2014 DBR Mock Draft

[JasonEvans]

And we are off to the races!

The 2014 DBR Mock Draft is ready to begin. Because we are starting a little earlier than planned, I am not going to hold people to the regular "clock" for their picks. From now until Monday, you will have 10 hours to make your pick (not counting the overnight hours of 8pm - 8am ET). Of course, if you want to pick fast, there is nothing wrong with that!! Starting Monday we will go to the normal clock of 6 hours. There will be more of a grace period over the weekend, but if you kill the draft for an entire day, I'm going to make your pick for you.

Here is our draft order and all the GMs names...

First Round

1. Cleveland Cavaliers – BlueDevilBrowns - Andrew Wiggins, Kansas
2. Milwaukee Bucks - Turk - Joel Embiid, Kansas
3. Philadelphia 76ers - pfrduke - Jabari Parker, Duke
4. Orlando Magic - Duvall - Dante Exum, Australia
5. Utah Jazz - tommy - Noah Vonleh, Indiana
6. Boston Celtics - Henderson - Aaron Gordon, Arizona
7. Los Angeles Lakers - TheSchwartz - Marcus Smart, Okie State
8. Sacramento Kings – Ichabod Drain - Doug McDermott, Creighton
9. Charlotte Hornets - mattman91 - Julius Randle, Kentucky
10. Philadelphia 76ers - pfrduke - Zach LaVine, UCLA

11. Denver Nuggets - The Alaskan Bear - Jusuf Nurkic, Bosnia
12. Orlando Magic - Duvall - Dario Saric, Croatia
13. Minnesota Timberwolves – FerryFor50 - Rodney Hood, Duke
14. Phoenix Suns - LI Duke - Gary Harris, Michigan State
15. Atlanta Hawks - JasonEvans - Kyle Anderson, UCLA
16. Chicago Bulls - CDu - Nik Stauskas, Michigan
17. Boston Celtics - Henderson - Tyler Ennis, Syracuse
18. Phoenix Suns - LI Duke - Elfrid Payton, Louisiana Lafayette
19. Chicago Bulls - CDu - James Young, Kentucky
20. Toronto Raptors - NovaScotian - Adreian Payne, Michigan State
21. Oklahoma City Thunder - FlyingDutchDevil - Glenn Robinson III, Michigan
22. Memphis Grizzlies - roywhite - TJ Warren, NC State
23. Utah Jazz - tommy - Jordan Adams, UCLA
24. Charlotte Hornets - mattman91 - Shabazz Napier, UConn
25. Houston Rockets - nsdukefan - KJ McDaniels, Clemson
26. Miami Heat - Duke3517 - Cleanthony Early, Wichita State
27. Phoenix Suns - LI Duke - Clint Capela, Switzerland
28. Los Angeles Clippers- Newton_14 - Jerami Grant, Syracuse
29. Oklahoma City Thunder - FlyingDutchDevil - Artem Klimenko, Russia
30. San Antonio Spurs - Brevity - Vasilije Micic, Serbia

Second Round:

