This Could Go Down As One Of The Worst Blazer Drafts In Years

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Wizard Mentor said:
People will always apply revisionist logic to every draft. If someone pans out that is picked after EW, then they'll yell that we passed on them TWICE. Unlike last year's draft, there is no such obvious person.

"Worst draft" won't depend on who we draft as much as who we didn't.
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It's not revisionist logic if you call it draft night. :)
Honestly, I have no idea why we traded for 34 two days before the draft, but I can't think that Armon Johnson was the target. IMO, I think we just missed on Whiteside, and Armon was the fallback. :dunno:
 
Minstrel said:
Heh. Good luck with that one.

Babbitt's one of the most NBA-ready prospects. At his age, if the Blazers thought he was only D-League material, he wouldn't have been drafted.
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Against juco players 3" shorter and unathletic he looks great. Now maybe he can step in and play with the pros (and I hope he does), but if I had a dollar for every poster here who stated some college player was so NBA ready to come in and ball like he'll be an all-star, I would, in fact, be rich. I just prefer to adopt a hopeful wait & see approach. I mean, ABM tells me over and over about how NBA ready Freeland and Kaponean are to come over and flat out dominate, but so far they can't even make they team.
 
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After listening to the players today, I'm gonna be optimistic; I think it will go down as a very good draft. We got arguably the best shooter in the draft and the 2nd best athlete. All three emphasized toughness, something we didn't have much of until Cunningham and Pendergraph got drafted. So I'm happy.
 
BLAZER PROPHET said:
Against juco players 3" shorter and unathletic he looks great.
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And against NCAA tournament qualifiers, he averaged 20/10....which were approximately his overall averages too.

but if I had a dollar for every poster here who stated some college player was so NBA ready to come in and ball like he'll be an all-star
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I don't think he'll remotely be an All-Star. I don't think he'll even be starter-level as a rookie. He's simply not a raw prospect who needs to be developed in order to reach the NBA. As I said, if at his age, he still needed significantly more development time before playing in the NBA, he wouldn't have been drafted at that spot.
 
BrianFromWA said:
It's not revisionist logic if you call it draft night. :)
Honestly, I have no idea why we traded for 34 two days before the draft, but I can't think that Armon Johnson was the target. IMO, I think we just missed on Whiteside, and Armon was the fallback. :dunno:
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That was my thought: We were shooting for Whiteside.
 
maxiep said:
That was my thought: We were shooting for Whiteside.
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They gave the Dubs 2 million bucks about 12 hours after they worked out Armon Johnson, that could be a coincidence, but with Mills status up in the air, Bayless probably more of a 2 than a 1 and not quite the shooter to compliment Brandon I think they are looking for, I would guess they were looking for an upside pick at point guard with athletcism and long arms and a little bit of playmaking (Kevin Pelton's player comp tool has him as 98% similiar to Ramon Sessions) to pick up that third 1 guard spot ... I don't exactly hold out hope that Johnson will ever be this team's starting point, but 2 million is a lot of scratch to move up hoping that Whiteside would tumble out of the first round, I really think he was their target (however head scratching or odd it might seem).
 
I like this draft! traded martell who i liked and thought was decent but he was taking minutes away from batum who i love and is way better. got a shooter in babbit who can take spot minutes at SF (from what ive been reading) and got PG prospects that seem decent enough to me. While it sucks we have a clog now at the PG spot they are all Rookies/Sophs except Bayless and miller, but they (The rooks) can wait their turn
 
BrianFromWA said:
It's not revisionist logic if you call it draft night. :)
Honestly, I have no idea why we traded for 34 two days before the draft, but I can't think that Armon Johnson was the target. IMO, I think we just missed on Whiteside, and Armon was the fallback. :dunno:
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"I had three names written down on a piece of paper . . . we got all three names"
 
it's_GO_time said:
"I had three names written down on a piece of paper . . . we got all three names"
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My friends and I play a game like that in strip clubs. We all write 3 names down, and if one of the girls name is that name the others have to buy us a lap dance from that girl.
 
Portland has had a number of pretty good drafts, if by "good draft" you mean "we picked up quality players that are still in the rotation":
2009 Bayless, Cunningham, Pendergraph
2008 Batum
2007 Oden
2006 Roy, Aldridge
2005 Webster, Jack

2009 is still pretty iffy IMO. Bayless and Cunningham appear to at least by viable NBA role players, though. And that's nothing to sniff at when you are talking about picks outside of the top ten.

