Rush The Court

According to this report from CBS Sports, earlier today the NCAA passed legislation regarding a subject they’ve been talking about tackling for years, specifically that of basketball programs hiring “anyone associated with a basketball recruit for a two-year period before or after the player enrolls at the school.”  Gone, therefore, are the days when a coach could entice a prized recruit to play at his program by also offering up a job as an assistant coach or administrative assistant (fill in whatever title you wish) to the recruit’s high school or AAU coach, or to a family member.

Don’t be fooled — this tactic is as much in practice today as it was in the past.  A piece by the inestimable Andy Katz published at ESPN.com back in September brought up the matter of Louisville’s Rick Pitino hiring an assistant coach from star recruit Marquis Teague’s high school team as an assistant at the U of L program, and that many people are questioning the timing.  At the beginning of the article he cites several examples of programs hiring associates/family members to help land recruits: during Bob Huggins’ one year at Kansas State, the program hired UNC-Charlotte assistant Dalonte Hill (Michael Beasley’s AAU coach); Beasley decided to get out of his initial commitment to Charlotte and head to K-State soon after.  Danny Manning’s father was on Kansas’ staff during the Danny and the Miracles title year, and Mario Chalmers’ father was a staff member on their championship team from two years ago.  John Calipari hired Milt Wagner to his staff right around the time that his son, prized prepster DaJuan Wagner, had signed with Memphis.  It’s true, in each of these situations, there were reasons to hire the associate/family member other than their relation to the star player, and many of them were in their positions before and after the player came or left.  The point is, though, that shady or not, this stuff happens.  We know why it happens.  And the NCAA has now attempted to do something about it.

Read the rest of this entry »

As if we weren’t already immature enough here at RTC, this season we figured we’d regress further into our childhood years and come up with a Christmas list, each participant naming one or two things we’d like for ourselves and/or the game of college basketball.  As you can see, the answers ranged from the practical to the impossible, the civil to the…well, hostile.  Above all, we hope that you, our faithful readers, will have a happy, healthy, hoop-filled holiday season.  Enjoy the list, and thanks for being here.

Zeitlin totally owns this tie. No need to get it for him.

rtmsf, RTC founder/editor/contributor:

All I want for Christmas this year is for a titanium-based super extra force field with double-secret password protection to be built on, around, above and under the current NCAA Tournament format.  Seriously, I want this thing to be more hermetically sealed than Tiger Woods’ brand-new Swiss bank accounts or Jerry Jones’ new face.  Please, Santa, no matter what the rest of these guys ask for — the new rear spoiler for nvr1983, a clue with the ladies for Stevens, that ridiculous jumpsuit for Hayes, and whatever Penn nonsense Zeitlin wants this year — just throw away their lists.   Please.  The single most important thing you’ll find on anyone’s list this year is mine (ok, I say that every year, but I mean it this time).  The possibility that some television money-men and NCAA decisionmakers long on greed but short on perspective and common sense support the idea of expanding the single most exciting and grand spectacle in all of sports to 96 teams should appall your jolly sensibilities.  If you can make this happen, Santa, I promise to be good all year round; I’ll even send in that cash pledge this year I keep promising to do but never do, I swear.   Thanks.

–Signed, 65 is Enough.

Hands OFF.

nvr1983, RTC  editor/contributor:

1. The NCAA finally gets a sense of reality and actually go after some big name programs instead of focusing on the relatively little guys.  Sure, Memphis and Renardo Sidney were involved in some shady dealings, but was it any worse than what USC has done over the past decade?
2. Have ESPN get ESPNU on every major cable provider or at least put those games on ESPN360.com
3. Go back to 64 teams.  Forget this talk about 96 teams.  I don’t even want the 65th team.  The play-in game has been a joke for years and everybody knows it.  It cheapens the tournament by making the official start of the tournament a game that even die-hard fans don’t care about.
4. Someone needs to fix this one-and-done rule.  I love watching these guys—Kevin Durant, Michael Beasley, Derrick Rose, and John Wall—play, but I know that I will never get to see them mature in the college setting. Either make them stay 4 years or let them enter the draft right out of high school.
5. Fire the guy running the clock at Hinkle.  Somebody has to get some coal this Christmas…

Here's your 1.3 seconds.

John Stevens, RTC editor/contributor:

I can’t lie, there are some things I want for the other guys.  Heck, this is the giving season, right?  I’d like nvr to remember how to sleep, since he rarely gets to.  I think it’d be nice if rtmsf’s, er, “rash” finally cleared up.  And yeah, there are some things I’d like for myself.  Michelle Beadle’s phone number.  Fran Fraschilla’s tweeting abilities.  But those are things I’d rather earn of my own efforts.  As far as gifts that revolve around college hoops, there’s just no way I can limit it to one thing.  Yes, I’m that selfish.  But I think I want things that everyone wants, so I’m willing to share.  I’d like Gus Johnson and Bill Raftery to be the implied #1 announcing crew for any weekend CBS game, even though I still love and respect Enberg, Lundquist, Elmore, Bilas, et al.  I’d like fewer TV timeouts.  I’d like the NCAA Tournament to be freaking left alone.  But most of all, what I want is for the rest of the season to be free of major injuries.  The Evan Turner fall was scary and he’s lucky it wasn’t worse than just a couple of fractured transverse processes.  After Derrick Roland broke his leg last night I went outside and sat in my car for half an hour just to avoid the television.  That’s gotta be it for the gruesome injuries.  I don’t want to watch Kansas or Kentucky or Duke or Texas or anyone come tournament time and think, “That’s not the same team, compared to when they had (x).”  It’s been too fun of a season so far to have some team’s chances ruined by a misstep or a freak accident.

"Rise and FIRE...." "ONIONS, Mr. Johnson!!" It has to happen.

Zach Hayes, RTC Bracketologist-in-Residence:

This one might cause some controversy, but I’d ask Santa for some duct tape for Dick Vitale.  Watching the Texas-UNC game on Saturday sent me over the edge.  His shameless self-promotion and constant hyperbole is incredibly irritating and the man fails to make one cogent basketball point from an analytical perspective the entire telecast.  His quirks and habits get extremely tiresome by December.  While others like Bill Raftery have their fun, they bring to the broadcast a true sense of the intricacies of basketball to further my understanding of the sport.  Jay Bilas is constantly providing enlightening analysis and former coaches like Bob Knight and Steve Lavin are tremendous.  Yet ESPN keeps giving us Dick Vitale in the biggest games so he can yell things like “I’ll tell you, Ed Davis has talent!” and “go onto dickvitale.com for my freshman of the year, coach of the year, fans of the year…”  It’s enough.  Santa, send me some duct tape so I never have to hear that old man screaming again.

We'll go ahead and cancel that interview request...

Dave Zeitlin, RTC Ivy League Correspondent and feature writer for Backdoor Cuts:

What I really want for the holidays is for Penn to beat Duke on New Year’s Eve.  But since the odds of that happening are about as slim as Isiah Thomas doing one good thing in his life, I have another wish.  I want big-conference coaches to stop whining about tournament expansion.  I mean, really?  Everyone knows college football is a joke because of the BCS, but let’s not turn college basketball into a joke on the other end of the spectrum by completely diluting the regular season.  Yes, I like the idea of more mid-major teams getting berths, which would be a side benefit to tournament expansion.  But here’s a better solution for that:  limit the number of berths for big-conference teams.  How about you have to have a .500 record in the conference and finish in the top half of your league to be eligible?  I’m tired of the sense of entitlement some of these coaches have.  You have a whole season AND a conference tournament to be one of the 65 teams to make the Big Dance — that should be enough.  Most of these guys should take a lesson from Bill Carmody, who in nine seasons at Northwestern has never guided the Wildcats to the NCAA touranament.  Still, he is against expansion, saying it would make every game a little less meaningful.  Merry Christmas, Bill.  I like you even though you coached at Princeton.

Mr. Zeitlin declines. But gives credit where it's due.

The nation’s presumptive #1 player in the Class of 2010, Harrison Barnes, will make his college choice official this afternoon at 4pm ET on ESPNU.  Nervous but hopeful coaches and fans from his top choices of Iowa State, UNC, Duke, UCLA, Oklahoma and Kansas will all be tuning in at the end of the work day to hear whether it will be their favorite school that makes a huge leap in Final Four potential and a national title chances in 2010-11.  According to Seth Davis, nobody but nobody knows what Barnes is going to do this afternoon, so let’s briefly break down each of his choices (in no particular order) to see what makes the most sense for the 6′7 superstar from Ames, Iowa.

• Iowa State – Never count out the hometown school.  ISU is a stone’s throw from Ames High School, and Barnes is undoubtedly familiar with the campus, players and coaches to a degree much more than the others.  In fact, his mother works there.  Stud inside force Craig Brackins is likely to be in the NBA in 2010-11, but Barnes could potentially be seen as a savior in much the same way Michael Beasley was for the Kansas State program in 2007-08.  Similarly, his presence at ISU, even for one season, could impact the recruiting fortunes of the Cyclones for the next five years. 
• UNC – Roy Williams never lacks for talent, but he could use an elite scoring wing next season to supplement his formidable size inside.  The 6′10 freshman John Henson is currently playing that role, so there could be a little bit of an overlap if Henson develops into a very nice player this year and sticks around in 2010-11.  Still, Roy has often had multiple Burger Boys at each position, so it wouldn’t shock us if Barnes signs with UNC today and if you’re listening to people around Barnes, MJ (who else?) is his idol.
• Duke – Necessity, meet invention.  If Duke lands Barnes this afternoon, the Devils will immediately shoot to the top of the 2010-11 ratings.  We’ve covered this before, but assuming that Kyle Singler sticks around for his senior year, there’s no other team in America who will have the firepower that a lineup of Kyrie Irving, Seth Curry, Harrison Barnes, Kyle Singler and Mason (or Miles) Plumlee could bring to bear.  That’s a NASTY lineup, and Barnes is tailor-made for Duke’s system of slashing and shooting.  If Barnes is ok with leaving his home state (and we think he is), this is our projection as to where he lands.
• UCLA – Ultimately, this choice depends on how much the winters of Ames suck compared to those in Westwood (and we’re pretty sure they do).  If Barnes had an unbelievable visit at UCLA, this is a possible choice, but we wouldn’t call it probable.  Plus, some of the same issues that UNC has about obvious playing time exist, with the young forward corps of Drew Gordon, Tyler Honeycutt and Malcolm Lee likely to return in 2010-11.
• Oklahoma - Jeff Capel has been a surpisingly good recruiter thus far as the head coach at Oklahoma, and the mere fact that Barnes is listing OU as a finalist belies that point.  With Blake Griffin and Willie Warren, Capel will have had consecutive all-americans who both stayed in school for at least two seasons.  And with Tony Crocker entering his senior season, the minutes will be plentiful on the wing should Barnes alight to Norman.  Still, we just don’t see it happening.  Other than the hometown school, one of these five out-of-state schools isn’t like the others, so it would be a tremendous coup if Capel pulls this one off.
• Kansas – Bill Self is clearly hoping that if he loses star freshman wing Xavier Henry after one season, he’ll have Barnes waiting in the wings to replace him in 2010.  And it makes sense.  Regardless of what happens this year, KU will definitely lose team leader Sherron Collins and probably lose Cole Aldrich inside.  The Henry brothers are also possibilities.  Just to be clear, Kansas doesn’t re-build, but it would be unreasonable to expect next season to be as rife with possibility as the current one, even with Barnes on board.  The minutes will be there if Henry leaves, but Barnes can’t possibly know that now. 

