NBA Draft

I may be in the minority, but I like the NBA's age limit. Setting the age limit at age 19 forces almost all high schoolers to attend college for at least one year. It gives the players one more year to develop their skills and it gives scouts a chance to evaluate players in the college forum. I don't buy into the myth that there are casualties of the age limit. Of course, I would hate to see a guy get hurt in his freshman season. However, if a guy has a bad freshman year and his draft stock goes down, why should I feel bad for him? It means two things: 1) he may not be as good as we thought he was during his senior year of high school (and thus he has not caused an NBA team to throw away millions of dollars on him) and 2) he has three seasons to improve on the college level. There is no rule that top 10 high school prospects HAVE to turn pro after one season. This season, the recruiting player rankings were very accurate. The top 9 high school prospects last year were as follows (according to Scout.com):

1) O.J. Mayo - USC
2) Michael Beasley - Kansas State
3) Kevin Love - UCLA
4) Eric Gordon - Indiana
5) Derrick Rose - Memphis
6) Kyle Singler - Duke
7) Bill Walker - Kansas State
8) Donte Green - Syracuse
9) Jerryd Bayless - Arizona

After one year of college ball, we learned that Rose and Beasley project as the top 2 prospects and Love, Mayo, Gordon, and Bayless are all top 7 prospects. Green and Walker are mid-to-late first rounders. Only Singler is returning to school. Thus, no one on this list was harmed by having to attend college. I wish several of them had decided to return to school, but either way the rule did not adversely affect them. Walker could argue that he would have been a top 10 pick directly out of high school, but he tore an ACL last season and looked lackluster at times this season. He will likely still be a 1st round pick so he can't really complaint too much. Green should have returned to school.

As for tonight's draft, I think the Heat would be crazy to take anyone other than Beasley (assuming the Bulls take Rose). I like Bayless more than Mayo, but I think both could be scoring points guards in the mold of Chauncey Billups and Gilbert Arenas. I think Kevin Love and Eric Gordon will be solid NBA players. I think Bill Walker will be a bust.

I am hoping my Bobcats can land Love, Joe Alexander (West Virginia), Russell Westbrook (UCLA), or Brook Lopez (Stanford) with the 9th pick. I believe Lopez will be a solid NBA center -- not an All-Star but a consistent 15 point/8 rebound guy. If the Bobcats get him and re-sign Okafor, they can move Okafor to the 4 spot. I'd like to see them get a point guard with the 20th pick that they obtained from the Nuggets.

I am biased, but Sean Singletary from Virginia is one of my favorite college basketball players of all time. He is undersized for an NBA guard (5'11''), but he has enough talent to play in the league. He can score, handle, pass, defend, and his motor never stops. He makes everyone around him better. He was forced to shoot more than he wanted to in college because of the lack of talent around him. There is no doubt that his shooting percentage will rise when he is surrounded with more skilled teammates. I expect to see him drafted somewhere between 45 and 60 --- preferably to a team where he would immediately come in as the backup point guard.

My top 5 sleepers in the 2nd round (overlooked guys that will be in the league for a long time): 1) D.J. White (Indiana), 2) J.R. Giddens (New Mexico, transfer from Kansas), 3) Singletary, 4) Mike Taylor (Iowa State, played last year in NBA D-League), and 5) Joe Crawford (Kentucky).