This draft's theme: NBA-ready bodies who simply haven't panned out. In this top 10 we have three careers which've been stunted (or stopped outright) by injuries, three guys with prototypical talent-sets who've become completely average players, and two players with freakish physical talents who can't seem to make their prolific statistics result in wins. There are only *two* abject busts. Not bad.

1. Rockets - Yao Ming -- There are many things, good and bad, to say about Yao Ming. They've all been said before. Was he worth the #1 pick? Maybe ... or *definitely* if you're the Houston owner and you enjoy money (cause Ming's presence also turned Tracy McGrady into China's favorite player, which would be a funny cultural issue to explore at another time). I won't dock the Rockets for his injury troubles. BUT, the Rockets have been pathetic underachievers with Ming and McGrady. *One* superstar is supposed to be enough to make you a contender (LBJ). The Rockets have *two* players who have been labeled superstars throughout their careers, and yet they can't get out of the first round. Further proof that statistics are overrated. However, Ming's remaining potential and the reality of economics prevent me from criticizing this selection.

2. Bulls - Jay Williams -- For another player (like Kellen Winslow Jr.) you could criticize the team for ignoring character questions ... that's simply not a valid argument with this guy. His motorcycle accident was a bizarre, unfortunate fluke. In my opinion, if that had never happened, Williams would be a very solid player, and right now the Bulls wouldn't be stupidly shopping Kirk Hinrich so they could acquire Derrick Rose. Point guards should not be drafted in the top-3.

3. Warriors - Mike Dunleavy -- In college he was a very nice switch-blade player who looked great because he was surrounded by *better* players on a high-profile team. He's a skinny white guy with no expertise. Why did we think he would be any more than a semi-useful role player? He's become *exactly* what he was meant to be.

4. Grizzlies - Drew Gooden -- Why is a rebounding savant with limited offense and character flaws being drafted in the top-5? I don't understand this. Maturity questions have been thoroughly answered by the hideous patch of fur he keeps on the back of his neck ... and his unwillingness to pass despite being a terrible shooter. This guy could still contribute to a title winner, he just needs a little mentoring from Dennis Rodman.

5. Nuggets - Nickoloz Tskitishvili -- Skinny white euro-trash. Terrible pick, even if every scout in the world was insisting that this weed was gonna be Nowitzki, because Nowitzki is a 7' wuss who'll never win a title. Not worth the 5th pick.

6. Cavaliers - DaJuan Wagner -- A tweener guard who has no interest in doing anything but shooting has turned out to be a flop? Where am I? Is this Oz? The Bizarro World? Oh, no, I forgot, this is reality. EARTH TO NBA TEAMS: DO NOT DRAFT JERRYD BAYLESS!!!

7. Nuggets - Neno Hilario -- Meh. Who the Hell knows with these things. Nene had an NBA body and NBA skills. He's shown flashes. He still might turn out to be something worthwhile. I've got nothing else to say.

8. Clippers - Chris Wilcox -- The most NBA-ready player on Maryland's Tourney-winner was also its least-productive. He underachieved in college, and he's underachieved in the NBA. Not a bad player, though. Hard to criticize the pick ... except that Stoudamire was still on the board.

9. Suns - Amare Stoudamire -- Great pick, obviously. What's most incredible about Stoudamire is his full recovery from two micro-fractures. He's a freak! Do I have critical things to say about him? Yes. I don't believe he's nearly as impactful as his statistics. But he's young and he can figure things out. But with D'Antoni gone and Nash about to drop dead, he's nearing a climax, we'll see which direction his career takes ...

10. Heat - Caron Butler -- Good body, tough-as-nails, plenty of skills ... Butler is the kind of piece you want to add to an NBA team, no matter what your roster looks like.

Look at this list. How many of these guys have had a substantial impact on their team? Yes, Yao and Amare are excellent players, but we've repeatedly witnessed their teams flourish without them. They haven't 'figured it out' yet (remember when we were saying that about Kobe all season? that was funny). There's one guy who fits the bill: Caron Butler, a talented, hard-nosed competitor with a reputation for tenacity. Personality. Personality. Personality. The last few Wizards' seasons exemplify the importance of guys like Caron Butler, and the degrading poison of players like Gilbert Arenas, which brings us back to the terribleness of the DaJuan Wagner pick ... actually, the Cavaliers should be thrilled that he didn't pan out.