31. Milwaukee Bucks - Turk - PJ Hairston, North Carolina
32. Philadelphia 76ers - pfrduke - Jarnell Stokes, Tennessee
33. Cleveland Cavaliers - BlueDevilBrowns - Mitch McGary, Michigan
34. Dallas Mavericks - kAzE - Bogdan Bogdanovic, Serbia
35. Utah Jazz - tommy - CJ Wilcox, Washington
36. Milwaukee Bucks - Turk - DeAndre Daniels, UConn
37. Toronto Raptors - NovaScotian - Thanasis Antetokoumpo, Greece
38. Detroit Pistons - NCDBlueDevilsTC78 - Markel Brown, Oklahoma State
39. Philadelphia 76ers -pfrduke - Walter Tavares, Cape Verde
40. Minnesota Timberwolves - FerryFor50 - Russdiculous, Louisville
41. Denver Nuggets - The Alaskan Bear - Spencer Dinwiddie, Colorado
42. Houston Rockets - nsdukefan - Isaiah Austin, Baylor
43. Atlanta Hawks - JasonEvans - Jordan Clarkson, Missouri
44. Minnesota Timberwolves - FerryFor50 - Patric Young, Florida
45. Charlotte Hornets - mattman91 - Jabari Brown, Missouri
46. Washington Wizards - nocilla - Jahii Carson, Arizona State
47. Philadelphia 76ers - pfrduke - Damien Inglis, French Guiana
48. Milwaukee Bucks - Turk - Semaj Christon, Xavier
49. Chicago Bulls - CDu - Deonte Burton, Nevada
50. Phoenix Suns - LI Duke - James Michael McAdoo, UNC
51. Dallas Mavericks - kAzE - Nikola Jokic, Serbia
52. Philadelphia 76ers - pfrduke - Dwight Powell, Stanford
53. Minnesota Timberwolves - FerryFor50 - Jordan Bachynski, Arizona State
54. Philadelphia 76ers - pfrduke - Nick Johnson, Arizona
55. Miami Heat - Duke3517 - Khem Birch, UNLV
56. Denver Nuggets - The Alaskan Bear - DeAndre Kane, Iowa State
57. Indiana Pacers - awhom111 - Josh Huestis, Stanford
58. San Antonio Spurs - Brevity - Andre Dawkins, Duke
59. Toronto Raptors - NovaScotian
60. San Antonio Spurs - Brevity

In terms of the format of this thread, I think it looks best if you put your team name and pick in the "Headline" of the post, so it is easily visible. Also, I strongly encourage each GM to explain the pick and his rationalization for selecting that player for his team. Critiques and discussions of picks are also always welcome.

Lastly, I urge you to be thoughtful about your picks. The community will probably frown on you if you take Rodney Hood 4th overall or Andre Dawkins with a late 1st round pick as doing something like that would get you fired as a NBA GM and does not reflect your true judgement of the NBA talent of this year's draft class.

With that said, thanks to all of you for playing along. BlueDevilBrowns is up!!

-Jason "Wiggins, Embiid, or Parker -- I look forward to the explanation of who gets picked first!" Evans

[mattman91]

The Cleveland GM must be having a hard time deciding.

[CDu]

The Cleveland GM must be having a hard time deciding.

Well, it IS the deepest draft in years at the top...

[brevity]

The Cleveland GM must be having a hard time deciding.

This would be a good time to remind the Cleveland GM that, in accordance with Dan Gilbert's policy, your announcement must be written in Comic Sans.

(Yes, I will make this joke every year.)

[BlueDevilBrowns]

This would be a good time to remind the Cleveland GM that, in accordance with Dan Gilbert's policy, your announcement must be written in Comic Sans.

(Yes, I will make this joke every year.)

Unfortunately, I, the Cleveland GM, am on vacation this week and this morning my laptop decided to die, probably because it came in contact with my 4 year old.

So, I'm having to use my phone which is slower than dirt.

I'll give a complete breakdown of the Wiggins pick when I get access to a keyboard.

But at least everyone else can proceed now.

Deepest apologies for the delay.

[Turk]

The Bucks are a complete mess, earning the worst record in the league during the 2013-14 season, despite the directive from ownership (just as in Cleveland) to make all moves with the goal of reaching the playoffs in a weak Eastern Conference. Over the last few years, the moves resulted in drafting raw athletes of limited skill, overpaying for mediocre veteran free agents, and trading away the wrong players.

Of the current roster heading into 2014-15 (such as it is), center Larry Sanders converted one breakout year into a big contract, and then started getting into bar fights without any of the wit and charm of Charles Barkley, plus failing drug tests as an added bonus. Because of his excellent advanced metrics as a center, Grantland’s Zach Lowe often gleefully referred to him as LARRY SANDERS!, but he is now just overpaid injury-prone Sanders with a toxic $44M left on his contract. No one knows if Sanders has his head screwed on straight after last year’s lost season. O.J. Mayo displayed a talent for overeating, indifference, bad basketball, and contractually mandated money-stealing not seen since the twilight years of Rasheed Wallace.

