I’d like to say that while draft night is almost always my favorite sports night of the year (depending on what happens on All Star Saturday Night), last night was nobody’s favorite night in even as short of a span as a week. The reason I didn’t post my remarks about the draft last night was that I was watching CNN about Michael until about 7:45 and then went back and started the draft from my DVR at 7:00. As there aren’t really commercials during the draft, I caught up at #57. I couldn’t check the thread because it would have spoiled the picks for me. I’ll give you guys a rundown now of what my thoughts were at the time.

STUDS

1. Milwaukee Bucks - This was an unbelievable. They took Brandon Jennings, who I love, at #10 and then took one of my 2nd round sleepers, Jodie Meeks, in the 2nd round. I’m shocked.

2. San Antonio Spurs – I’m not sure how they pulled this off. They got three 2nd rounders from other teams and somehow got a big man to replenish their bench who some say went 20 picks too late (DeJaun Blair), a pure scorer who is tough as nails and can give them offense when ever they need it (Jack McClinton) and a foreign player to stash away who has a pretty decent chance of panning out (Nando De Colo). It’s like the other teams want the Spurs dynasty not to die.

3. Houston Rockets – Well, the Rockets didn’t really have picks… until they bought them. This is a strategy that was employed by Portland once upon a time. What you do is this: trade the picks you have for players that you want to teams that want players in the draft and then use money to buy up guys that you liked but you thought went too low. When you offer a million or so for guys that went at #40something, teams tend to take it. The idea is that you can’t possibly gauge where guys will go. This way, you just find guys afterwards that you think went too low. The Rockets bought #32 Jermaine Taylor from the Wiz, #34 Sergio Llull from the Thunder, and #45 Chase Budinger from the Pistons. All three of these guys might come and help and all they needed to give away was a future 2nd rounder and a bunch of cash. Brilliant. Daryl Morey strikes again.

4. Atlanta Hawks – They got Jeff Teague. Well, they needed a point guard and they got a guy that I thought was going too low in the draft in the first place. Teague at #19? They get my approval. Then they took the 20 -year-old Sergiy Gladyr from the Ukraine (which we all know is not at all weak). He’s a pretty good guard who can keep himself busy in Europe until they need him.

5. Philadelphia 76ers - I’m no big Jrue Holiday fan or anything, but they got him at #17. That’s insane. He was a top 5 talent last year. If they can rescue even half of that talent, they have a huge steal.

DUDS

1. Indiana Pacers – I’m not actually that down on Hansbrough, it’s just that the Pacers needed a point guard and used the #13 on Psycho T instead of Lawson, Teague, Holiday, and Maynor who were all still on the board. Then they went and took A.J. Price who is injured and a million years old and also not a point guard, even though Patty Mills was still (nobody knows how) on the board! Holy crap. Epic fail.

2. New Orleans Hornets – They needed a back-up point guard and a power forward. They took Darren Collison at #21. This was really high. They could have had him at #41. They then took Marcus Thornton from LSU who I’m not sure is any good and is a shooting guard. They just confused me.

3. Memphis Grizzlies – While I expected to put them at #1 on this list on the basis of drafting Thabeet at #2, they salvaged things a little by drafting Sam Young in the 2nd round (despite the fact that Young was supposed to go to a team that was playoff ready because he’s like 34 or whatever) and DeMarre Carroll because they needed toughness. They still took Thabeet though.

4. Detroit Pistons – They need to stop thinking of themselves as a playoff team if this is what they are going to do. I don’t object to Austin Daye, in fact I like his game a lot, but #15 was a little high and he’s headed to the NBDL. Then they took DaJaun Summers who is incapable of dribbling a basketball and has no awesome single skill that would drive him into an NBA rotation. Wow. They took Jonas Jerebko who is not bad as a prospect, but is again, a prospect.

5. Washington Wizards – Realistically, they got better with the trade. But the trade was made on the basis of Rubio not being on the board at #5 and then he was. They missed out on having Rubio which combined with a trade with the Clippers that was rumored, would have given the Wiz a starting lineup of Rubio, Arenas, Butler, Jamison, and Camby with a bench of Stevenson, Blatche, McGee, and Haywood. That is better than what they ended up with. I was crushed when Rubio was picked at #5 as were many Wiz fans.

Honorable mentions go to the Sixers for getting Holiday all the way down at #17, and to the Kings and Thunder for mishandling the Rubio situation.

Guyinthecorner is an author here at spartyandfriends.com. He writes the NBA section, X-Games section, and contributes to College Basketball and MLB. He doesn’t watch hockey except when the circumstances are dire. He’s not sure how to rate Michael Phelps on the scale of athletes not only because he doesn’t directly compete against people, but because he is a fish. He doesn’t understand the hate for the 2002 National Champion Maryland Terrapins and wishes everybody would just shut up by now. He is known for having statistical formulas and might be Bill James or Joe Lunardi depending on who you ask. His identity is as hidden as many times over as the number of internet memes he employs in his comments. Some have called him “The Riddler.” He can be reached at gitc@spartyandfriends.com. “GITC” is an acronym for guyinthecorner in case you aren’t that perceptive.

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