Looking Back On The 2009 NBA Draft
With the 2010 draft on the horizon, I decided it was time to take a look back at the draft we’ve just had.
Despite projections that it was going to be the weakest class since 2000, the Class of 2009 has turned out quite impressive even when you consider that the two most-highly touted prospects from the draft (Blake Griffin and Ricky Rubio) are yet to play a minute in the NBA.
We’ve seen three guys who will definitely be All-Stars in the future (Tyreke Evans, Stephen Curry and Brandon Jennings) along with a clutch of other guys who will have long NBA careers and potentially be All-Stars like Darren Collison, DeJuan Blair, Ty Lawson, James Harden etc.
However, as always when looking back, the questions (particularly the “what if” kind) come up. So I’m gonna try answer a few of my own here, and if you guys have any, you can leave them as comments.
What if Blake Griffin’s knee hadn’t gone down?
Well, since we are talking about the Clippers here, the odds of Griffin not getting injured/incapacitated in some way are slim to none.
Anyway, consider the possibility. Griffin would have joined a team which had Baron Davis (who can still turn it on when he feels like it), Chris Kaman (who went on to have a career year and get his first All-Star nod), Marcus Camby (before being traded to Portland) and exciting young talents in Eric Gordon and DeAndre Jordan who would only have been better for a year’s experience.
You have to remember, Griffin was being touted as a can’t-miss prospect in the same way we’re talking about John Wall in 2010. He was said to possess every possible skill you could want in a young power forward while being a hard worker and good character guy at the same time.
While the style Mike Dunleavy had this team playing wouldn’t have helped their chances (this was and is a team practically built for an up-tempo, transition style but he had them playing in the half-court) you’d have to say adding Griffin to that mix would have had the Clippers definitely past .500 and possibly even knocking on the playoff door.
So, yeah. Sorry Clippers fans. There’s always next year.
What if the Grizzlies hadn’t picked Hasheem Thabeet?
I’m actually very glad they didn’t. Now I don’t come off as hating on white people whenever I cite big stiff centers who were all white — I can just name-drop Thabeet along with Olowakandi and I don’t get the KKK knocking on my door. Yay!
In all seriousness, this pick was a horrible one by the Grizzlies.
We’ve all heard the saying, “you can’t teach height,” and that was pretty much the reason Thabeet made it all the way up to the second overall pick despite being barely worthy of the second pick in the second round.
This pick seems even more mind-boggling when you consider that the Grizzlies desperately needed, and still need a good point guard, and this draft was stacked with them. (Come on — if you seriously believe that the OJ Mayo/PG experiment will work out, I suggest booking a holiday in the crazyhouse).
Cause other than at the point, the Grizzlies are doing pretty well. OJ Mayo and Rudy Gay are fast becoming one of the more exciting (if flawed) wing pairings in the league, Zach Randolph had his best year since he came into the NBA and Marc Gasol makes that trade look a little less stupid every time he plays.
Imagine if Memphis had picked Stephen Curry or Brandon Jennings or Darren Collison and had them setting up Mayo and Gay for easy baskets or having the bigs kicking the ball out of the paint to them (particularly Curry) for open looks.
The Grizz were in playoff contention for a lot of this year — a better draft pick may have put them over the top.
Who was the steal of the draft?
You could argue plenty of cases here, especially since out of the top five, two never saw the court, one busted and one spent most of the year coming off the bench. Only Tyreke Evans sealed himself as a star of the future.
Stephen Curry really shouldn’t have fallen to seventh, especially when you consider how much the T-Wolves could have used him.
Or just how good OKC could have been if he had played the Harden role — Harden is a good shooter, but Curry already is a great one.
Brandon Jennings also slipped to tenth, which was based on his decision to spend a year playing in Italy instead of taking the offer he had received from the University of Arizona.
You gotta say that the Knicks (who could really have used a point guard as well, but picked a raw forward and traded him mid-season) and the Raptors (who needed someone else with star quality to show Chris Bosh that it’s worth staying in Toronto) would love a do-over on their picks.
However, there’s no question that the steal of the draft had to be Darren Collison.
Falling to 20th overall and expected only to get garbage minutes spelling Chris Paul in New Orleans, Collison stepped up admirably when Paul was out with injury and showed himself to be a rising star, although he’s probably out of NOLA sooner rather than later.
Which team had the best and worst draft?
The team that had the best draft is probably open for debate.
My Warriors definitely lucked out with Stephen Curry at seventh — had he managed to play all season the way he did after the All-Star break, we would have finished with a much better record.
Milwaukee definitely would argue they have a case — without Brandon Jennings’ spark, there is no way they’re anywhere over .500, forget about the playoffs.
Even in the East. While Jennings has a way to go yet, his combination with my homeboy Bogut bodes well for the future in Milwaukee. Fear the Deer indeed.
But I’d have to say that the Hornets had the best draft of all teams. With a non-lottery first round pick and a second rounder, they managed to produce two players who will go on to have solid NBA careers and, in Collison’s case, maybe even an All-Star game or two.
As for the worst, it has to be the Timberwolves — I’ve squeezed about 300 David Kahn insults out of this draft and I still have more to go.
Memphis may have blown it with Thabeet, but at least they did so according to a fairly common maxim around the NBA, moronic as it may be. There is absolutely no reason why you pick two point guards directly after the other, only to drive one of them away possibly never to play for your team. Which leads into…
What if the Timberwolves had not drafted Ricky Rubio with the fifth pick and Jonny Flynn with the sixth?