Hard-core roto heads might recognize Ersan Ilyasova and Zaza Pachulia as versatile players capable of making significant contributions. Last year in the first round, the team drafted Giannis Antetokounmpo, a.k.a. “The Greek Freak”, a teenager who displayed infrequent flashes of athletic ability while averaging a sparkling 6.8 PPG. Perhaps the Milwaukee front office noticed that the Spurs have a lot of European players, and tried to replicate their formula, without bothering to find out whether the Europeans they signed were actually good at basketball. As for the rest, Brandon Knight is on the last year of his rookie contract holding down the PG position, Khris Middleton displayed potential as a 3-point specialist at an economy price, and John Henson provided a bit of shot-blocking and rebounding off the bench.

Despite four picks in this year’s draft, the Bucks are not planning to compete at a high level this year, and another year of player development (tanking, cough, cough) is in their future while they work to get a new arena built. Leading up to the draft, the Bucks attended workouts for the Big Three of Embiid, Parker, and Wiggins, and rounded up the usual suspects for additional in-house workouts. Of those, there are rumors of strong interest in Australian PG Dante Exum, which would allow the Bucks to move Brandon Knight to a more natural role as the 2 guard.

Most draft projections presumed that the Cavs would take Embiid both for need and for the highest ceiling. Since the Cavs once again decided to go against conventional wisdom, the Bucks are delighted at their good fortune (a good omen!) and select Joel Embiid, C, Kansas. Embiid’s versatility, offensive skill set, and athleticism will allow him to also play the 4 should Sanders transform back to LARRY SANDERS! The Bucks will consult with every shrink in the Midwest, but if Sanders continues to self-destruct, they'll dump his contract, play Embiid at C and keep Ilyasova at PF. The Bucks will bet that the infusion of young talent will re-energize Ilyasova, who is only 26 and averaged 17 ppg / 11 reb with good percentages just two years ago. Jabari Parker received strong consideration, especially with his polished game and Chicago roots, but the Bucks concluded that Embiid can be the cornerstone of the franchise in ways that Parker cannot. Based on all accounts from the workouts, Embiid’s back is fine. The Spurs will be the model to follow (even if the Bucks' actual execution has been terrible). A lot of people have been comparing Embiid to Hakeem, but the Bucks see Embiid more like David Robinson.

[pfrduke]

The 76ers went Sorry for Jabari with more gusto than any team in the league, and despite falling to #3 in the draft, we get our man. Parker immediately becomes either our best or second-best scorer (depending on what you think of Thaddeus Young's game). There is a bit of overlap between Parker and Young, but there's so much need for talent - and Parker is so far ahead of anyone else left on the board - that this is an extremely easy pick.

[Duvall]

With the fourth pick in the 2014 DBR Mock Draft, the Orlando Magic select Dante Exum, PG/SG.

Last year the Orlando Magic used the #2 pick to select Indiana's Victor Oladipo, in hopes of converting him into an NBA point guard. This produced mixed results in year one. Rather than abandoning the Oladipo Project completely, the Magic have elected to pick another athletic young combo guard, because the odds favor at least one of them learning to shoot. Eventually.

[tommy]

Here's our situation: We need everything, folks. We have only two guards we could give a rat's patooie about: last year's #1 pick Trey Burke out of Michigan, who was hurt at the start of the year, but came on to have a solid freshman campaign (other than his shooting, which we think will improve) and 2011 first rounder Alec Burks, who most view as a solid NBA starter. That's it. Oh, and we also have Quin Snyder. If Burke or Burks gets hurt or tired, we can always have our new coach suit up and give us a few minutes in a pinch.

