With the NBA Draft only hours away, it is looking increasingly likely that the Grizzlies will select UCONN center Hasheem Thabeet with the second pick in a draft. A trade could still send the Grizzlies in a different direction, but the safe money at this point is on Thabeet. I’ve been against the pick but haven’t really summarized my objections, so it’s time to get those in before it’s too late. Three reasons not to draft Hasheem Thabeet:
1. Value: My primary objection to a Thabeet pick has been that I don’t think it maximizes the asset the Grizzlies obtained by getting the #2 pick. This notion is predicated on Ricky Rubio being the consensus #2 player in the draft. If it’s true that the shine is coming off Rubio a little as NBA teams take a closer look, then maybe that’s no longer true. But I tend to believe that there is still sufficient interest in Rubio that what you can obtain in trade for the pick is more valuable than Thabeet.
2. Precedent: My radio partner Chris Vernon has been talking a lot this week about the lack of a correlation between being a big-time college shot-blocker and being a high-level pro, citing such former NCAA shot-blocking machines as Calvin Booth and Adonal Foyle. This is a persuasive point, but the counter-argument would be that none of the players Vernon cites were quite as highly regarded coming out of college as Thabeet.
But what’s the history of players of both Thabeet’s type and draft ranking? Not good. By my count, there have been only nine true centers taken with Top 5 picks since 1990. (There is a degree of judgment call here about what constitutes a true center. I can hash that out in the comments if anyone wants to challenge the list.)