If by "in years" you mean "going back to the massive whiff we had on Chris Paul" in 2005, then yeah, I could see how this might turn out to be worse than any draft after that. In my mind it really depends on whether Bayless or Babbitt have the better NBA career.

Because Roy can sop up backup minutes at the 1, 2 or 3 as needed, and Batum can guard 1-3, those two guys could really be competing for backup minutes this year. Which is cool, because they bring entirely different things to the bench unit.
 
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The more I read about these guys, the more I like this draft.

Let's see, a stretch 3/4 scorer/shooter that rebounds, can put the ball on the floor and seems like a smarter guy than Travis is (and I like Travis and think his contributions were sorely missed in the Playoffs) - check, A slightly bigger Bayless clone with longer arms and better hops - check, a defensive PG - check.
 
mook said:
Portland has had a number of pretty good drafts, if by "good draft" you mean "we picked up quality players that are still in the rotation":
2009 Bayless, Cunningham, Pendergraph
2008 Batum
2007 Oden
2006 Roy, Aldridge
2005 Webster, Jack
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JB was in 2008, 2007 was Rudy as well.
 
andalusian said:
JB was in 2008, 2007 was Rudy as well.
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doah! Must punish brain for bad braining with more alcohol.

(Rudy I intentionally left off, just like I dumped Sergio. After the disappearing act in the playoffs when Batum and Roy were so beat up, he is dead to me. Dead like so, so many brain cells.)
 
mook said:
doah! Must punish brain for bad braining with more alcohol.

(Rudy I intentionally left off, just like I dumped Sergio. After the disappearing act in the playoffs when Batum and Roy were so beat up, he is dead to me. Dead like so, so many brain cells.)
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I am not ready to write Rudy off just yet, given that he had the back surgery that could have been a real issue all year long. I am still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt before I assign him to Sergio's file.
 
andalusian said:
I am not ready to write Rudy off just yet, given that he had the back surgery that could have been a real issue all year long. I am still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt before I assign him to Sergio's file.
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What's your take on Oden?
 
Idog1976 said:
What's your take on Oden?
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Great, world class talent (Something Rudy simply does not have). If he can stay healthy - he was well worth his #1 pick position. But, it is clear that health is a concern. At this point in time - I can't see any way he can be traded for something that is worth his potential - and given that he is still in his rookie contract - I can't see what harm it does to keep him, build around him and hope he can use this talent consistently for many games a year. If it happens, we are set, if it does not - next year's RFA status will help the team evaluate his real worth around the league.
 
I think a point a lot of folks are missing about SF is that there are a lot of SF available on the free agency market, some of them at the veteran exception level, who are all far superior to Martell across the board. There will be talent there to pick up, and that talent will be an upgrade.
 
Masbee said:
I suppose if you think Webster was a good player (he was not), and you think that Luke Babitt won't make it in the NBA, you would predict a really terrible draft.

I wasn't happy with Webster, so I don't consider his departure much of a loss. I think Luke will be fine in the NBA and be at worst a rotation player, equaling the production of Webster at a lower cost. I think this draft will turn out fine.
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That disqualifies you as having an opinion worthy of anything. What part of the playoffs did you miss this Spring? Did you not see that anyone who's opinion is worthy of anything praised Martell Webster as being the best defender the Blazers had on the Court, including Nicolas Batum?

Just because you think something is one way, doesn't mean it is. Sometimes you need to listen to the collective experts out there who know what they are talking about when they differ with you. Martell may not be an All-Star, but we just lost our best defender from last year's playoffs. Batum will become a better defender, but during the playoffs this season, Martell was the best. Martell also shoots the three better than anyone on the team who takes a high volume of shots (Brandon, Martell and Bayless).

Go ahead and stand on you island and be defiant like a little bratty kid, but Hubie Brown and Doug Collins know more about basketball in their little pinkie than you do in all of your body. They both praised Martell for his Defense. And, Defense is 50% of basketball. That's why we chose Oden over Durant. Defense is that important to pass up a sure thing like Durant for the chance of getting a great defender which Oden may become.
 