Up front, we're letting a bunch of guys with expiring contracts leave, which is why we acquired them in the first place: Marvin Williams, Richard Jefferson, and I think Andre Biedrins was ours too. Oh, and Brandon Rush can go as well. That means we've got a TON of cap space. I mean, a ton. The bigs we have under contract that we care if they show up for the games or not are Enes Kanter, Derrick Favors, and 7'1" backup Rudy Gobert, who we still feel can develop. Perhaps our best player last year was SF Gordon Heyward. Gordo is a restricted free agent right now, and we're hopeful of re-signing him, and we're really hopeful of re-signing him at less than a max contract, cuz we're not sure he's worth a max contract to a team in our position. But we may not have a choice -- we really can't lose him at this stage. We've got the money, as Favors's $12M is the only big salary we're carrying.

So, the draft pick. We're thin both in the backcourt and inside. But we're going to go with Noah Vonleh, the rangy freshman forward out of Indiana. We definitely thought long and hard about Julius Randle. Randle is a much more polished offensive player than is Vonleh right now, but Vonleh is a much better athlete -- he killed it the combine -- and more versatile (he's actually bigger too) and we think that Vonleh could play both the 3 and the 4, which is nice in case we lose Gordy. We could be making a mistake here, if Randle turns out to be Z-Bo. But rumors are that Randle actually needs foot surgery, and will have it after the draft. That doesn't thrill us. Close call, but we're going with Vonleh.

[Henderson]

There are three things the Celtics have going that impact their draft choices this year: (1) The possibility of attracting Kevin Love; (2) The decision whether to trade Rajon Rondo or try to re-sign him; and (3) The fact that the Celtics are building a young team with a young coach whose emphasis is on a motion offense.

With those moving pieces, the most important thing is to maintain flexibility. The Celtics have banked a ton of top draft choices over the next few years, and that helps. But anyone chosen in this draft either has to fit into the current building program or has to be good trade bait in a position that they already have covered. Preferably both.

Aaron Gordon fits the bill beautifully. He's very young (still 18) with incredible physical skills. He has some things that definitely need work (e.g. offensive efficiency and that gawdawful 40% FT percentage). But he's coachable, has a great attitude, and will be a great team mate. A real positive influence while he continues to learn. Great rebounder with a great motor. Decent 3PT shooter. And Brad Stevens is young and eager to teach. Gordon could easily be a superstar in the league given his physical talents and attitude. At PF/SF, right now the Celtics have Jeff Green (good but inconsistent and not a young player), Brandon Bass (ditto), and Jared Sullinger (still a young work in progress and more of a pure post player). So if the Celtics wanted to keep Gordon and build a team around him and the other young players they already have, it's an intriguing possibility for the next 6 years or so. Gordon is so young and so gifted athletically, so smart and such a hard worker, his upside is extremely high. Team him with Brad Stevens, and the upside is even higher. And if they have to trade him, they still have Green, Bass, and Sulinger + whomever they get in that trade.

If on the other hand, the Celtics needed to package something up to get Kevin Love and/or get a new PG to replace Rondo (whose contract is up next year and will be 29 years old at the start of the next one) and his $13M salary with a young PG who is more of a scoring threat as well as a good distributor of the ball, Gordon could be pretty incredible trade bait.

So keep him or trade him, Aaron Gordon is a perfect pick for the Celtics at #6.

P.S. The Celtics had him higher than Exum and Vonleh (though Exum was close), so Gordon's availability at #6 was very good news.

[kAzE]

This is a formal warning. Unlike most of you guys, I'm already an accomplished NBA GM. Check out my sick management of the Cleveland Cavs in NBA 2K14:IMG_0722[1].jpg

For those of you who are familiar with the game, I began an association mode with the Cleveland Cavaliers (GM mode for those of you who aren't versed) with an extremely realistic 2014 draft class including over 50 real life prospects with incredibly accurate ratings and player playstyles (I swear Jabari's dribble moves and jump shot are DEAD on). I simulated the 2014 season while making transactions throughout the year and doing 3 player development drills every month (But no practices, because I think it's bugged, it does crazy stuff with player stats), 29 game seasons, on Hall of Fame Difficulty without the ability to override trades. We decided to part ways with Mike Brown 5 games into the season, hiring Doug Collins as head coach for the remainder of the year on an affordable 3 year deal. In 2014, we went 14-15 and made the playoffs as the #8 seed and managed to defeat the #1 seeded Chicago Bulls (In this reality, Derrick Rose did not injure himself) en route to a heartbreaking loss at the hands of the #2 Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals.

