</div></font>
BTW - Mamba, you went out last night too? I'm just getting home, hahahahaha.