This time, THINK before you respond. If all you can come up with is: 'Hey dud, Gillbert scorz 30 #### POINTS EVRY GAMe! And Yau is the best senter in the WRRLD!!' Don't bother responding. I'm not interested. I'm perfectly aware of the opinions of mindless tools and their insubstantial arguments. Give me something meaty to chew on.

After the 2000 class, this list looks like a veritable Hall-of-Fame, despite the fact that #1 is Kwame Brown. 

(This was a much harder draft to analyze, and I end up compensating for that fact by using too many words, feel free to skip to the bottom, that's the important stuff)

1. Wizards - Kwame Brown -- What can I say? Hind-sight is 20-20, so I'm not gonna lambast the Wizards for a terrible move, because we don't really *know* if it was a terrible move. Some guys just don't translate well. I never saw Brown play before he got drafted, and I never had an opinion on him. I saw LBJ in high school and *knew* he was going to be a beast, but Kwame? Maybe he could've been great ... but the transition from dominating smaller guys to then getting yelled at by Michael Jordan was too much for him to handle and he broke down. But the Wiz got Caron Butler for him, so who's complaining ...

2. Bulls - Tyson Chandler -- Okay, I don't think people appreciate this guy's career arc. This is an excerpt from nbadraft.net's original analysis: "Initially, at just 225 pounds and an underdeveloped body, he will be forced to play away from the basket". Chandler was a stick, the kind of guy I hate, but after everyone realized that he had no offensive game (which is completely typical of these thin athletic prodigies), he decided to buckle down and, perhaps with the help of some excellent coaches, developed into a great defensive center. I don't remember what I thought about Chandler, but I was probably wrong. He's an example of what thin dudes *need* to do with their careers (actually, this applies to all prospects): don't listen to the hype, and learn how to defend like a mad-man, because if your offensive game doesn't develop you'll need something to fall back on, and you'll need to fall back on that something *quick* if you don't want to find yourself in the NBDL.

3. Grizzlies - Pau Gasol -- Here was the main difference between Gasol and Chandler at the time: Chandler had the athleticism to compensate for his lack of refinement. Tyson became a great defender, Gasol didn't ... but his offensive game adapted to the NBA very quickly, so he didn't have to become a great defender, and now he's found himself on a great team that can compensate for his defensive shortcomings (though I think that's one of the reasons that the Lakers won't win it all, but that's another subject). Could be qualified as an excellent pick, but Gasol was *never* going to be the best player on a Championship team, that became clear after he lost his 238th straight playoff game. We are seeing right now that his only chance is as a 2nd option. I'd rather have Chandler.

4. Bulls - Eddy Curry -- A big, giant, talented center, exactly the kind of guy you want to draft in the hopes that he develops into a Title-Chomping-Carrying-Team-On-Shoulder-Beast. He didn't. Those fears about his laziness (which always existed) turned out to be correct. But I have no problem with the Bulls taking the risk. We give credit to guys (like Ainge this past offseason) for taking risks *when they work*. Sometimes they don't, that's what gambling's all about.

5. Warriors - Jason Richardson -- Anyone think that Jason Richardson is a superstar? Anyone? Hello? I know there are fans out there who love this guy, but he just doesn't have "it". He's been surrounded by talent, at times, but I've seen no evidence whatsoever that he can provide his team with wins. On his best team (last year's Warriors), he was statistically prevalent, but he was *so quiet*. Did you even notice him in those playoff games? Davis, Barnes, Jackson ... those guys had presence, you just knew that *they* were the reason that team beat the Mavericks. Richardson is just ... a guy ... who's good at tabulating statistics. He's a role-player, but because of his numbers we convince ourselves that he's more important than he actually is. All that said, he was a big, talented 2, and there's nothing wrong with the pick.

6. Grizzlies - Shane Battier -- Alright. I have one clear memory of this draft: my unwavering man-love for Shane Battier. I hated Duke, but I loved Battier, and I wanted the Sonics to trade up to get him. Was I being dumb? Yes. But I still love Battier. He's a terrific defender and teammate, and an ideal role-player to fill out a roster. He got drafted this high because of all the media saturation around Duke at the time, he should've gone in the middle of the 1st round, where he would've been exactly what people thought he was going to be, and some team would've been very happy.