Here’s our completely speculative projection of Barnes’ list a mere 2.5 hours before he unveils his top choice. 

1. Duke - everything makes sense for Barnes there – title contention, PT, academics.
2. Iowa State – the hometown school is always in play.
3. UNC - Roy is a master salesman, but how does he explain the Henson situation?
4. Kansas - Bill Self could be telling him that Henry is likely to leave, therefore the wing is all Barnes all the time.
5. UCLA - the weather won’t supplant the other issues (minutes, perceived style of play).
6. Oklahoma – Capel should be happy to have just gotten onto his list.

Keep up with all the Harrison Barnes hype this afternoon at the Des Moines Register’s page devoted to him.

Yes, we know that our headline brought you here expecting to see prurient details of Rick Pitino’s latest escapades on shag carpet, but we (and presumably, he) are trying to get back to basketball.  According to Zagsblog today, Louisville has hired Indianapolis Pike head coach Shabaka Lands as its new “Special Assistant to the Coach.”  [insert special assistant to Pitino joke here]  Why is this important?  Well, much in the same way that Michael Beasley followed AAU coach Dalonte Hill to K-State, Marquis Teague, the #1 PG in the class of 2011, goes to Pike and Louisville is rather high on his list.  This isn’t an illegal maneuver (although it should be), but it’s awfully coincidental.  As TBL wrote today, with John Calipari at UK gaining inroads with any and every recruit he wants, Pitino can’t afford another whiff on a major recruit like Teague.  Expect to see Marquis heading to the River City two years from now (unless more of Pitino’s abandoned fetuses start washing up on the shores of the Ohio River).

We have mentioned Gary Williams and his struggles to keep his Maryland program relevant since Juan Dixon left College Park, Maryland, but it looks like he might he temporarily fixed one of the many problems with a commitment from Terrence Ross, a 2010 recruit from Montrose Christian (same high school as Kevin Durant) in Maryland. Ross is a 6′5″ SG who transferred to Montrose from Portland, OR before his junior year. Even though he only averaged 13.5 PPG this year (partly attributable to playing alongside Mouphtaou Yarou, a senior who is ranked 10th in Rivals Top 150), he is a 4-star recruit who is ranked 31st in his class by Rivals with some ridiculous athleticism (see below).

Keeping an in-state star might not seem like a big deal to most people (especially when you’re the only legit program in the state), but it is from Williams who has lost a bevy of stars (Kevin Durant, Michael Beasley, and Ty Lawson) to out-of-state programs in recent years as well as the aforementioned Yarou, who signed with Villanova. While this might not necessarily mean that Williams has righted the Terrapin ship, it is certainly a very good start.

With all the suspense on college campuses about whether or not underclassmen will be leaving perhaps the least suspenseful announcement of the week came earlier today when everybody’s national Player of the Year Blake Griffin announced that he will forgo his final 2 years of eligibility to enter the NBA Draft. In his second year at Oklahoma, Griffin became the 3rd straight national player of year from the Big 12 (save your e-mails and comments UNC fans; we both know that Michael Beasley deserved it last year).

Griffin, who averaged 22.7 PPG and 14.4 RPG, was clearly the best player in college this season and was only derailed in the Elite 8 by eventual champion UNC when his Sooner teammates went 2/19 from 3-point range. Even in defeat, Griffin showed everyone why he will be the most clear-cut #1 pick since LeBron James in 2003 as he dominated Tyler Hansbrough and the other UNC interior players. Griffin finished the year with 30 double-doubles (second all-time to only David Robinson’s 31) and 504 rebounds (second all-time to only Larry Bird’s 505).

While everyone knows that Griffin will go #1 (assuming some brain-dead NBA GM doesn’t do something completely insane–not outside the realm of possibilities), the big question is what will happen in Norman where Jeff Capel turned down numerous job offers to stay as the Oklahoma head coach. The Sooners will be losing Taylor Griffin, Austin Johnson, and Omar Leary with only the first 2 contributing significantly. Although the Sooners will certainly take a step back next year, they can still compete in the top half of the Big 12 next year if freshman Willie Warren can resist the temptation of the money that comes with being a lottery pick and sticks around Norman for another year (or two). With a nucleus of Warrnen, Tony Crocker, and Juan Pattillo, Capel has a team that should challenge Kansas and Texas next year.

In our attempt to provide you with the best college basketball coverage on the Internet, RTC is starting the “Boom goes the dynamite!” project. Yes, it’s a blatant rip-off of Deadspin’s Hugh Johnson Project for college football, but we have found someone who does something similar for college basketball, which is a vastly superior sport. This will be an evolving project so you may see a complete different format next week or even tomorrow as we figure out how to make this better. One thing you may notice is that my coverage of the games on TV may be a little spotty at times, but that’s partially a result of there being 5 early games being broadcast on my TV and the fact that the RTC East Coast HQ only has one television. [We're the fiscally responsible RTC office.]

For those of you who are totally confused by the title, it’s a reference to one of the greatest sports news videos of all-time featuring Brian Collins, then a freshman at Ball State, trying his hand at broadcast journalism. The hilarious result:

For our opening weekend, we’ll primarily be covering top 25 games (due to our lack of resources) unless something notable happens in another game.

Noon Games
#11 Clemson def. NC State, 63-51: NC State was able to keep this game close for 25 minutes (tied at 33 at that point) before Clemson went on a 24-10 run to blow the game wide open. A pretty ugly game overall with NC State shooting 31.5% from the field and having only one player (Courtney Fells) scoring in double digits with 10 points. Trevor Booker was the only good player on the court with 23 points, 6 rebounds, and 6 blocks. Not much else to say here since the game was at Littlejohn Coliseum and I don’t think NC State is that good (all of their most impressive games this year have ended in losses). If you want to know what we think of the Tigers, check back with us after the 17th when they play Wake Forest.

#21 Louisville def. #17 Villanova, : After the Cardinals led by as much as 11 points in the 2nd half, Villanova came storming back to cut it just 3 point game with just under 6 minutes left. Louisville was hurt by its inability to connect from long range (3-for-25) and Samardo Samuels (15 points and 4 rebounds) fouling out with 4:43 left. For the next 2 minutes, the game continue at a frenetic pace before Dante Cunningham (a game-high 21 points) hit a 15-footer from the corner to give Villanova their first lead all day at 58-57 with 3:06 left. Rick Pitino immediately called a timeout to tell his entire team they could transfer calm down his team. The final 3 minutes were “highlighted” by both team’s inability to hit shots until Terrence Williams (12 points, 15 rebounds, and 6 assists) made a driving lay-up with 12 seconds left that must have bounced around the rim for 2-3 seconds. After that huge basket, Louisville tried to double-team Scottie Reynolds on the inbounds, but Villanova was able to find a streaking Corey Fisher who found himself with a 2-on-1 and dished it to Antonio Pena (solid with 14 points and 8 rebounds) who was fouled with 4.9 seconds left. Pena missed both FTs, but Louisville was unable to handle the rebound and Villanova got the ball back with 4 seconds left. They ran a good play coming out of a timeout finding Cunningham underneath for a contested layup, but he missed that and his teammates missed 2 more tips giving the Cardinals a hard-fought road win.

#15 Marquette def. #22 West Virginia, 73-55: This game was a lot closer than the final score indicates. The Golden Eagles only led 51-48 with 7:55 left then went on a 22-7 run to close it out. Jerel McNeal was the best player on the court with 26 points and 7 rebounds. The Golden Eagles also had a big edge at the FT line going a Duke-like 24-for-27 from the line compared to the Mountaineers 6-for-10. Bob Huggins will have 2 easy games (Marshall and USF at home) to get the Mountaineers playing well again before returning to the Big East gauntlet with games against Georgetown and Pittsburgh.

#25 Tennessee def. Georgia, 86-77: This was a game of big runs. Fortunately for Bruce Pearl, his team had the last one. The Volunteers, who will likely be out of the top 25 in the next poll, had to come through down the stretch after the Bulldogs took the lead 74-73 with 3:17 left. Tyler Smith led the Vols to victory with 24 points and 11 rebounds. Bruce Pearl will need his team to step it up as their next 7 games are tough (by SEC standards). After coming into the season as the heavy favorites to win the SEC, the Vols have failed to live up to expectations and will likely face a tough challenge from an underrated Arkansas team.

1 PM & 2 PM Games
#2 Duke def. FSU, 66-58: You’ll have a hard time finding a stranger game. After the ugliest first half you will ever see, Duke led 19-14 at break. After that the Blue Devils came out on fire in the 2nd half opening up a 46-21 lead with 12:48 left. Then FSU came back to cut it to 50-40 with 6 minutes to go. Duke held on to win, but FSU earned a lot of respect with that near comeback. Gerald Henderson led Duke win a career-high 25 points. Jay Bilas was correct in pointing out that this year’s Duke team has a lot higher ceiling than last year’s team because of Henderson’s development. Teams should watch out for the Seminoles who played #1 Pittsburgh tough earlier this year. Am I the only one who heard the douchebag behind the ESPN announcers yelling “The Cameron Crazies suck!” and “We want Paulus!”? I guess when you go to a school with girls as hot as they have at FSU you shouldn’t expect to have the most intelligent crowds.

