Pre-Draft Link Drop

With the Draft coming on Thursday I thought I would pass on some reading material draft related. I also have some things that are completely unrelated to the draft. I don't know where that first image came from but I would like to go there. Hold on.

Couple days ago, Benny asked me what I thought of Rashad McCants' trade value. I don't know but Rashad thinks he should be playing more.

This past year after working extremely hard to recover from microfracture surgury, I found myself coming of the bench being the sixth man and the second leading scorer. The only bad part about it was that I could have been twice as productive with more minutes. I would have been able to meet my individual goals, we could have won more games, and I'd be on my way to being a respected player in the NBA.

Jon Marthaler from over at TNABACG disagrees with the kid. He had this over at twolvesblog.

A few weeks ago I was in a mock-draft over in the Swamp, here's the results if you're interested:

1. Chicago - Michael Beasley, PF, Kansas State
2. Miami - Derrick Rose, PG, Memphis
3. Minnesota -Brook Lopez, C, Stanford
4. Seattle - Darrell Arthur, PF, Kansas
5. Memphis - Kevin Love, PF, UCLA
6. New York - Jerryd Bayless, PG, Arizona
7. L.A. Clippers - O.J. Mayo, SG, USC
8. Milwaukee - Eric Gordon, SG, Indiana
9. Charlotte - DeAndre Jordan, C, Texas A&M
10. New Jersey - Danilo Gallinardi, SF, Italy
11. Indiana - Russell Westbrook, PG, UCLA
12. Sacramento - DJ Augustine, PG, Texas
13. Portland - Joe Alexander, SF, West Virginia
14. Golden State - Anthony Randolph, PF, LSU
15. Phoenix (from ATL) - Brandon Rush, SG/SF, Kansas
16. Philadelphia - Donte' Greene, SF, Syracuse
17. Toronto - Nicholas Batum, F, France
18. Washington - Marreese Speights, PF/C, Florida
19. Cleveland - J. J. Hickson, PF, NC State
20. Denver -Mario Chalmers, PG, Kansas
21. New Jersey (from DAL) - JaVale McGee, C, Nevada
22. Orlando - Kosta Koufos, C, Ohio State
23. Utah - Roy Hibbert, C, Georgetown
24. Seattle (from PHX) - Chase Budinger, SF, Arizona
25. Houston -Robin Lopez, C, Sanford
26. San Antonio – Alexis Ajinca, C, France
27. New Orleans - Chris Douglas-Roberts, SG, Memphis
28. Memphis (from LAL) – Bill Walker, SF, Kansas State
29. Detroit – Jason Thompson, PF, Rider

This was started about 3 weeks ago so somethings have changed, people have fallen, some have risen. I selected Brook Lopez, but if I were to do it over again I would probably do if differently. Before I state who I would take I will give you a paragraph neubie wrote a bit back:

As for OJ Mayo, I don't think I've wanted a soon to be professional athlete fail more than I do this guy. Since I first heard the story of him walking into USC coach Tim Floyd's office and recruiting himself to the school, I have wished for his demise. It only got worse on hearing about and seeing the tape of him throwing an alley-oop to himself towards the end of a 40 point State Championship Game blowout and then getting ejected from his final game for chucking the ball into the stands. This might even be tolerable, if not excusable, but then he walked around the court, hands held high, basking in the cascading cheers of the crowd like some Roman Gladiator just having defeated a wildebeest. Only this is a high school kid, and it just proves what kind of cocky, attention hogging idiot this guy really is. The sad thing is, he has sick basketball talent and that will land him in a high spot in the upcoming NBA draft and probably some endorsement deals with Sunny D and Hellman's.

With that taken care of, I would like to say I had similar feelings about Mayo at first too. I felt pretty similar when all this came out even. But as of right now I hope that we can select OJ Mayo at the 3rd pick.

The Big Lead has been previewing each team prior to the draft for the last few weeks. Today they had the Wolves. TBL thinks we should take Lopez. I disagree. Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo Mayo. Hew, got that out of the system.

Speaking of TBL if you're missing the feud going on over there, I suggest you check it out. The following is a cronological series of links of this (in Barriero's words) Kerfuffle.

LATimes.

TBL

Deadspin

Some guy ripping the shit out of Will Leitch.

I'm sure there is more out there but this is the way I read it. It's a long read, but if you're familiar with any of TBL's work or Deadspin, it's very interesting.

You have to love Jerry Zgoda's headline over at the startrib.

McHale not sure of Wolves' draft strategy

This could either be a future piece or a historic piece. It's just really funny hard to tell just from the headline.

Well I may write something up tomorrow after the EuroCup game. If not after the draft it will happen for sure. By the way whatever happened to that Bracey kid?