2012 NBA Draft: Observations, Part 2

Warriors GM Bob Myers is "thrilled." It's also funny that over 10% of respondants in that poll think Marquis Teague or Terrence Jones will have the best NBA career of the Kentucky draftees.

Least Believable Comment of the Night

Midway through the second round, Golden State GM Bob Myers was being interviewed about his club’s draft haul of Harrison Barnes (#7), Festus Ezeli (#30), and Draymond Green (#35). With piercing eyes and an unflinching face that never smiled—in fact, he looks like a state trooper who just knocked on your door in the middle of the night to tell you how sorry he is—told the crew that “We’re thrilled,” and “We couldn’t be happier.” I’m guessing he really could have been based on how hard the Warriors tanked down the stretch but still didn’t land a top-3 pick, and the fact he never looked thrilled or happy in the least.

Best Obviously-Planned-In-Advance Line of the Night

As the analysts discussed how bad Charlotte’s season was before the Bobcats made the second pick of the draft, Rece Davis said of their .106 winning percentage: “It looks like a breathalyzer after half an O’Doul’s.”

Players Who Fit Their New Teams For One Reason or Another

Houston brought in Jeremy Lamb (#12) to presumably replace Kevin Martin, Phoenix brought in Kendall Marshall (#13) to replace Steve Nash, Milwaukee added yet another long-armed shot blocker to their mix of Samuel Dalembert, Larry Sanders, and Ekpe Udoh with John Henson (#14), Philly added yet another athletic 2/3/4 guy who plays D when they took Moe Harkless (#15), Orlando is clearly trying to provide a safety valve for Dwight Howard in the middle by taking the very good center combo of Andrew Nicholson (#19) and Kyle O’Quinn (#49), Memphis GM Chris Wallace added to his strong history of poor drafts by taking a completely undisciplined  PG with no sense of running a team in Tony Wroten (#25), Indiana took a big guy who looks like he’s straight out of “Hoosiers” with Miles Plumlee (#26), New York picked up a little-known second rounder who got booed but who has what it takes to be the next Landry Fields with Kostas Papanikolaou (#48), and the Lakers got another second rounder who could pan out and reminds everyone of Andrew Goudelock when they bought Dallas’ late selection of  Darius Johnston-Odom (#55).

The Newest Thing To Say at the Draft To Appear Like You Know What You’re Talking About

About a week ago, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski started sticking up for Austin Rivers (#10) by saying he’ll be a better NBA player than college player. Of course we have no evidence to support this statement, particularly since at Duke he was playing in a tightly controlled situation that Rivers certainly needs since he’s liable to just do whatever the hell hero-ball thing he wants whenever he’s given any freedom at all (often compared to Kobe in that regard), so allowing him to have an even crappier shot selection without being put in place by a coach (very difficult to do in the NBA based on how much players make) is probably not a situation that helps him – especially when one considers Duke’s fairly blah history of spitting out players who lived up to their college billing. Well we heard more of this nonsense about Rivers last night, and then it came up again after Harrison Barnes (#7) became a Warrior. Barnes is a spot-up shooter who can’t drive or complete an assisting pass against college defenders, so throwing around this statement is not convincing now that he’s facing really athletic defenders. Jay Bilas implied that Meyers Leonard (#11), known for his sub-par motor and focus, would get better at the next level as well when he said “he’s still learning how to play.” I guess if a player doesn’t look like he’s living up to his high school or athletic billing while in college, we now just say he’ll be a better pro and no one can argue with us since we’re making statements that can’t be substantiated and will be forgotten about in three years when it’s dead wrong. Just what we need, more filler that’s meant to sound good and less factual analysis.

ESPN is really getting behind Jay Bilas' love of "wingspan" - here they made a toxic superhero out of Moe Harkless' 7-feet wingspanLife Imitating TV Imitating Life

College basketball analyst Jay Bilas has been made fun of over the past few years for constantly harping on players’ great length and wingspan. Fans on Twitter, Bill Simmons, etc. have jokingly referred to drinking games based on his affinity for describing how long a prospect’s arms are, and apparently none of this is lost on Bilas. As ESPN’s crew gushed about Anthony Davis, Bilas explained that the #1 selection has “wingspan, wingspan, wingspan,” which he followed up with his own I-can-joke-about-myself comment of “tip it back three times America.”

Continuation of Red Flags, Even On Draft Night

We’ve heard since he was in high school that Andre Drummond (#9) is tough to motivate. We saw his inconsistency and lackadaisical approach to the game at UConn, and recently we heard people make up the excuse that he was in a topsy-turvy program and it’s tough to be motivated in that environment (again, we knew about Drummond’s motivation and consistency problems before college). So how did he convince us his head was in order at the draft? First, he was crying at his green room table before he was even picked. I’m all for a draftee showing emotion after his name gets called, but there’s not a good history of irrationally emotional draftees keeping it together in the league (check out Marbury when he was picked – total s-storm). Drummond also has a perpetually sleepy look on his face – not good. And then he weakly tried to explain that he’ll “work hard” and “give it his all every day,” which his agent clearly scripted for him to say so that some people might be convinced that a guy who obviously hasn’t worked hard for years will suddenly do it now that he’s handed millions of dollars.

To Clear Up This Perpetuating Confusion

Everyone and their mother has been trying to compare the 3-point shooting of Bradley Beal (#3) to that of future Hall of Famer Ray Allen. The most basic issue with this statement is that Beal was a 33% shooter from distance last year at Florida, a below-average mark. Allen on the other hand shot 45% from behind the arc while at UConn, including 40% as a freshman. Jay Bilas tried to address this mathematical problem by stating that "by the end of the year, he [Beal] really started to shoot the way people like." I'll bite - let's check out how much he improved by the conclusion of his freshman season. Over the Gators' final 10 games, Beal made 18 of 51 threes, or 35% of them. Sorry Washington fans, but this Wall-Beal backcourt may not work out as well as you hope it does.