#6 Oklahoma def. Kansas State, 61-53: Blake Griffin is a beast. That’s about all there is to say about this game. Griffin put up 29 points and 15 rebounds. I would have liked to have seen the #6 team in the country win this game by more, but it’s a conference road game so I guess the Sooners still have to be happy. It’s too bad we couldn’t see Griffin matched up against Michael Beasley, who is having fun coming off the bench in Miami this winter. Monday will be the big test for Oklahoma as Texas comes up to Norman in a match-up that will help determine the best team in the Big 12.

#8 Michigan State def. Kansas, 75-62: After a slow start the Spartans opened up a big lead (37-18 at half) and continued to hold it for most of the 2nd half, but the Jayhawks showed a lot of poise at coming back to make it a close game. Kalin Lucas and Raymar Morgan helped the Spartans counter a strong game from Sherron Collins (25 points and 8 assists, but 8 turnovers).

#10 Georgetown def. Providence, 82-75: Georgetown had to rally to win this game as they trailed by as many as 9 in the first half. After a quiet first half, Greg Monroe ended up having the type of solid all-around game that makes NBA scouts drool (13 points, 11 rebounds, 8 assists, 5 steals, and 2 blocks).

#13 Notre Dame def. Seton Hall, 88-79: This was actually a tie game with 8 minutes left, but the Fighting Irish were able to pull out another win at the Joyce Center. Luke Harangody had a rough day from the field (8-for-24) but ended up with 30 points and 16 rebounds to lead Notre Dame to the win.

#16 Arizona State def. Oregon, 76-58: Not much to say here except that it’s amazing how far Oregon’s program has fallen. A solid if unspectacular game from Pac-10 POY candidate James Harden (19 points).

#20 Butler def. Detroit, 54-50: Butler came out flat in this one falling behind 26-22 at half to a team that came into the game 4-10. The scarier thing is that they were at home for this too. Matt Howard was the only player in double figures with 15 points. If there was ever a time you should have your ranking drop because of a win, this would be it. If I voted in the BlogPoll, I would kick Butler out of the top 25 for this “win”.

#23 Baylor def. Texas Tech, 73-61: Nice win for Baylor here as they were led by Kevin Rogers with his 14 points and 14 rebounds. They look like a solid #3 in the Big 12 after Texas and Oklahoma.

This is the last installment of Fast Breaks for the calendar year, but it’s a loaded one with lots of news before the New Year’s ball drops.

• After being spoiled by ridiculously talented freshmen the past two years (Kevin Durant, Derrick Rose, and Michael Beasley), it appears as if we have returned back to normal. While there are several talented diaper dandies out there, none of them has really caught our eye as the next big thing. Pete Thamel gives a short run-down of the candidates for freshman of the year at this point. I’d be interested to hear what you guys have to say about this year’s class because quite frankly I haven’t been that impressed.
• Syracuse has announced that Eric Devendorf will be reinstated and is expected to play this Tuesday against Seton Hall in their Big East opener. Devendorf has completed the necessary requirements (missing 2 games and performing 40 hours of community service) that the school’s University Appeals Board asked of him for hitting a female student in the face. I’m expecting this to have some sort of anti-Sterger effect on female applications to Syracuse.
• Jai Lucas appears to have found a new home in Austin, Texas with Rick Barnes and the Longhorns. Lucas decided to transfer out of Gainesville late this summer with most people speculating that it was based on a lack of expected PT in the upcoming season. I’m not exactly sure how going to a better program in Texas will lead to more minutes, but I guess Jai has his reasons.
• Speaking of the Gators. . .UF recruit Austin Rivers, son of Doc (the head coach of the world champion Boston Celtics), led his high school team to a win over nationally-ranked Marietta-Wheeler (GA). Rivers put up 46 points including 30 in the 1st half. We still don’t have word if Doc let him start the next game or made him play JV after his career night.
• In a surprising story, Anthony Crater, a highly rated PG coming out of high school last year, was granted a release from his scholarship by Thad Matta. I’d be interested in hearing some of the reasons behind this. It looks like Crater hasn’t been getting much time on the court this year, but it’s really early to be deciding to leave Ohio State just based on that. If any of the Buckeye fans (or haters) have the inside scoop, I would be interested to hear it.
• Seth Davis with a look back at the Super Saturday games and a few recommendations on how to make them even better. Seth might want to remember that the “antiseptic environments” he refers to from Super Saturday are probably better than where the Final 4 is played at every single year.
• Kansas will be adding another giant to their current crop with 7-foot tall Jeff Withey transferring from Arizona to Kansas. Withey’s decision appears to be related to Lute Olson’s retirement in October.
• The New York Times recently ran the inspiring story of Kevin Laue, who could probably beat any of our readers one-on-one despite the fact that he was born with one playing arm. It’s definitely worth a read and we wish Kevin the best of luck in his search for an offer from an Ivy League school.
• Think you have a rough week ahead of you? Try trading places with Rutgers coach Fred Hill who takes his Scarlet Knights up against #1 UNC, #2 UConn, and #3 Pittsburgh in the same week. On the bright side, only 2 of the 3 games are on the road so Hill at least gets a shot at Pittsburgh in New Jersey. I’m guessing their strength of schedule might go up a little bit this week.
• Kevin Armstrong with a look at the changes at Duke that have resulted from Nolan Smith replacing Greg Paulus as the team’s starting guard. While Paulus was often overmatched physically against bigger, stronger guards, I think he could make an excellent backup/change of pace for the Blue Devils in March as he rounds into shape.
• Rick Pitino wants you to know his team’s problems are all mental. He also wants you to know Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish will not be walking through that door.
• Apparently, Rick left a few of his books back in Rupp Arena because Billy Gillispie wants you to know that the Wildcats can get better. To be fair to Billy, the Wildcats have certainly been much better than what they were like at the beginning of the season, but I don’t think any of us have been wondering if the Wildcats have been playing great basketball recently.

It’s been a while since we did this consistently, but now that we actually know which games will be played more than 24 hours in advance it’s time to get back into our routine of providing you with the best college basketball links we find each day. If you find something that you think would be of interest to other college basketball fans, leave a link in the comment section and we’ll include it in the next Fast Breaks. Some of these are a few days old, but we have some catching up to do. . .

• Dana O’Neil with a look at the gray areas in recruiting top prospects. It makes us long for the days when Pete Bell bought Neon Bodeaux with a Lexus that he didn’t even ask for.
• Seth Davis with his annual “Ten sophomores ready to break out” selections, which selects the sophomores that he expects to have big years after relatively quiet freshman years. This eliminates obvious selections like early national POY favorite and thespian Blake Griffin.
• Kevin Armstrong with his very early season freshmen All-American. Having seen Greg Monroe against Tennessee last week (there’s a post coming about that someday) I agree with Armstrong’s assessment of the Hoyas big man although I wish Monroe would become a bit more aggressive, but I guess seeing freshmen like Kevin Durant and Michael Beasley has spoiled me.
• Xavier will have to wait one more year before Jordan Crawford can suit up there after the NCAA rejected his petition to not miss a season following his transfer from Indiana. Score another one for Kelvin Sampson.
• ESPN with a look at the transition at Bucknell. Do they really have NCAA 2nd round banners?
• We wrote about the passing of Pete Newell a few weeks ago, but last night approximately 200 people gathered in Berkeley, CA to remember him.
• It looks like Tyler Hansbrough is healthy enough to save lives. Last night, Tyler responded to the “challenge” posed by RTC columnist John Stevens. The question now is will Psycho T keep on playing or continue to be day-to-day?

We came across a really insightful article today by Bob McClellan on Rivals that analyzed assistant coaching salaries at the top fifteen schools (by final ranking) during the 2007-08 season.  Using FOIA again, McClellan discovered that there are significant inequities in what assistant coaches at several of these top public university programs are paid.  After we picked our jaw up off the floor from awe at the size of these salaries for the assistants (!!!), we immediately focused in on the anomaly that McClellan made the keystone of his story – Kansas State assistant coach Dalonte Hill was paid $400,000 last season and is set to make $420,000 this year.  From the article:

Hill, entering his sixth season as a college assistant, will make more money for the 2008-09 season than the entire three-man staffs at Ohio State, Washington State and Wisconsin and only $5,000 less than the staff at Texas, a survey done by Rivals.com shows. K-State released Hill’s contract in May. The school paid him $400,000 in 2007-08, and it will pay him $420,000 a year – $150,000 in base salary and $270,000 in “additional compensation,” defined as “television, radio, internet, promotional and other services” – for the next four years. He is entering his third year at K-State. Because private universities are not required to release salary information, it’s unknown whether Hill is the highest-paid assistant in college basketball. But based on Freedom of Information requests, Hill is far and away the highest-paid assistant among public universities that finished in the top 15 in the 2008 coaches’ postseason poll.

So what’s the catch here?  Why is Hill making literally hundreds of thousands of dollars more than his peers?  Oh, that. 

After three years with the [Charlotte] 49ers, Bob Huggins lured Hill to Kansas State. Hill was responsible for the recruitment of [Michael] Beasley, who stuck with his pledge to play for the Wildcats even though Huggins left for West Virginia after just one season.  Hill coached Beasley in the AAU ranks, and Beasley called him “like a big brother.” Beasley had committed to Charlotte while Hill was still there. When Huggins lured Hill to K-State, Beasley followed him. By then, Beasley had become the No. 1 prospect in the country.

So all of this talk got us to thinking…  Beasley spent one year at K-State and it’s been argued in this space before that in terms of exposure and notoriety for the program, Beasley was an absolute WIN, even though he only stuck around Manhattan, Kansas, for one season.  But to echo Howie Mandel, was it a good deal for KSU to pay Dalonte Hill so much money considering the financial impact that Beasley had on the program?  The answer, my friends, is a resounding yes. 

There are multiple ways to measure financial impact, but let’s keep this simple if we can.  We’re only going to consider television and NCAA Tournament revenue because we can easily measure it, although ticket and merchandise sales were both also marginally up for the 2007-08 season.