7. Nets - Eddie Griffin -- Uh ... can I say anything about him? I already feel dirty about it, even though he was a lazy creep ... oh well. He's this draft's best example of what's wrong with NBA talent evaluation. In college he was an athletic blocking machine ... then, in the NBA, like so many 6'9" post players, he became ... some guy with an undeveloped body, no offensive game, a terrible attitude, and coaches who couldn't develop him properly because their bosses wanted him to be a jersey-selling All-Star.

8. Cavaliers - DeSagana Diop -- A poor man's Tyson Chandler. I've got no problem with this pick, and I'm happy that Diop has resigned himself to his modest career.

9. Pistons - Rodney White -- Wow. Remember when the Pistons didn't know how to run a basketball team?

10. Celtics - Joe Johnson -- I think he's pretty much the same guy as Jason Richardson. I know that most of you disagree vehemently with both of those diagnoses; but the Hawks have a lot of talent, and the East stinks ... if you stuck Kobe Bryant on that team, wouldn't they be much better than a 1st-round sacrificial lamb? Joe Johnson never fit one of my bust-profiles; he's just one of those guys who knows how to accrue numbers, not win. But even if the Celtics *knew* that going in, this still wouldn't've been a terrible pick.

Okay, this draft turned up a few more themes than I expected. Diop and Chandler are both part-and-parcel. Did either deserve their lofty position in this draft? Probably not, but wouldn't you rather have them on your team than some wing who has no discernible ability to carry a team? That brings me to Johnson and Richardson, and perhaps Gasol to a lesser extent. I've made some of my thoughts clear on these two, but I think I need to crystallize this point (I've written about this before, but never with such an excellent empirical lead-in):

Statistics are not only overrated, they can be poisonous to personnel management. In Johnson and Richardson we have two guys who have shown zero predilection to be leaders of winning teams, but they're *excellent* at accumulating impressive statistics, so we reflexively believe that they're All-Stars, or even potential Superstars who are *right on the cusp* of breaking through. But they aren't. They're just 'guys'. They score points, yes, but those points could be scored by *that white sniper on the bench*, or by *that all-purpose 3 who starts because he's got a high basketball IQ*. But because ~20 of a team's points happen to be scored by a single man, we decide that he's better than everyone, and he's a leader, and he deserves ungodly amounts of money, and we just need to 'put the right pieces around him' to build a contender.

Am I attacking the Warriors and the Celtics for these picks in the 2001 Draft? No. I'm speaking about a greater problem. When a team places undue responsibility on the shoulders of a player who is not as good as his statistics indicate, they are destroying their team's chances of competing. We have to change our paradigm. We have to be able to realize that a 20+PPG scorer can be *just a role-player*.

You want a good recent example? Kevin Durant. He's going to score 25 PPG for the rest of his career, every team he's on will believe that he's their best player, and he'll never win a darn thing. Don't believe me? Let's talk in 15 years.

In light of the negative response to my recent mock draft, I thought it would be interesting to look at some previous classes and see how my philosophy is reflected in the way these players turned out (no, of course you don't know my NBA philosophies, but they shouldn't be too hard to figure out after reading this). I'm going to start with 2000, and probably go up through 2005.

Disclaimer: I made the decision to do this before I looked at these classes, I didn't go searching around the internet for things that conveniently rationalized my previously stated opinions.

1. Nets - Kenyon Martin -- I won't penalize them (or the Nuggets) for his injuries. Kenyon is a very solid player who never should've been drafted at no. 1. His offensive game only blossomed in his senior year, and he can never be a truly dominant defender (too small for post players, too slow for 3's), so what's the surprise? He's a 3rd option, at best, and he'll only win a title if his next contract reflects his actual talents and not his lofty position in the 2000 Draft.

2. Grizzlies - Stromile Swift -- A lanky, athletic, under-sized player who knows as much about offense as Mike Brown. NBA teams have always tried to make him a center (which is a commentary on his basketball skills), even though his only chance to make it was as an energizing defender of 3's and 4's off the bench. Would've been fine as a late 1st-rounder.

3. Clippers - Darius Miles -- Forget the injuries and the legal troubles. How many 6'9" 200-pounders have been vital components of Championship winners? Tayshaun Prince is the best example, but he's the 4th offensive option on his team ... on a good day. If you compound the character issues, Miles was one of the riskiest picks of the draft, with very little potential reward.

4. Chicago - Marcus Fizer -- Another under-sized power forward, whose skills are so limited that he couldn't possibly be converted to a 3, and is far too small to be converted to a 5. This is the *4th pick* in the draft and Chicago picked a guy who could be no better than Udonis Haslem.