During the offseason, I pull off the deal of all deals, moving nearly my entire roster, and ending up with the #2 pick in the 2014 draft. With the #1 pick, the Boston Celtics took Joel Embiid, and we went with Jabari Parker at #2. The Toronto Raptors were delighted to take countryman Andrew Wiggins with the 3rd pick. Then, in another trade, we acquired the #12 pick, where we took Nik Stauskas. Kyrie Irving tested the free agent waters, but in the end, we re-signed him to a 4 year deal with an additional 1 year player option for about 21 Million a year, making him the highest paid PG in the league. We also managed to acquire Nicolas Batum in the final year of his deal in the offseason. We really needed his defense to make a serious playoff run. We started a Lineup in 2015 of Miles Plumlee, Jabari at the 4, Batum, Stauskas, and Irving with Austin Rivers as the 6th man off the bench.

In 2015, I manually played each game as the Cleveland Cavaliers, going 23-6, winning the Cavaliers their first ever NBA championship, beating the Miami Heat (which somehow brought back the big 3 on new contracts) in 7 games in the Eastern Finals, then defeating the OKC Thunder in 6 in the NBA Finals. In addition to being the Finals MVP, Kyrie Irving won the regular season MVP award, averaging 26 points 11 assists and 3 steals. He was also an all-star starter. Jabari Parker won the rookie of the year award in a landslide over Andrew Wiggins, who unfortunately tore his left MCL with 5 games to go in the regular season for the Raptors. Jabari also made the all-star roster as a reserve, averaging 29 points, (2nd in the league in scoring behind Kevin Durant) 6 rebounds, and 2 blocks per game. Austin Rivers won the 6th man of the year award as well as coming in 2nd for the most improved player award, dramatically turning around his career after a brutal start in New Orleans, averaging 14 points, 4 assist, and 2 steals a game in 2015. We used Austin as the first option on the second unit, playing about 18-20 minutes a game, but taking almost as many shots as Jabari or Kyrie. He excelled in the role, and became a very dangerous scorer off the bench, shooting 38% from 3 and 43% overall. We also acquired Ryan Anderson in the deal for Rivers, and he was also a valuable contributor throughout the year off the bench. MP1 had an excellent year, averaging 9 points, 12 rebounds, and 3 blocks, finishing 5th in the voting for defensive player of the year.

This picture is taken towards the end of the next season, which I am also playing out manually. (You can see the date at the top left, is March 2016) The Cavs are currently 25-0 with 4 games left on the regular season schedule. The game currently ranks Jabari Parker as the 4th best player in the league, 3rd best Small Forward behind LBJ and Durant, and Kyrie as the 5th best, and the best point guard. (our player development is the BOMB) The center in the screenshot, Pierre Girbaud, is a rookie from a downloaded draft class of randomized players, a 7'0", 260 pound French center (Think Nikola Pekovic with a crazy motor and some post moves) who we took with the 6th pick in the 2015 draft. We acquired the pick from Golden State for Nik Stauskas, Austin Rivers, and Miles Plumlee. We also manged to snag Klay Thompson in the deal with the Warriors, who was disgruntled in Golden State after a mediocre year in 2015, and forced the Warriors to trade him. Girbaud turned out to be the biggest steal in the draft, as you can see, he's averaging 21, 13, and 2, running away with the rookie of the year award. We also managed to re-sign Batum in the offseson on a 5 year deal worth about 11 million a year, and managing to stay under the cap by about $600k. We are the 2nd highest rated team in the league , and are the heavy favorites to win the title again. The only team rated higher is OKC, who somehow worked out a deal for Kobe Bryant while keeping Durant, Westbrook, AND Ibaka. (I never figured out how they managed to pay all those guys)

So long story short, I'm pretty much the GM who made the biggest turnaround in a franchise of all time. Ya'll better watch out, I'm might draft a future Hall of Famer for the Mavs in the 2nd round.