Television Revenue.  It’s difficult to find hard numbers on what FSN, ESPN and its family of networks pay schools per regular season basketball game, but this much we know to be true: for Big 12 football, ESPN pays $300k per game and FSN pays $150k per game.  Let’s halve that for basketball to $150k/$75k per game.  For ESPNU, ESPN+ and the FSN Regionals, let’s call it $50k per game.  Using this model, in 2006-07, with new coach Bob Huggins but no Michael Beasley, K-State played on ESPN/ABC a total of seven times ($1.05M).  The Wildcats played on ESPNU and the various regional channels another twenty times ($1.0M), which totals out just over $2M in television revenue  in 2006-07 (note: we didn’t speculate about the K-State local channel because it’s unlikely to be substantive).   In 2007-08, with Beasley in tow, K-State played on national television nine times ($1.35M), and the ESPNU/regionals a total of twenty-one times ($1.05M), for a net gain of $300K in television money with Beasley.   (quick note: the Big 12 only participates in limited television revenue sharing, favoring instead a system that favors the teams on television more often – all but one KSU game was televised last year).

NCAA Tournament.  The Big 12, like every other conference, shares NCAA Tournament revenue equally among its member institutions.  In a form of institutional socialism, each school that participates in a game in the Big Dance earns a “unit” of funds available – the more games played, the more units earned (e.g., the Big 12 earned 16 units last year).  The NCAA then takes a six-year average of these units and doles out the aptly-titled Basketball Fund to each league accordingly – truly a payment-for-performance system.  In 2006-07, the Big 12 earned $14.3M ($1.2M per school), and with help from K-State’s two units (the Beasley Effect), the Big 12 stands to earn $15.1M this year ($1.3M per school).  An extra $100k may not seem like much in a vacuum, but the NCAA also provides each school with a $125k appearance fee per school per game (ostensibly for expenses), and since K-State played two games in the Dance, there’s an additional $250k to go along with the prior $100k.  This results in another net gain of $350k from the prior year simply because Michael Beasley was good enough to get the Wildcats into the NCAA Tournament last year.

Result.  So through a simple analysis of television and NCAA Tourney revenues, we can already see a net gain of approximately $650k due to Beasley’s presence.  Keep in mind again that we’re not even taking into account any ticket sales increases or merchandise sales increases that occurred because of the success of Beasley and his team.  Nor are we considering any future residual effects – future exposure in terms of better recruiting and more television appearances as a result of Beasley – and still we’ve determined that, at minimum, Beasley’s one-year contributions to the program were at least $250k more (and likely much more in other impacts) than Dalonte Hill’s salary that season, and therefore, yes, K-State fans, you made a good deal. 

Happy Fiscal New Year, everyone! 

Along with the turn of the fiscal calendar, July 1 also represents the turn of the academic calendar.  This is particularly appropriate for hoopheads, as the NBA’s season has ended and the draft madness that dominated bandwidth for the last two months after the Mario Miracle has died down to a whimper (well, there’s always 2009, right?).  All there really is to look forward to until October is the Ego Known as Kobe Bryant’s attempt to restore American hegemony in the international (read: Olympics) hoops realm.  That comes in August. 

So now is as good a time as any to take a look back at the 2007-08 season and once again review how the NBA’s one-and-done rule worked out for the schools that enabled it.  You might recall that we took a look at this last year and concluded: Ohio St., UNC, Texas… good.  Georgia Tech, Washington… not so good.  We also mentioned that several schools – Stanford, Tennessee, Arizona and Kansas included – were hanging onto players who could have been one-and-dones, but weren’t.  With the exception of the often comatose Arizona team, the other three as a result had fantastic squads last year. 

To start it off, let’s refresh ourselves with who the Rivals Top 20 recruits were coming into 2007-08.  As you can see below, we added a few columns that outline the player’s freshman numbers (pts/rebs/assts or blocks) and his team’s record as well as whether he went into the draft or is returning next season. 

So was it worth it?  Our takes:

Kansas St.  - Well Worth It.    K-State rode the best.freshman.ever Michael Beasley and sorta-but-not-really one-and-done Bill Walker (he was a medical redshirt in 06-07) as far as it could, which included a third-place finish in the competitive Big 12, a second-round NCAA tournament appearance and the first home win in twenty-four years over its rival and eventual national champion Kansas Jayhawks.  In other words, K-State’s best season in a generation.  The important aspect of Beasley and Walker’s one-and-dones for KSU head coach Frank Martin is to capitalize on future recruiting from the good will and national notoriety mustered by these players while on campus.  If he does not do so, and it’s soon back to the bottom of the Big 12 barrel for K-State, then the potential positive impacts of these stars passing through Manhattan, KS, were missed. 

Memphis – Well Worth It.  This too is a no-brainer.  #1 overall pick Derrick Rose converted a competitive yet incomplete team that would consistently flame out prior to the Final Four against other elite teams into a team that probably should have won the national title.  Rose led Memphis to a 38-2 record and had the Tigers in the argument for the most dominant season in the post-Wooden era before its epic free-throw meltdown in the championship game.  Even only as a runner-up, a Memphis fan would be hard pressed to find much else wrong with the 07-08 season, and as such, the one-year stopover by Derrick Rose was well worth it. 

Memphis Would Take A Rose Every Year (AP photo/Seth Wenig)

UCLA – Worth It.  This was a tough one, because UCLA came into the 07-08 season already having been to the last two Final Fours.  Anything short of that measure was going to be a disappointment (although Bruin fans might argue anything less than a national title is a disappointment).  We’ll argue, however, that Kevin Love brought a toughness and star-quality to Westwood that had been lacking on Ben Howland’s previous teams.  Not to mention that UCLA last season at 35-4 was simply a better team than the ones led by backcourt players (Afflalo and Farmar).  More than anything, Love’s presence solidifed UCLA again as a marquee destination for top-notch recruits, as Howland has penned five of the Rivals Top 50 in the Class of 2008. 

Arizona – Worth It.  It’s quite possible that Jerryd Bayless last season saved Arizona from breaking its NCAA Tournament streak of 24 consecutive appearances.  Arizona certainly didn’t have a great year amidst all the Lute Olson divorce and feud with Kevin O’Neill turmoils, but with a final record of 19-15, you have to figure that Bayless’ fantastic freshman year was worth a few wins that put the Cats back into the field of 65.  But that’s about all it was worth.  It certainly didn’t make Arizona into a contender of any kind, and it’s doubtful whether there will be any residual effects from Bayless’ time in Tucson.   

Indiana – Worth It.  Eric Gordon’s arrival in Bloomington was worth it if for no other reason than it gave Hoosier fans something to be excited about for approximately three months (Nov-Jan).  Now that the wheels have come completely tumbling off of the Indiana program, we have to wonder just how long their fans will covet and remember the halcyon days when IU was 16-1 and ranked #7 in the AP Poll.  Of course, E-Giddy was partially responsible for Indiana’s subsequent collapse (18.2 ppg on 37.2% FG/25.3% 3FG shooting in the last 13 games (8-5)), but we put most of that on the ultimate dismissal of Kelvin Sanctions whereupon the entire team simply quit playing.  So in our view, this one-and-done represents the last great season that Indiana will have for a while.  Too bad it couldn’t have worked out better for everyone involved. 

Gordon Left More than a Bloody Tooth in His Wake (photo credit:  Bloomington Herald-Times)

USC – Not Worth It.    For a while during the season, it appeared as if the OJ Mayo one-and-done situation might just work out for Tim Floyd and the Trojan Nation.  Similar to K-State, USC hadn’t seen this much hoops attention in years – with Mayo as the headliner, USC played numerous national television games, beat UCLA at Pauley, and ended up tied for third in the rugged Pac-10.  Of course, the wheels came off when USC failed to show up to its hyped battle against K-State in the first round of the NCAAs and the propriety of Mayo’s eligibility was called into question by ESPN soon thereafter.  Throw in Davon Jefferson (a one-and-done from the Class of 2006 who went to prep school for a year before enrolling at USC) and his foolish decision to enter this year’s draft (undrafted) and we’re not sure just how successful USC can claim 2007-08 was.  After all, the 2006-07 edition of the Trojans, led by Nick Young and Gabe Pruitt, also finished third in the Pac-10 but had a better overall record (23-11) and played into the second weekend of March Madness (giving Carolina all it wanted in the process).  Finally, with another uber-recruit, Demar DeRozan, coming to USC next year, Floyd needs to be hyper-vigilant about those nefarious agents and runners in light of the Mayo debacle because more eyes will be watching.   

NC State – Not Worth It.  Hey, remember all the preseason talk about how NC State was the third best team in the ACC, and a definite NCAA Tournament team?  Yeah, we don’t either.  Actually, we do, and few of the pundits will own up to the fact that it was a terrible prediction.  For the record, NC State ended up 15-16, but the Wolfpack were 4-12 in the ACC (worse than the previous year’s 5-11 campaign that inspired such foolishness) and lost their last nine games.  So what did JJ Hickson’s presence in Raleigh bring to the team?  Other than team chemistry problems, of course?  It doesn’t appear that he brought much else than an ability to get himself drafted.  NC State will likely be significantly better without him next season. 

What Chemistry Problems? 

LSU – Not Worth It.  While we’re in the business of ripping bad teams with one-and-done players, we shouldn’t overlook the LSU Tigers.  LSU seems to have one of these guys about every other year anyway, so it probably doesn’t matter much in terms of long-term effects, but a 13-18 record with a loss at Tulane calls into question the value of Anthony Randolph’s tenure on campus in Baton Rouge.  Certainly the mail-it-in coaching style of Mr. Misty Champagne didn’t help things out much, but even with John Wooden coaching that team, we’re not sure how much Randolph could have lifted the Bayou Bengals.

Others.  These teams all had one-and-dones of questionable efficacy.  Put another way, these teams probably wouldn’t have been much better nor worse had these players gone elsewhere.  Exhibit A is Texas A&M’s DeAndre Jordan.  TAMU was a tourney team anyway, led by Joseph Jones and Josh Carter, and it’s doubtful that Jordan’s four double-figure points games and two double-figure rebounds games in the Big 12 had much of an effect on A&M’s successful season.  Not Worth It.  Syracuse fans may disagree with us here, but despite Donte Greene’s exceptional first-year numbers, we find it hard to believe that the Orange would have been any less average than they already were last year (21-14, 9-10 Big East).  After all, Jim Boeheim could take five schoolgirls and make them competitive - he just wouldn’t win the title with them (unless Carmela Anthony was on the team).  The question is whether Syracuse fans are pleased with a third-round NIT appearance, and we all know the answer to that – a resounding no.  For a school with multiple F4s and a recent championship banner, missing the NCAAs completely is a failing season, no matter the reasonable expectation.  Not Worth It.  Finally, we look at Ohio St., who took Kosta Koufos to replace last year’s one-and-donest, Greg Oden.  The answer here once again comes down to the question of expectation vs. reality of the situation.  Without Oden, Mike Conley and Daequan Cook, it wasn’t realistic for Thad Matta to make another run at the F4; but the bar has been raised so high at Ohio St. under Matta that a 24-13 season leading to an NIT championship must necessarily be viewed as less-than-stellar.  Winning the Capital One Bowl doesn’t match the Rose Bowl, does it, Buckeye fans?  We’ll call this one a Push.   