Or in simpler terms, “what if the Timberwolves were not managed by a guy who seemingly has the basketball sense of a house cat?” (Actually, that’s an insult to house cats.
My neighbour’s cat damn sure knows when I’m watching a game, cause he always comes around then, and he knows when a good play happens cause he gets up before I do. Even though I’m allergic to him.)
In hindsight, they probably do this draft a little differently. Yes, you may refer to me as Captain Obvious.
Assuming they can’t trade up for James Harden (possibly the best pure shooting guard in this draft), then they either go with Stephen Curry (an undersized two guard in high school and college who transitioned to the 1 in the NBA, but who would be a better fit than Jonny Flynn), a raw freak athlete in DeMar DeRozan or rely on hindsight and grab Marcus Thornton.
The saddest part for Timberwolves fans? In a draft stacked with point guards, your team’s GM couldn’t even pick the fifth-best one available with the sixth overall pick.
If you aren’t mad yet, you should be.
Who was the bust of the draft?
Ladies and gentleman, can I get a “Hasheem Thabeet?” Nice and loud…HASH-EEM, THA-BEET!!
Thabeet still can salvage his career — it’s only his first year.
If things go well for him from here and he works hard, he could carve out a role as a poor man’s Andris Biedrins — a rebounder, shot-blocker and garbage point specialist.
Or possibly even a uni student’s Dikembe Mutombo — a tough interior defensive presence without the finger wag and ridiculously funny voice.
But there is absolutely no way he becomes a dominant NBA big man on offense, or even a starting center for a good team unless you surround him with really good offensive players.
Tyreke Evans won Rookie of the Year while putting up stats only matched by the rookie seasons of Oscar Robertson and Michael Jordan. What does the future hold for him?
OK, let me make one thing clear first. Just because I’m a Golden State fan doesn’t mean I’m hating on Tyreke. In fact, I believe he did deserve the award based on his stats.
However…I honestly believe that Tyreke Evans, in his current incarnation, can not be more than a stat-stuffer on a bad team.
Let me explain.
I’ve said it in my previous articles — the main reason Tyreke is an extremely effective NBA player and will continue to be in the short term is because he not only has a considerable size, strength and athleticism advantage over most point guards, but he knows how to harness these physical gifts better than most and use them to his advantage.
However, as we all know, its well and good to rely on said physical gifts when you’re 19. When you’re 29, with 10 years of NBA wear and tear on your body and possibly a major injury or two, the speed and athleticism begins to go away.
The word that he’s working intensively on his jump shot during the off-season shows that he too understands this and realizes he needs to diversify his game.
However, there are two other major (linked) faults with Tyreke’s game as it is, which are harder to correct than a jump shot.
Specifically, he’s extremely ball dominant while having very little point guard instincts. That doesn’t make him a low basketball IQ player (although the two can be linked), it just means that he isn’t a very good point guard.
A good PG knows how to get his teammates involved, set them up for easy shots on offense and run plays effectively. Tyreke can’t do any of these things.
However, as I also touched on, he needs the ball in his hands all the time. So it’s not simply a matter of putting him with a good point guard and letting him play the two.
He’s another one of the new breed of what I call one and a half guards — guys who play the point as their team’s main ball-handler, but who look for their own shot first rather than trying to set up their team-mates and only pass when they can’t get it.
Allen Iverson started the trend, and now we have Dwyane Wade, Gilbert Arenas, Brandon Roy etc as examples, but all of those guys have much better passing instincts than Tyreke does right now.
Ironically, probably his closest comparison is Monta Ellis, although Monta at his best is much better off the ball.
So he’s stuck in this PG/SG limbo, not a true point but not a good enough off-ball player to be a two.
Does that mean he can’t be a good NBA player?
Of course not — look at some of the guys I mentioned for examples of what he could be.
But he needs to figure out whether he wants to be a point guard or a shooting guard soon, and start working appropriately on his game if he wants to be more than a good stats/bad team guy.
Because you can’t be a title contender where you only have one real offensive weapon and your other players’ role is to get the hell out of the way and wait for a pass when he’s double/triple teamed.
OK, so out of this year’s batch of rookies, who will have the best career?
Firstly, I’m excluding Blake Griffin and Ricky Rubio from this discussion because neither of them played this year so I can’t pass judgement on them.
That said, I think there are guys from this draft who can definitely go on to have long NBA careers and become important pieces for contending teams.
However, out of the guys I’ve seen, I don’t think there’s any one player who jumps out and says, “I can be the best guy on a title-winning team” the way Kevin Durant did in 2007, or Chris Paul in 2005, or LeBron, Melo and Wade in 2003. They all have their own flaws which will get in the way.
Stephen Curry can’t play defense. Brandon Jennings has poor shot selection. Darren Collison gets out of control occasionally. DeJuan Blair is undersized and his knees will eventually catch up with him. (Take it from someone who has had his ACL removed). And I already covered Tyreke’s flaws.
The rest are championship role-players as best.
That said, I definitely think Evans, Curry and Jennings (at least) are future perennial All-Stars who take their teams consistently to the playoffs, and Curry/Jennings could well become the new Deron/CP3.
You’re an idiot.
I know. Thanks for your time.