[theAlaskanBear]

This is a formal warning. Unlike most of you guys, I'm already an accomplished NBA GM. Check out my sick management of the Cleveland Cavs in NBA 2K14:IMG_0722[1].jpg

....(hot air)...

So long story short, I'm pretty much the GM who made the biggest turnaround in a franchise of all time. Ya'll better watch out, I'm might draft a future Hall of Famer for the Mavs in the 2nd round.

Wow not just 2014 NBA mock draft trash talk, but NBA 2k14 fantasy draft trash talk. It gets real.

[kAzE]

Wow not just 2014 NBA mock draft trash talk, but NBA 2k14 fantasy draft trash talk. It gets real.

In all seriousness though, if you are a basketball junkie and you own a video game console, you doing yourself a huge disservice if you don't own a NBA 2K game. It really is an incredible basketball simulator.

[pfrduke]

We'll update the first post in the thread to show who has been picked.

[theschwartz]

It was a rough season for the Lake Show. They saw themselves supplanted by the cross-arena Clippers for LA supremacy. This is a critical pick for them as they need help pretty much everywhere and they're most likely only going to have one first-round pick between 2015-2017. At this point in the draft though, I'm not sure there's a "sure thing." Believe me, I was praying during the lottery that the Lakers would end up with a top-4 pick so we could get a shot at Embiid/Parker/Wiggins/Exum but the balls didn't bounce in our favor. At #7, I'm sure the Lakers are looking hard at Aaron Gordon, Marcus Smart, Julius Randle and possibly Dougie McBuckets. With Gordon gone, the choice here is Smart. I thought hard about Randle, but frankly, the foot thing concerns me. Of course, it could be a smoke screen being sent out by certain GMs drafting in the 8-12 range who want to take a shot at Randle, but the Lakers need a sure thing next year, not a guy who may only play 40-50 games due to injury. A guy like Randle is someone who needs the ball in the post to be effective, which is not going to happen next season with Kobe Bryant in full-on F-U mode. Also, the free agents who the Lakers will be going after in 2015 will predominantly be PFs and Cs (i.e., Love, Marc Gasol, etc.).

So next year, the Lakers backcourt is shaping up to be Nash & Kobe in the starting lineup, with Kendall Marshall & Kent Bazemore coming back to fill out the rotation. If next year is anything like the past 2 years, then Lakers aren't getting more than 20-30 games out of Nash, and although Marshall had some good moments last season, I wouldn't say he's the long-term solution at the point. Smart definitely has the potential to get a lot of starter minutes next year and learn under guys like Kobe and Nash. Good thing is that he can make an impact without necessarily having the ball in his hands all the time, cause he's probably not getting it with Kobe out there. He'll also be a huge defensive upgrade over Nash (but frankly, Michael Olowokandi's chair would be an upgrade over Nash). Yeah, the frontcourt is filled with a ton of question marks but I'm actually starting to talk myself into Ryan Kelly as our starting PF next year (and beyond!). Kelly showed some great flashes last year and just as soon as the Heat lose one more game and Shane Battier moves over to ESPN, he'll become probably my favorite former Blue Devil in the NBA. Lakers can bring him back as a RFA at a nice bargain. We should be able to re-sign Kaman at a decent price to man the middle, then sign a quality SF off free agency (Deng?). Of course we also need a coach, but I have a feeling whoever they bring in will be a significant upgrade over D'Antoni. D'Antoni was just the wrong coach for the wrong team during the wrong year. Sure, it was fun watching the Lakers just run and gun and put up gaudy point totals, but it was not enjoyable watching them show complete indifference on defense. I think Marcus Smart, with the right coach, can do a lot to change the tone of this Lakers team.

Anyway, I would have preferred to get Gordon here, but Smart strikes me as the "safe" choice over Randle. Next year, the 8-seed is ours!

