NBA Draft 2011 Rumors: The Latest News from Chad Ford
Only two days until the NBA draft and there is definitely an extreme panic from most lottery teams to find the perfect player in the perfect spot. No team wants to pick a player too high forcing them to pay him too much, yet if you trade down, you might lose the best player on your board.
The Minnesota Timberwolves (second pick), Utah Jazz (third pick), Cleveland Cavaliers (fourth pick) and the Washington Wizards (sixth pick) all are interested in trading down, yet all of these teams clearly need a game-changer to help improve their record next year. The most interested in trading their pick is the Cavaliers, because they already have the first overall pick in the draft.
At the seventh overall pick, the Sacramento Kings are looking to mix up the draft board. The obvious choice is Kemba Walker or Kawhi Leonard, but rumors are that Jimmer Fredette is going to be picked instead.
He is an amazing shooter and because of his inability to go far in the NCAA tournament, he seemed to be pushed to the back burners on many lottery teams’ draft boards. The Kings seems to be very excited about Ferdette though. Even if he is not picked at seven, he could go to the Bobcats at No. 9 or the Milwaukee Bucks at No. 10.
Needless to say, he should be a top-10 pick, proving all the critics wrong that he is worthy of being a team's franchise player. He averaged 28 points per game, the most for a single player in the nation last year.
Kyle Singler, Chandler Parsons and Iman Shumpert are climbing up everyone boards, potentially squeaking into the end of the first round. These players were thought to go in the beginning of the second round, but with interests climbing from teams such as the Oklahoma City, Boston and Chicago, they could go as early as the 18th overall pick.
Kyle Singler was the best of the three in college and should be the most consistent player at the NBA level. Iman Shumpert is a risk in the first round, but he has a lot of talent and could become a steal if he pans out. Chandler Parsons is a very good outside shooter, but I have doubts that his three-point shot will translate to the NBA level.
The NBA announced their “green room” invites earlier today and the one question is, why wasn’t Bismack Biyombo invited? He is projected to be a top-10 pick and definitely in the top 15, but yet he wasn’t invited.
Other hopefuls that weren’t invited were Jordan Hamilton, Marshon Brooks and Nikola Vucevic. This is the NBA’s way of tipping their hand as to how they think the NBA lottery portion of the draft will pan out.
This should be incentive to Bismack Biyombo in his final day of team workouts on Wednesday to prove to the league itself that he is worthy of a lottery pick
All of this said, there is STILL a day until the draft. After all of these new insights from the past few days, the draft is right around the corner. So sit back, grab the finest micro-brew in the fridge, filter out every other sound in the world, and tune into the NBA draft, June 23rd at 7:00 PM ET on ESPN.
