NBA Draft 2012: Best and Worst Fits for Harrison Barnes

Harrison Barnes has worked his way up and down draft boards ever since he first entered the national scene as a ridiculously impressive prospect out of high school and then at North Carolina. Now, he's ready to go in the top 10 of the NBA draft and could climb even higher. 

Which teams are the best and worst fits for him?

The small forward has been under the microscope for so long now that his game has been completely picked apart, for better and for worse. We know that Barnes is in full control of the silky-smooth jumper he used to score 17.1 points per game as a sophomore. 

However as talented as he is at scoring, Barnes struggles to create his own jump shot, relying instead on the talents of elite point guards like Kendall Marshall to help him take advantage of scoring situations.

Ideally, Barnes lands in a team with a hole at the 3 and a talent at point guard.  

Best: Cleveland Cavaliers

While the Cavs primary focus in the draft must be filling in their hole at shooting guard and creating a terrific young backcourt of Kyrie Irving and the incoming rookie, there aren't too many elite 2-guards available in this draft class. 

If Bradley Beal is off the board when Cleveland is up at No. 4, the next best options are Jeremy Lamb and Dion Waiters. While Waiters, a combo guard out of Syracuse, would be a massive reach considering he's a fringe lottery prospect at this point, Lamb would only be a slight stretch. He would still be a stretch though. 

Drafting Harrison Barnes instead would be the right move for the Cavs, even if it would indicate an end to the Alonzo Gee experiment. 

Barnes would be an almost immediate upgrade over Gee and would thrive alongside a tremendous floor general like Kyrie Irving, who is only going to get better in years to come. 

Worst: Sacramento Kings

While at first glance the Sacramento Kings might appear to have use for Harrison Barnes, assuming that both Thomas Robinson and Andre Drummond are off the board when it's their turn to pick at No. 5, the former Tar Heel would end up being thrust into a bad position to start his NBA career. 

The Kings are currently throwing Tyreke Evans out at small forward, even if it's a safe guess that they try to trade Evans for a new player during the offseason. 

Sacramento's problem right now is that they have too many small players on their roster. There are only so many minutes to go around for Isaiah Thomas, Jimmer Fredette, Marcus Thornton, Evans and the other members of the Sacramento backcourt.

The situation became so dire that Evans had to play small forward in an undersized lineup to receive a justifiable amount of playing time. Adding Barnes to the situation would just create more playing time problems and hinder the development of the many other young players.

Moreover, Sacramento is a great example of what happens when multiple basketball black holes all play on the same team. Barnes wouldn't help remedy that either.  

Best: Golden State Warriors

Even though the Golden State Warriors select a few spots below the two teams listed above, Harrison Barnes should be sitting in his seat at the 2012 NBA draft and hoping that he ends up with them. 

No situation fits him more perfectly. 

The one hole in the Golden State lineup right now is the glaring weakness at small forward. Dorell Wright is simply not going to cut it after proving that his breakout campaign was not much more than an extended fluke. 

Drafting Barnes and letting him play alongside a creative—and hopefully healthy—point guard like Stephen Curry would do wonders for the Black Falcon's future. Plus, a starting lineup of Curry, Klay Thompson, Barnes, David Lee and Andrew Bogut could contend for a playoff spot.