I’ll have a report from this afternoon’s press conference later and will probably wait until this weekend to deal with the aftermath of the draft in War and Peace form, but for now some quick thoughts:
1. Hasheem Thabeet: I’d voiced my opposition to the Thabeet pick here, but clearly my “value” objection was not, um, valid. Last night’s draft made it clear that the #2 pick, and the rights to Ricky Rubio, did not have the trade value that many assumed (or maybe hoped). Sacramento clearly wasn’t going to offer a significant package to get Rubio at 2 when they weren’t even going to take him at 4. The Knicks never had a compelling package to offer. As for Minnesota, there were some reports yesterday that Hasheem Thabeet was their target at #2, but if it was Rubio they were clearly right in not making a significant offer to move up. They got him at #5 anyway.
Via a combination of his legal issues in Spain and taking a closer look at his game, the shine clearly came off Rubio in the run-up to the draft. Did teams like Memphis, Oklahoma City, and Sacramento make a big mistake in passing up Rubio? Time will tell.
My other objections to the Thabeet pick are interrelated: There’s a long history of teams making a mistake by reaching for size high in the draft. Taking out the few centers considered obvious franchise players (Shaq, Yao), the bust-to-star ratio is something like three-to-one. And I especially didn’t like the Grizzlies taking the risk when center was not a position of need with Marc Gasol already in place.