Final Thoughts.  With so many freshmen leaving this year from the top 20 Rivals list, we’d guess only Florida with Nick Calathes and Chandler Parsons returning may be a team to really watch closely next year.  Otherwise, keep an eye on UCLA, Wake Forest and UConn, each of which has multiple top twenty players coming onto campus next year. 

Thanks to N-Bug’s liveblog of the NBA Draft last night, we felt like we were almost in the building sniffing David Stern’s manscent and Darrell Arthur’s ire.  What’s the record for lowest pick of someone in the Green Room?  The best we can muster is Rashard Lewis at #32 ten years ago.  Anyone got a lower pick left stewing in the Green Room all night?

Unfounded Rumors of a Kidney Problem Sunk Arthur’s Stock (photo credit: AP)

Darrell Arthur’s Kidney.  The story of last night’s draft, of course, was the unsubstantiated rumor of a serious undisclosed kidney problem that arose during Darrell Arthur’s medical tests.  Luke Winn details the report much better than we can here, but suffice it to say that it now appears that this kidney issue was a complete red herring, and the Memphis Grizzlies (through two subsequent trades) got an absolute steal at the #27 slot.  Winn suggests that the whispers about Arthur’s health could have cost him in the neighborhood of $1.3M over the course of his rookie contract.  Shouldn’t we just go ahead and put Slim Shady at the top of next year’s ROY contenders (Paul Pierce-style) based upon this slight alone?  He’ll have gobs of additional motivation, that’s for sure. 

One-and-Done Redux.  We’ve written about 1-and-dones until we’re blue in the face, but let’s face it, the Class of 2007 is arguably one of the greatest HS classes of all-time.  Four of the top five picks, seven of the top fourteen, and a record ten of the thirty first-rounders were freshmen.  Throw in the eight sophomores chosen in the first round, and that means 72% of the guaranteed contracts that went to American players were to players with 2 years or less of college experience.  Only five seniors were chosen in the first round, and the first at #12 overall, Jason Thompson from Rider, resulted in a perplexed “who?” from much of the crowd and viewing audience.  Again, there is no question that the NBA rule helped in terms of marketing these players.  Thanks to the Season of the Freshman, every basketball fan in America is now intimately familiar with the games of Derrick Rose, Michael Beasley, OJ Mayo, Kevin Love, and so on.  If they’d all gone pro after high school, we’d have little to no clue what those teams were getting.

Mayo Posing as Stringer Bell (photo credit: SI.com) 

Beautiful Disasters.  Two of the one-and-dones who were bound and determined to stay in the draft no matter what anyone told them were DeAndre Jordan and Bill Walker.  (note: we were happy to see that our feelings of overratedness (see: HoopsAddict podcast at 34:30) with Jordan and Anthony Randolph were corroborated on draft night, although not so much with Russell Westbrook, chosen fourth!)  Both got drafted in the second round (#35 and #47 respectively) but last night had to be severely disappointing to both players, as Jordan was being talked about as a lottery pick earlier this draft season, and Walker last year (before blowing out his knee again).  Does Walker with his former #1 player in his class pedigree and seemingly constant knee injuries remind anyone else of Randy Livingston?  But the prize for biggest clowns of the draft go to USC’s Davon Jefferson and Mississippi State’s Jamont Gordon, both of whom were undrafted last night.  As for Jefferson, this one-and-done prospect declared early, signed with an agent (assuring he couldn’t return to USC), and then proceeded to float his way through the pre-draft camp.  He was a possible second-rounder at that point, but his uninspired effort in Orlando ensured that he would be left on the outside looking in.  Gordon’s situation was even worse, as he completely skipped the pre-draft camp (incredulously assuming he was a first-rounder), also signed with an agent, and otherwise did nothing to show that he was a serious candidate for the draft.  Ok, we get it, you reallyreallyreallyreally want to play in the NBA, and you reallyreallyreallyreally think you’re good enough… but you guys really need to start doing some listening when people who make these decisions (scouts, GMs, draftniks) are telling you otherwise.  Good luck in the D-League, guys.   

Katz discusses some of the other early entry disappointments in last night’s draft. 

Sideshow Bob Was Drafted by the Suns Last Night (photo credit: SI.com)

Conference Call.  A year ago Pac-10 coaches were telling us that they had far and away the most talent in the nation, suggesting that there are as many as a dozen first-round picks on their squads in 2007-08.  Well, it turns out they weren’t that far off, as there were seven first rounders last night, including three of the top five (#3 Mayo, #4 Westbrook, #5 Love, #10 Brook Lopez, #11 Jerryd Bayless, #15 Robin Lopez, #21 Ryan Anderson), and twelve players chosen overall.  Also keep in mind that several other probable first rounders from the Pac-10, such as Darren Collison (UCLA), Chase Budinger (Arizona) and Jeff Pendergraph (Arizona St.) elected to stay in college another year.  The Big 12 was next with nine players chosen, including four first rounders and five (!!) players – tying the 2006 UConn Huskies and 2007 Florida Gators - from the National Champs (#13 Brandon Rush, #27 Darrell Arthur, #34 Mario Chalmers, #52 Darnell Jackson, #56 Sasha Kaun).  Throw in former Jayhawk JR Giddens (#30) and an astonishing six players passed through the KU program en route to this draft.  The SEC had six draft picks, and the Big East and ACC had four each.  The usually-pathetic Big 10 once again finished last among the BCS conferences with only three picks.  See table below.

Not NBA Material.  We reserve this spot to formally bid adieu to some of the notable collegians who have entertained us for the last four years, but whom the NBA has decided are not worthy to play in their league.  Drew Neitzel (Michigan St.), Demarcus Nelson (Duke), David Padgett (Louisville), Josh Duncan (Xavier), and Pat Calathes (St. Joseph’s) are but a few of the names we’ll probably never see again unless they become coaches someday.  The honor of the biggest undrafted name, though, goes to Tennessee star and cancer survivor Chris Lofton, who holds the all-time mark in the SEC for three-pointers, and ranks third in NCAA history on that measure.  If there’s one guy we’d bank on finding his way to an NBA court near you in the next couple of years (even for a cup of coffee), it would probably be this kid.  He stares toughness and grit directly in the eyes before they walk away in shame. 

Well this is sort of unplanned, but rtmsf asked me to do this and I’ve got nothing else to do tonight so I figured I would throw up a live blog of the events.

7:30 PM: Everybody’s favorite commissioner/megalomanic David Stern walks to the stage. Pretty weak response from the crowd. Minimal booing and almost no response to a mention of the WNBA. I think Isiah and Dolan have broken the New York fans.

7:38 PM: Stern announces the Bulls’ selection of Derrick Rose. Kind of anti-climatic, but surprising how quickly the consensus swung from Michael Beasley to Rose in such a short time without anything really big coming out (other than Beasley being shorter than advertised, but the decision was already made at that point).

7:40 PM: ESPN shows some highlights of Rose winning the state championship game 31-29 in OT. Yes, 31-29. I guess the lack of offense in the Big 10 goes all the way down to the high school level.

7:42 PM: Stern comes to the podium with the Miami Heat’s pick. . .Michael Beasley. For all the talk about going with O.J. Mayo I always thought this was a no brainer. I mean they could have dropped down to the #5 pick, but I don’t buy the whole Rudy Gay + #5 for #2 trade. There’s no way Memphis would have done that. Does Pat Riley think Chris Wallace is an idiot? Oh wait. . .

7:45 PM: The interviews have been pretty tame so far. Beasley could have at least pulled the dead rat “joke” on Stephen A. Smith. The Stephen A. Smith guys better have something good planned for the draft because this is pretty weak so far.

7:48 PM: Minnesota is up. Time for Kevin McHale to shine. And the pick is. . . O.J. Mayo! Why do I have flashbacks to KG and Stephon Marbury. Stu Scott fills us in on O.J.’s full name. Thanks for that since we haven’t seen it in every single article written about him (except on RTC). At least O.J.’s time in Hollywood got him prepared for the bright lights of Minnesota. Wait, Minnesota?

7:50 PM: If you’re reading this after the draft and wondering why the writing sucks, blame it on the stupid 5 minutes between picks. There’s no way Bill Simmons live blogs this stuff. It’s impossible. He has to take 3-4 hours after the draft to put something together.

7:53 PM: Wow. Six picks for Seattle. Stu Scott with the quick math (6/60 = 1/10th). I’m not sure why they didn’t do some kind of big package to try and get some help for Kevin Durant.

7:54 PM: Stern with the pick. . .Russell Westbrook! Our first surprise of the night. I had heard Westbrook might be top 5, but never really believed it. The guy’s athletic, but I just don’t see how he’s considered the 4th best prospect in this draft. If you’re just going on athleticism, I’d take Eric Gordon over Westbrook. As for his “great” defense, I don’t remember it against Memphis and Rose. Plus I don’t buy Westbrook as a NBA point guard.

7:58 PM: Commercial break. Weak start to the draft so far. At least we have the comedy of the booing of the Knicks draft pick to look forward to in 2 picks.

8:00 PM: Bilas is pushing for Memphis to take Kevin Love. Stern with the announcement. And it’s Kevin Love. Nice call by Bilas even if Love basically gave it away on PTI earlier this week. I’m pretty sure the first time that anybody has ever had the Color Me Badd facial hair in Memphis.

8:03 PM: Pretty routine breakdown of Love. Good court sense/knowledge of the game, passes well, good range, and can’t run the court. Can we have someone disagree with a pick? I just want to see the player’s reaction (not to mention what their mom will do).

8:05 PM: Waiting for the Love family interview to finish so I can see the Knicks screw up their pick. This is the highlight of the night. . .