[JasonEvans]

Oh, and we also have Quin Snyder. If Burke or Burks gets hurt or tired, we can always have our new coach suit up and give us a few minutes in a pinch.

Just make sure everyone sitting in the first couple rows is paying attention at all times and has their hands up, ready to catch the pass

-Jason "I keed, I keed" Evans

[Ichabod Drain]

With the 8th pick in the 2014 NBA draft the Sac Kings select Doug McDermott of Creighton Univeristy.

To be honest I wanted to select Randle here. There's a little uncertainty regarding his foot if/when he'll have surgery and how much it would affect him. Also Cousins is far and away our best player. He's an all-star level player who put up 23 and 12 last year. Let's be honest a player like Randle doesn't compliment Cousins that well having no game outside of eight feet to speak of at the moment.

This brings us to Dougie. There's only really been one knock on Doug since the season ended and that's the fact he measured 6'6.25" at the combine. This leaves him labeled as a tweener in the NBA but that really only applies on the defensive side of the ball. On the offensive side he's a matchup nightmare. He has range out to the parking lot, a solid set of post moves, great footwork, and an incredible basketball IQ. In all seriousness McDermott can score from almost anywhere on the floor.

Doug will never be the best player on an NBA team but we don't need him to be. We were one of the worst three point shooting teams in the league last year (28th in 3FGM and 3FG%). Doug is an immediate answer for that. He's experienced coming off four great years of college ball. We expect him to step in as immediate role player and scorer which we don't believe will be a problem for him at all.

Dougie gets buckets!

[JasonEvans]

Julius Randle was just spotted in the DBR Mock Draft Green room yelling at his agent and wiping a bit of a tear away from his eye. He is not a happy camper at this moment.

-Jason "how awesome would it be if Mattman and pfr took Levine, Saric, Stauskus, Harris, or Hood at this point?!?!" Evans

[pfrduke]

With the 8th pick in the 2014 NBA draft the Sac Kings select Doug McDermott of Creighton Univeristy.

To be honest I wanted to select Randle here. There's a little uncertainty regarding his foot if/when he'll have surgery and how much it would affect him. Also Cousins is far and away our best player. He's an all-star level player who put up 23 and 12 last year. Let's be honest a player like Randle doesn't compliment Cousins that well having no game outside of eight feet to speak of at the moment.

This brings us to Dougie. There's only really been one knock on Doug since the season ended and that's the fact he measured 6'6.25" at the combine. This leaves him labeled as a tweener in the NBA but that really only applies on the defensive side of the ball. On the offensive side he's a matchup nightmare. He has range out to the parking lot, a solid set of post moves, great footwork, and an incredible basketball IQ. In all seriousness McDermott can score from almost anywhere on the floor.

Doug will never be the best player on an NBA team but we don't need him to be. We were one of the worst three point shooting teams in the league last year (28th in 3FGM and 3FG%). Doug is an immediate answer for that. He's experienced coming off four great years of college ball. We expect him to step in as immediate role player and scorer which we don't believe will be a problem for him at all.

Dougie gets buckets!

I find it somehow appropriate that the team that drafted Jimmer* also drafted McBuckets.

*technically, Jimmer was drafted by the Bucks, but it was part of a draft day trade and they were making that selection at the Kings' request.

[JasonEvans]

I find it somehow appropriate that the team that drafted Jimmer* also drafted McBuckets.

*technically, Jimmer was drafted by the Bucks, but it was part of a draft day trade and they were making that selection at the Kings' request.

I'll freely admit to being more than a little surprised at Jimmer's inability to be more of an impact player in the NBA. After watching him score in college, I truly felt his abilities would translate better at the next level.

That said, his carer is still young. His first three years are not at all dissimilar from JJ Redick's first few seasons and JJ has turned into a very solid starting NBA 2-guard at this point.

-Jason "I think McBuckets size and physical play make him better suited to have a bit more of immediate impact than Jimmer or JJ" Evans