BLAZER PROPHET said:
You're probably right about Gomes. I think Cunningham is going to be an NBA starter (yes, he's that good) somewhere. Babbitt (or however it's spelled) in a few years may be a back-up. But we'll see. I hope he plays well and can bring something to the team. I think he's either get mostly DNP's or play the D league his first year.
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Correct on all accounts.
 
BlazerBenner said:
Did you not see that anyone who's opinion is worthy of anything praised Martell Webster as being the best defender the Blazers had on the Court, including Nicolas Batum? ...We just lost our best defender from last year's playoffs. Batum will become a better defender, but during the playoffs this season, Martell was the best. ...They both praised Martell for his Defense.
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Jeez. You really like flogging that line over and over and over (and embarrassingly not just in this thread). You make it sound like Webster was the defensive mastermind that miraculously stymied the vaunted Suns offense.

The Suns beat us 4-2.
They put up over 98 points in all but one of the games.
Webster's minutes played in the final three games of the series? 13 minutes, 14 minutes and 20 minutes. Yep, Coach McMillan actually used him LESS even as Batum's injury seemed to get worse.

There's not much I see in these basic facts that make Webster somehow indispensable going forward.
 
I'm not sure which is sillier - the hate for Babbitt or the blind love for Webster.

No trade is a guaranteed "win", but this was a very reasonable move. Sometimes, you have to take risks in an effort to get better.
 
I think the trade was a win-win. Webster is going to do very well in Minnesota. He'll get his minutes and no one will push to take his time, so Webs will relax and thrive.

We needed a change, and this trade was an admission that his MLE-level deal was a mistake. We unwound it and now have a rookie who will get the opportunity to fill those minutes behind Batum.
 
Minstrel said:
And against NCAA tournament qualifiers, he averaged 20/10....which were approximately his overall averages too.



I don't think he'll remotely be an All-Star. I don't think he'll even be starter-level as a rookie. He's simply not a raw prospect who needs to be developed in order to reach the NBA. As I said, if at his age, he still needed significantly more development time before playing in the NBA, he wouldn't have been drafted at that spot.
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Many of the smaller, lower talent conferences automatically get a team into the NCAA so that isn't all that good a reference.
Winning the Sun Valley conference gives your team the right to get beat by 80 by Kansas.

His team only played against a single ranked team (North Carolina) all season.
He played pretty poorly in that one.
He also played pretty poorly in the two tournaments his team made (The WAC championship and the NIT).

Not a very good sample size or anything like that but to say he played well against quality college teams is flat out wrong.

I don't think he has done much to prove he is NBA ready.
 
maxiep said:
I think the trade was a win-win. Webster is going to do very well in Minnesota. He'll get his minutes and no one will push to take his time, so Webs will relax and thrive.
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I agree that it's a win-win for us and Webster. If you make it a triangle, though, it's a win-win-lose for Minnesota.

He's started 119 of the last 157 games he's played. 164 out of a total 301 in his career. It's not like he hasn't had his chances in the role of unquestioned starter. It's hard to think of a Blazer in the past ten years who has had more opportunities to start and produced less.

Hmmm.

Wait--Damon Stoudamire. I would rather have Webster as a long-term starter on my team than Damon Stoudamire.

Yikes. I had to reach back that far? Surely I'm forgetting somebody through all those crappy years.
 
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LittleAlex said:
Many of the smaller, lower talent conferences automatically get a team into the NCAA so that isn't all that good a reference.
Winning the Sun Valley conference gives your team the right to get beat by 80 by Kansas.

His team only played against a single ranked team (North Carolina) all season.
He played pretty poorly in that one.
He also played pretty poorly in the two tournaments his team made (The WAC championship and the NIT).

Not a very good sample size or anything like that but to say he played well against quality college teams is flat out wrong.

I don't think he has done much to prove he is NBA ready.
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I listed his game by game results against "good" teams in another thread. You said he padded his numbers against bad teams, when actually they were roughly the same against the "good" teams. Plus, he played in a conference with 2 NCCA tournament teams; the same number the Pac 10 had last season.

Opinions are fun, but I don't understand why you keep flogging this horse when the facts say otherwise. Babbitt chose Nevada, but he was offered by Ohio State and turned them down. It's not like he is some unknown like Gordon Hayward; Babbitt was a McDonald's All-American who at times dominated national AAU tournaments.
 
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