8:07 PM: Stern walking to the podium with the Knicks pick. . .(dramatic pause). . .Danilo Gallinari. BOOOOOOOOOOOO! Sorry. Just had to join in the fun. I don’t really buy Gallinari, but hey the YouTube video looks decent and that worked out well for guys like Kwame Brown and Eddy Curry worked out great, right? (Yes, I know that was before YouTube).

8:08 PM: Fran Fraschilla offers the most important piece of news of the night (for those of us who read Deadspin or The Big Lead). “Gallo” is apparently the Italian word for “rooster”. If you’ve read the posts on either site yesterday, you’ll know what that’s important.

8:12 PM:  The Clippers select Eric Gordon. I feel bad for the guy. He goes from the most dysfunctional program in the country to the worst franchise in pro sports. Love the guy’s game, but he’s just too inconsistent at times. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

8:15 PM: Our first horrible suit of the night. Gordon with the combination of white coat and navy blue pants. Not quite Karl Malone level, but you would figure his high school agent could have gotten him something nice.

8:18 PM: Joe Alexander to Milwaukee. At least it won’t be much of a culture shock going from Morgantown to Milwaukee although Joe won’t be seeing as many burning couches.

8:23 PM: MJ and Larry Brown are on the clock. It seems like Brook Lopez is the choice here. The Bobcats certainly have enough college talent on that team being veterans of the lottery process (tip of the hat to the legend Elgin Baylor).

8:24 PM: Jay Bilas and Mark Jackson agree with me.

8:25 PM: But apparently MJ and Larry do not. The Bobcats take D.J. Augustin. Looks like Raymond Felton is going to have some competition. This seems like a good pick for a trade.

8:27 PM: I still don’t get it. Of course, MJ was also the mastermind behind the Kwame Brown selection so maybe I shouldn’t.

8:28 PM: So it looks like Brook Lopez here to New Jersey. They can’t take Jerryd Bayless since they already have Devin Harris. This will be an interesting pick since they just traded away Richard Jefferson for Yi Jianlian and Bobby Simmons.

8:30 PM: Brook Lopez at #10 to New Jersey. Solid pick especially this far down. I’m surprised that he fell down this far. A 7-footer with a mean streak and solid fundamentals. Usually guys like this go too high and typically don’t slip. Not sure what is going on.

8:33 PM: Wow. Looks like our first classic draft moment of 2008. Apparently Jeff Spicoli dressed up as a 7-foot tall guy who went to Stanford. I wish I had been there for Brook’s Stanford interview. What? You mean he didn’t go through the regular admissions process?

8:35 PM: Bayless at #11. I like Bayless at #11, but does Indiana need another guard? Jamaal Tinsley, T.J. Ford, and Bayless. Looks like Tinsley and his gun collection are moving out of Indiana.

8:42 PM: Sacramento takes Jason Thompson. Our first real surprise pick of the draft. I’m actually ashamed to say I have never seen this guy play. Bilas says he’s pretty good so I guess I’ll have to go with that.

8:46 PM: Portland at #13. . .Brandon Rush. Interesting pick. He’ll probably fit in well with this team. He isn’t a star, but they have enough young talent that they don’t need him to be more than a solid role player. He’ll probably back-up Brandon Roy for the next couple of years.

8:50 PM: Golden State is on the clock. This is the part of the draft where teams have a lot of choices. Let’s see what the Warriors do.

8:51 PM: Stern with the pick: Anthony Randolph. 3rd team All-SEC member. Even the LSU blogger doesn’t believe in him. Not sure what else I have to say about this pick.

8:54 PM: Dick Vitale ripping the international. Comparing Gallinari to Darko Milicic. Ouch. Not a surprise since Dickie V loves all things college (as do we, but we don’t rip on the other stuff).

8:56 PM: Phoenix takes Robin Lopez at #15. I’ll admit it. I’m hitting the wall here so I’m probably only going to make it through the first round. I actually like this pick. Robin isn’t an offense force, but is a pretty good defender, which Phoenix is lacking.

9:03 PM: With the 16th pick, Philadelphia selects Maureese Speights. Seems like a talented player. It will be interesting to see how he works with Samuel Dalembert. Wow. Stuart Scott just compared FG% in college to FG% in the NBA as if it’s the same thing. I don’t even know what to say to that.

9:08 PM: Toronto selects Roy Hibbert at #17 for Indiana (part of the Jermaine O’Neal trade). This makes sense. Hibbert will “replace” O’Neal. It’s too bad that Hibbert fell this far. He would have been a top 10 pick last year. He didn’t get injured or play poorly, but because he never exploded like NBA scouts hoped he would he fell far enough down that it probably cost him a few million dollars.

9:12 PM: JaVale McGee at #18 to Washington. Looks like Lebron has another guy to dunk on.

9:15 PM: Pretty interesting trade. Indiana gets Jarrett Jack and Brandon Rush for Ike Diogu and Jerryd Bayless to Portland. Bayless and Roy make a really scary potential backcourt dishing the ball off to Greg Oden and company.

9:19 PM: Cleveland is on the clock. This pick is big for Danny Ferry because it might go a long way to keeping Lebron in Cleveland and out of Brooklyn. Darrell Arthur is still sitting in the Green Room. . .

9:21 PM: The Lebrons select J.J. Hickson and Darrell remains seated.

9:26 PM: Charlotte’s on the clock at #20 and take Alexis Ajinca. I’ll turn to Stuart Scott here, “Who is this guy?”

9:28 PM: Wow. I’m pretty sure that’s the first time the economy ever was mentioned in the NBA Draft. Fran informs us that the fall in the dollar’s value will affect Ajinca’s decision whether to stay in Europe. (Side note: Josh McRoberts is part of the Portland-Indiana deal. He’s not worth his own post.)

9:33 PM: The Nets go with Ryan Anderson at #21. Darrell is still sitting. . .

9:38 PM: Looks like Orlando goes with another guard by taking Courtney Lee. I loved Jeff Van Gundy’s analysis. Basically, Dwight Howard and Rashard Lewis are the only two guys he likes on the team–a team that’s coached by his brother. More importantly, what does this do to everybody’s favorite Zima drinker, J.J. Redick?

9:42 PM: Utah takes Kosta Koufos. It will be interesting to see how Koufos fits in with Utah’s bigs (Carlos Boozer, Mehmet Okur, Andrei Kirilenko, and Paul Millsap). He’s a skilled big guy who was really hyped coming in, but was too inconsistent to stay in the top 10. Playing for Jerry Sloan will either toughen him up or turn him into AK-47 (and cry during the playoffs).

9:49 PM: Seattle takes Serge Ibaka. Fraschilla says he’s good and he’ll be here in 3-4 years. Yeah. . .

9:50 PM: Doris Burke interviewing Darrell Arthur. Pretty tame interview. No tears. Not much to say.

9:55 PM: Houston takes Nicolas Batum. Fraschilla compares him to Rudy Gay, which I guess is good. Fran also says he needs to work on his ball-handling and he’s only 20 years old. Since when do people learn how to dribble after they turn 20?

9:58 PM: Ric Bucher announces that Darrell Arthur has a kidney problem, which he says explains why Arthur hasn’t been selected. Sounds like a HIPAA violation somewhere along the line.

10:00 PM: George Hill from IUPUI? Well apparently he plays great defense and has 3% body fat (thanks for that Stuart).

10:08 PM: New Orleans Portland ends the madness and takes Darrell Arthur. Nice moment as the New York fans clap. Nice pickup here. He should be able to come in and spell the big guys for a few minutes here and there immediately.

10:15 PM: Memphis selects Donte Greene. Seems like he’ll be playing behind Rudy Gay for a while. Well at least they got something for giving away Pau Gasol.

10:22 PM: Detroit selects D.J. White. Nice pickup at this position. Productive player who should be a solid guy off the bench for stretches.

10:31 PM: Mercifully, Boston with the last pick of the first round. J.R. Giddens. Wow. What a long ride it’s been for that guy. The former big-time recruit at Kansas who transferred to New Mexico.

Well it’s been a long first round. We’ll be back tomorrow with a more in-depth (and hopefully shorter) analysis.

Over the past few weeks, we have rolled out profiles of several of the top prospects in the 2008 NBA Draft. In general, we tried to get the best school-specific bloggers to provide a more in-depth look at the players they’ve spent all year watching. Most schools had bloggers who were up to the challenge, so a big thanks to the blogs listed after each player’s name.  Where we couldn’t find a school blog willing to help us out, we stepped up ourselves.

Here is the list of 2008 NBA Draft Profiles:

Derrick Rose, Memphis – Rush the Court

Michael Beasley, Kansas St. – Bring on the Cats

Anthony Randolph, LSU – And the Valley Shook

DJ Augustin, Texas – Burnt Orange Nation

Mario Chalmers, Kansas – Kansas Jayhawks – It’s Business Time

Russell Westbrook, UCLA – Gutty Little Bruins

Darrell Arthur, Kansas – Kansas Jayhawks – It’s Business Time

Kevin Love, UCLA – Gutty Little Bruins

OJ Mayo, USC – Conquest Chronicles

Brandon Rush, Kansas – Kansas Jayhawks – It’s Business Time

Over the past few weeks, we have rolled out profiles of several of the top prospects in the 2008 NBA Draft. In general, we tried to get the best school-specific bloggers to provide a more in-depth look at the players they’ve spent all year watching. Most schools had bloggers who were up to the challenge. However, a few schools weren’t so you’re going to end up with a few RTC profiles too.

Rtmsf and I split up the duties on the last 2 players to be profiled (Derrick Rose and Jerryd Bayless). I picked Rose because I have seen him more than I have seen Bayless (stupid West Coast late starts). While I haven’t seen Rose as much as the Memphis fans (apparently there are no Tiger bloggers), I have probably seen Rose play almost a dozen times this past season so I feel pretty comfortable critiquing his game. Well that and the fact that pretty much everybody has seen him and knows about him at this point.

The first thing that comes to my mind when I think about Derrick Rose is his freakish athleticism. At the Pre-Draft combine, he was one of the top performers and I think some of those tests underestimated how athletic Rose is. For example, Rose had a good 3/4 court sprint time, but 1/10th of a second off the best. Having watched Rose play against the best PGs in the country, I can guarantee you that there is nobody faster with the ball in the draft (ask Tom Izzo, Rick Barnes, Ben Howland, or Bill Self what they think about Rose’s speed).

The question with Rose isn’t whether he has the athletic tools to become great. Instead the question is whether or not he  will develop the necessary feel for the game to dominate at the next level. The player that I hear Rose compared to the most is Jason Kidd, but I think that is just based on the fact that they are both quick PGs with great strength. However, I think their games are very different.

Along with speed and strength, Jason Kidd brought an extremely high basketball IQ and great feel for the game to the court early in his career (those of you old enough will remember Kidd torching Bobby Hurley and 2-time defending champion Duke in 1993 despite Dale Brown’s bold proclamation that Hurley would dominate Kidd). However, Kidd lacked the ability to score early in his career and never did really develop as a scorer. His inability to hit an outside shot became such a liability that hecklers began referring to him as “Ason” (got no J). On the defensive side of the ball, Kidd was an excellent defender despite the way that Chris Paul undressed him in the playoffs this year.

As for Rose, while he is probably more athletic than Kidd especially when you factor in his 40″ vertical, whenever I watch him I get the sense that I’m watching a great player rather than a great floor general. He just doesn’t seem to possess a great feel for the court and where everyone is. This may be a result of Calipari’s dribble-drive motion offense that Rose only played in for a single season, but his 1.77 assist-to-turnover ratio is pretty mediocre for a PG who will likely be the #1 overall pick. He has the ability to score at will at the college level, but I think some of those lanes are going to close against pro level talent. However, as he develops and matures he should be able to find these holes to get to the rim. The bigger question is whether Rose will be able to run a NBA offense early in his career. I think that eventually he will get it, but it may take a 2-3 years before we see what he can become as a point guard. As for the rest of his game, his jump shot needs a little work but I think it’s good enough that teams can’t leave him open or really drop off him (like they do with Kidd or Rajon Rondo). Defensively, Rose has all the tools he needs to be an elite defender. I never really saw him as a lockdown defender in college but perhaps that is because he’s still young and Memphis was winning most games by such large margins that he really never had to dig in for a stop. With his speed and strength he should be able to cause havoc for most opposing point guards.

Conclusion:While I don’t think the comparisons to Kidd are appropriate, I think the Bulls would be wise to select Rose with the 1st overall pick. Guys with the potential to be game changers don’t come along that often and you shouldn’t pass on them when they come your way (looking at you Billy King). Rose needs to work on his game some more (shooting and decision-making) before he will be able to compete with the best in the game (Steve Nash, Chris Paul, and Deron Williams), but he will be a major upgrade for Chicago or Miami (if Chicago decides to take Michael Beasley) and should be a quality NBA PG right away.

A little Friday the 13th juice to go with you gin this weekend…

• Will it be a house of horrors in Seattle today for Indiana?  IU is meeting with the NCAA (and Kelvin Sanctions) in a hearing to ascertain just how screwed the program is going to be in the wake of phonegate.  Considering Tom Crean only has one scholarship player returning, the Hoosiers are already screwed.  The Indy Star is liveblogging from the proceedings today…
• Maybe Indiana should have hired this guy – The Fixer – to help with today’s proceedings.  Oh, wait, Kelvin already did…
• Florida’s Marreese Speights supposedly announced he was leaving Florida yesterday, but a report surfacing today suggests that he’s still on the fence about it. 
• Arizona’s Chase Budinger is still thinking about whether to return next year, but he is apparently a strong lean toward going into the draft - he has until Monday (June 16) to make a final decision.
• There are twenty players still thinking about the draft decision before Monday’s deadline, and Gary Parrish decided to help them out with their decisions. 
• Memphis guard and exquisite standardized test-taker Doneal Mack is leaving the program due to playing time issues.  Um, doesn’t Mack realize that most of the Tiger starters are gone?
• More draft coverage – apparently Michael Beasley is having trouble shaking off his perception of being the class clown; and DeAndre Jordan is having issues with his mental toughness being as soft as charmin. 
• The contract terms of former LSU coach John Brady’s agreement with Arkansas St. came out yesterday.  There’s no mention of whether the deal includes a fully-paid membership to the local houses of burlesque. 

• O.J. Mayo worked out with the Miami Heat on Saturday and according to Chad Ford looked very good in dominating Tyrone Brazelton. Apparently, Mayo has become good friends with Dwayne Wade and combined with this workout it increases the possibility that Miami may select Mayo #2 overall, which would mean that the prior unaninimous #1 pick Michael Beasley may fall all the way to Minnesota at #3. Even Kevin McHale can’t screw that up, can he?
• Michael Weinreb of ESPN’s Page 2 with a look at how cheating was different in the 1980s than it was with O.J. Mayo.
• Maybe UCLA won’t suck next year. Josh Shipp has decided to return to UCLA for his senior year. Perhaps NBA scouts viewed tapes of his late-season play.
• It looks like Brook and Robin Lopez are managing to have a good time getting ready for the draft.
• Speaking of Stanford, Dana O’Neil reports on Johnny Dawkins and his transition for Coach K’s consigliere to the head coach on the Farm.
• Basketball Prospectus gives us the 12 underrated off-the-radar players to watch out for in this year’s draft class.
• As for the other head coach trying to emerge from the shadow of a legend, Tim Griffin offers a look at Pat Knight and the adjustments he is making as he prepares for his first full season as a head coach.
• New RTC favorite Chris Lofton received the inaugural SEC Sportsmanship Award.
• CNNSI.com with a piece on Oregon State’s Craig Robinson (you may have heard of his brother-in-law Barack something) that uses a change metaphor (real original)
• In related news, Brown hired Jesse Agel to replace the departed Robinson as head coach.
• Cal State Fullerton signed Bob Burton to a 5-year extension thanks to its first NCAA bid in 30 years.
• Duquesne lands Morakinyo Williams, a transfer from Kentucky, who (say it with me) “wanted a chance to play more minutes and make a bigger impact”. Williams played 29 minutes last year (that’s a total not per game) and averaged 0.8 PPG and 1.0 RPG (read: impact player)

Apologies in advance for the small text on the table below.  You can see the entire cache of numbers here on a document we saved at Google Docs (fully sortable).  Alternatively, check the list (also sortable) over at DraftExpress, who we owe our eternal thanks to for providing these initial numbers.   

So what we’ve done here is color code highlight the best five (light green) and worst five (beige) performances in each category.  For basketball purposes, we’re assuming that height, weight and length are good things, body fat is a bad thing, and athletic ability in terms of vertical jump, agility and sprint times are valued.  For example, Brook Lopez was one of the tallest, heaviest and longest players at the camp (as expected), but his lane agility time of 12.77 seconds makes Shaq look like a gazelle (ok, maybe not that bad…). 

Anyway, for now we wanted to throw the numbers up and start digesting them.  We’ll have our thoughts on some of the surprises at the bottom later this afternoon.  Enjoy. 

Thoughts:

The Lonny Baxter Award.  The biggest surprise that we saw this year was that Michael Beasley stands only 6′7 in socks (6′8 with shoes).  How is this possible?  How can the most dominant big man in the history of freshmen all-time only stand at 6′8 in his Nikes????  Can Beasley play 3 at the next level?  Chicago must be asking itself the same question.

Yes, Baxter Really Is Two Feet Tall

Well, it’s a good thing they’ve got the option of the next Jason Kidd in Derrick Rose then, right?  Oh wait, Rose is only 6′1.5 in socks ( 6′2.5 with shoes), a solid couple of inches shorter than Kidd, and more on par with Isiah Thomas and Chris Paul as comparisons.  The good news is that Rose can fly outta the gym with his 40″ vertical leap and his 3.05 3/4 court time, both third best in the camp this year.

One more player suffering from shrinkage this year is Joey Dorsey (6′6).  The Mouth of the South is lucky that he has such an unbelievable plastic-man wingspan (7′11) for his size, or he wouldn’t even be getting a sniff from the professional ranks. 

Legit Bigs.  Brook Lopez and Javale McGee are legitimately 6′11 in socks, David Padgett isn’t far off (6′10.25), while DeAndre Jordan is just shy of 6′10.  McGee, Lopez and Jordan all have wingspans of 7′6 (Lopez is a half-inch shy) and utterly ridiculous reaches of over 9′5.  The most intriguing big man is John Riek, the postgraduate high school student who certifiably stunk up the camp, but comes in at 6′10.5 with a nearly 7′9 wingspan and a reach reported (but unverified) at 9′10.  Ummm… ok. 

Feeling a Little Doughy.  Kevin Love said that he’s dropped fifteen pounds since the F4, but his body fat percentage (12.9%) belies a ways to go.  His size was a little shorter than expected (nearly 6′8), but his vertical leap was better than expected (35″), so he may end up being ok at the next level, given his already skilled face-up game.  The Tubbiest Player Award goes to Kentrell Gransberry, who clocked in at 17.4% body fat.  It showed in his ups as well, as his at 27.5″ was one of the lowest five of the camp. 

Best All-Around Athlete.  This is a tough call, but we’re going with Eric Gordon.  He has a top five vertical leap of 40″, which is simply eyepopping, he was also in the top five in the 3/4 court sprint (3.1 seconds), and he managed to bench the 185-lb bar fifteen times, which is significantly more than some other young guards (OJ Mayo – 7; DJ Augustin – 2).  Derrick Rose is also a consideration, as he can also get way up and is speedy all over the court.  But We’ll give second place to DeMarcus Nelson, who finished in the top five in both the lane agility drill (10.54 seconds) and the 3/4 court sprint (3.13 seconds), in addition to having a 38.5″ vertical leap and benching the bar nineteen times.  We give the nod, though, to Gordon based on his relative youth and the possibility of those numbers getting significantly better.

E-Giddy Is All Kinds of Athleticized

Other Minutiae.   Jerryd Bayless is a great athlete, but his wingspan is astonishingly short (6′3.5) for a 6′2 guy.  Don’t expect Bayless to ever become a tremendous on-the-ball defender with those arms.  Sonny Weems and Joe Alexander are two more players who tested well athletically, as Weems finished in the top five in the agility and sprint drills, while Alexander finished in the top five in the bench press and sprint drills.   This combine was not good to DJ Augustin – he appeared small and weak based on the numbers.  Shouldn’t a 5′10 sophomore be able to do more than two bench presses at that weight by now?

Over the next couple of weeks, we’re going to be rolling out our profiles of several of the top expected prospects in the 2008 NBA Draft. Figuring that we’re not the only ones who’ve thought of this, we decided to enlist some help by asking several of the best school-specific bloggers in the land to give us the up-close-and-personal profile of the players they’ve spent all year watching. For example, we probably watched Michael Beasley play 10 times this year, but we were limited by his games that were on national television and other competing games at the same time. These bloggers know these players – their strengths, their weaknesses, whether they become Black Mamba or channel C-Webb in the clutch, and what kind of team they would best fit with at the next level.

With that said, our first submission is from the most excellent Kansas State blog, Bring on the Cats. TB over there does a great job keeping up with all things Wildcat (even finding time to throw in timely 90s references to pop culture – mmm… mmm… mmm… mmm…). Here is his post on Michael Beasley.

Although there probably isn’t much you can say about Michael Beasley that hasn’t already been said, I’ll go ahead and try.

For all of you who are fans of either the Chicago Bulls or Miami Heat, I don’t think you can go wrong with drafting B-Easy. I know we as K-State fans consider ourselves fortunate to have seen him play this year. He counts size, agility, rebounding, ball-handling, shooting, and defense among his attributes, and last I checked that’s a pretty solid skill set.

On offense, Beasley is a threat from anywhere on the court, either facing or posting up. He shot nearly 40 percent from three-point range on 95 attempts in 33 games. That included a four-for-four effort in the biggest game of the year, a home win over KU. B-Easy has a lethal turnaround jumper that is just about indefensible unless he has an athletic version of Manute Bol in his face. When he wants to bang in the paint, his solid 240-pound frame gets him position and his soft hands ensure favorable bounces on the rim.

While he is a prolific scorer, as his 26.2 points per game as a true freshman in the Big 12 conference suggests, rebounding is undoubtedly Beasley’s ace card. He led the nation in boards this year with 12.4 per game. Part of that is due to his strength and athleticism, but part of it is just a knack for being in the right place. He has a sense of where a shot is going to miss, and he gets to that spot.

Defensively, B-Easy is a bit overlooked. His numbers weren’t stellar, but he did average more than 1.0 blocks and steals per game. I don’t project him as much of a shot-blocker at the next level, but his nose for the ball and humongous hands at the end of long arms make him a threat to tip a lot of passes.

Of course I’m biased, but Beasley doesn’t have a lot of weaknesses. Probably his biggest weakness, in my perception, is something that is overall a strength. He hates to lose, and sometimes he demonstrates his distaste for losing through frustration with his teammates’ mistakes. Sometimes he probably just needs to let the coaches take care of the mistakes of others, but to me it demonstrates a desire to win. Also, on occasion he has a tendency to get frustrated when things aren’t going his way (bad calls, shots not falling, etc.) and he might jog back on defense. This was not a common occurrence.

Finally, a quick word about a common misperception somebody has perpetuated about Beasley. I’m speaking, of course, about his alleged attitude issues. To put is simply, I don’t see it. I’m sure it all stemmed from this Washington Post article. First of all, what happened in that article is high school stuff. In his one year at K-State, he was universally considered an incredibly pleasant individual. Secondly, his antics are hardly the stuff of a hardened criminal. Frankly, his high school principal should have gotten the stick out of his arse and stowed the signed bumper for future sale on eBay.

I watched Derrick Rose in person at the NCAA championship game. He is a a very good player and will probably have a good NBA career. But I think Beasley is going to be great, and hope to hear him called as the No. 1 pick. No matter who he goes to, I will be the proud owner of that team’s No. 30 jersey.

Coming Next: the always-controversial OJ Mayo

We’re running a little late today on updating the news from the Orlando Predraft Camp (Day 1 and Day 2 reviews archived), so we’ll make amends by combining a report from both Thursday and Friday’s games and workouts. In short, Carolina fans had best hope Bobby Frasor’s injury is 100% healed next year because Ty Lawson now appears a lock for the first round, and NBDL star Mike Taylor (who?) may have played his way into the draft during the course of this week.

We’ll start first with some of the impressions given by DraftExpress on the fifteen ‘elite’ prospects who held workouts today but did not participate in games.

• Derrick Rose, Memphis
  • Clearly the most impressive workout of any of the 15 players belonged to Derrick Rose. Not so much for what he showed, but mostly just for what he is. He got up and down the floor fluidly and smoothly, covering tons of ground with each and every stride, and looked excellent changing speeds and operating skillfully with both hands in the ball-handling drills. His athleticism is nothing short of stunning, starting with his phenomenal first step, his ability to change gears, and his incredible explosiveness finishing around the basket. He came out with a business-like approach, and left no doubt about just how unique his talent-level and physical tools are. A nice bonus was the way he shot the ball, hitting more than one NBA 3-pointer and looking solid from mid-range as well.
    
• Russell Westbrook, UCLA
  
  • Also catching our eye was Russell Westbrook, who came out very seriously and didn’t seem to be taking anything for granted. He was fantastic in the transition drills, flying up and down the court with his terrific athleticism, and also shot the ball fairly well after starting off slowly. His ball-handling skills are just OK at this point.
• OJ Mayo, USC
  • O.J. Mayo was very smooth and very confident in everything he did, barely missing in the perimeter shooting drills. He’s clearly not on the same level athletically as Derrick Rose or Russell Westbrook for example, but already has the looks of an NBA player with the way his body looks and how he conducts himself out on the floor.
• Michael Beasley, Kansas St.
  
  • Michael Beasley looked super fluid and athletic getting up and down the court, finishing with either hand and looking to be in pretty good shape. He attacked the drills with a lot of competitive fire, but most definitely was clowning around way too much throughout the day right underneath the noses of the Miami Heat and Chicago Bulls. There were a few people that expressed concern with some of his antics over the past few days.
• Darrell Arthur, Kansas
  
  • Darrell Arthur looks like someone who is going to impress mightily in workouts based off what we saw here. He passes the eye test and then some on first glance, and then showed really nice athleticism to go along with a fairly high skill level in the drills, although oddly attempting to bank every 3-pointer he took. He struggled a little bit remembering what to do in some of the drills, though.
• Brook Lopez, Stanford
  
  • Speaking of lukewarm impressions, Brook Lopez didn’t do a whole lot to ease the concerns NBA people have about him, not moving all that well up and down the floor and showing a very average skill-level in most of the drills.

Among the rest of the players who were actually playing games, here are a few of the high (and low) lights (h/t to the usual suspects, DraftExpress, NBADraft.net, Goodman & Katz):

• Ty Lawson, UNC
  • Goodman – The speedy North Carolina point guard made the most intelligent move of the camp, coming up with a mysterious hip injury and bowing out of the rest of the camp after a terrific performance in his only game. Lawson displayed his athleticism and, according to NBA executives, should have solidified a place in the first round.
• Wayne Ellington, UNC
  • DraftExpress – Wayne Ellington bounced back in a big way after his disastrous performance yesterday, starting off extremely hot on his way to a 7-13, 17 point outing in 20 minutes. His shot simply fell for him at a much better clip, as he did a great job moving off screens and being aggressive using fakes and utilizing his strong one-dribble pull-up. On the negative side, he again did not look very good putting the ball on the floor and making his way to the rim, not standing out that much in terms of his size, quickness, toughness at the rim or ball-handling skills. He still needs to have a strong showing in the last day of the camp if he’s truly serious about making a run at the late first round.
• Joe Crawford, Kentucky
  
  • DraftExpress – Last, but certainly not least, Joe Crawford again had another very strong game (15 points, 6-11 FG) as the go-to scoring option for his team. He got to the rim very effectively, shot the ball well from mid-range and long-range, was excellent coming off screens and played fairly well in transition. His defensive effort was good, particularly in terms of pressuring the ball, and he showed absolutely no hesitation in anything he does, which people here have to like. He needs to become a little bit more efficient with his ball-handling (he pounds the ball a little too much), but it’s hard not to like what he brought to the floor today.
• Mike Taylor, Iowa St./NBDL
  • Goodman - The athletic ex-Iowa State guard, who spent this past season in the NBDL, appeared to have the easiest adjustment of anyone in the camp and rightfully so. He’s been playing against older players and is also accustomed to the NBA game. Taylor was aggressive in getting to the basket and also proved he can make shots. He had 24 points on Thursday night.
• Gary Forbes, UMass
  • NBADraft.net - If there was to be a player of the day award, then without a doubt it would have to be given to Gary Forbes (30pts, 15-16ft, 2stl). Even though his team lost, it was no fault of Forbes, who almost singlehandedly brought his team back from a large deficit. Although he was very impressive scoring, he may have been just as good on the defensive end, where he chased Richard Roby (3-9fg) off screens and forced him to put the ball on the floor and settle for difficult shots.
• Josh Duncan, Xavier (OH)
  
  • DraftExpress – Josh Duncan continued the trend of Portsmouth Invitational Tournament standouts who were able to translate their excellent performance from the all-senior pre-draft camp in April to this setting as well—scoring 20 points (5-8 FG, 9-10 FT) and pulling down 6 rebounds. Duncan knocked down a number of open shots from the perimeter, scored a bit in the post off good feeds from his guards.
• Davon Jefferson, USC
  • DraftExpress – Davon Jefferson continued not to show the type of effort or fire you would expect to see from a player who is currently fighting for his professional future, after having prematurely hired an agent following an average freshman season. His conditioning looks poor, he’s dribbling the ball excessively, and he’s yet to make use of the terrific athletic ability that made him a prospect to start with. This is turning into a very disappointing pre-draft camp for him.
• Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, UCLA
  
  • Katz – UCLA junior Luc Richard Mbah a Moute hasn’t stood out enough to warrant staying in the draft. He still may, but there doesn’t seem to be any kind of buzz around him.
• Ronald Steele, Alabama
  • Goodman – He still doesn’t look like himself — and for good reason. The Alabama junior point guard hasn’t played competitively in more than a year and needs to return to school.
• Jeremy Pargo, Gonzaga
  • DraftExpress – Jeremy Pargo had a game-high 20 points (7-16 FG, 5-7 FT) to go along with 4 assists. Unfortunately, he also had 6 turnovers and missed three of his four 3-pointers. He pushed the ball up the floor extremely well, showed terrific explosiveness getting by his man and giving himself options in the half-court, and also flashed some glimpses of solid court-vision, but his poor decision making led to way too many turnovers, which has typically been his problem. Going back to school and improving his decision making skills looks like a very good option at this point.

Final thought – we’re very excited to see how the height/weight and strength tests look when they come out.