5. Magic - Mike Miller -- He's turned out alright, but was he worth the 5th pick? He was a skinny, athletically-limited shooter. He was destined to be a role-player; or, at best: a *really good* role-player.

6. Hawks - DerMarr Johnson -- Hurray! Another 6'9" 200-pound stud with a 'good offensive toolkit' and a 'big wingspan' and 'athletic potential'. I'll ask again, how many of these guys work out? Why do we keep drafting them?

7. Cavaliers - Chris Mihm -- Alright, here's where I become casual : he's a graduate from Texas, which is probably the very worst major school at producing 1st-round draft picks, in any sport. Besides, how many white 7-footers drafted in the 10 live up to their 'potential'?

8. Bulls - Jamal Crawford -- Funny dude, he had the most character questions heading into the draft, and turned out to be the only guy who didn't hate Larry Brown for asking the Knicks to play defense ... yes, Jamal Crawford is the best pick of this draft's top-10.

9. Bucks - Joel Przybilla -- What was that thing I said about 7' white guys? Oh yeah ...

10. Clippers - Keyon Dooling -- Ick. Not much of an example for my belief that shoot-first-ball-hog point guards are poison, cause we all know how Dooling turned out.

Oh my God, I had no idea how bad this draft was going to be. Seriously ... I just looked at the rest of the 1st round, I'm going to vomit. You've just read this and are probably thinking: "what 'philosophy' nonsense were you talking about, ####! This draft just flat-out sucked!"

But here's the thing, we should've known that most of these guys would suck ...undersized power forwards, 7' stiffs, lanky sticks ... these guys fit profiles that are bound for disaster, or, at the very best, solid role-players.

Maybe there are legitimate reasons for the official awards of professional sports to be awarded solely for regular season achievements. But we're laymen. We all know that the playoffs are a better indicator of 'value'. (By the way, I stress the 'Valuable' part of MVP, I don't think it's just about the best player)

Let's get the obvious out of the way. Can we all just admit that it was INSANE to include Chauncey Billups in this discussion? He's choking in the playoffs, is only marginally better than anyone else in the starting 5, and in my opinion isn't even close to being the most valuable player on his own team. Ben Wallace is their identity, Hamilton is their clutch shooter, Prince is their clutch defender, and Rasheed is the guy who got them over-the-top when he was acquired midseason three years ago.

Quick hits:
- No one who tanks the second half o####ame 7 to send a message to his team deserves ANY award.
- The Mavericks would be fine without Nowitzki.
- Duncan deserved more credence despite a down-year ... still shouldn't have won.
- Thank God no Nets were given serious consideration.
- Wade isn't taking over like he should.

To me it comes down to Nash and LBJ. Sure, Nash doesn't play defense and he's not coming up big in the playoffs, but what kind of shape would that team be in without him? Would Boris Diaw, Shawn Marion and ... Jason Williams be leading a team into the Western Conference Finals? They wouldn't have made the playoffs. I go with LBJ.

I know that to most people it's between the King and Kobe. It's true that LBJ doesn't play defense at the same level and he has a better (though less active) supporting cast. But the coup de grace comes two-fold:
- LBJ is about to beat the supposed best team in the NBA while Kobe is fake-laughing with the TNT crew.
- Switch Mike Brown with Phil Jackson. What happens?

First, they get the honor of facing a chemically imploding Lakers team. Then the next year they face off against a Heat team with one hobbled superstar, and another superstar who missed the final two games of the series. And now they're going up against the Cavs, whose second-best player had to leave the team because his brother died., with the prospect of facing the Heat again, who bear an eery resemblance to the '04 Lakers.

Huh? They're LOSING? I'm watching game 5 right now, and they're down by nine to a team they were supposed to sweep.

Why? Because one of their starters actually got injured ... not seriously, of course, we don't want Karma to bite *too* hard. Oh, and Flip Saunders ineffectual coaching might have something to do with it also.

Look, here's the bottom line: teams don't win championships in the NBA unless they fulfill one of three requirements:
- They have a superstar in the post (Shaq, Kareem, Hakeem, Russell, etc.)
- They have Michael Jordan (though LBJ might join this exclusive club soon)
- They're really damn lucky

Detroit is lucky. That's why they won it two years ago, that's why they almost won it last year, and that's why they'll win it this year. *IF* they win it, which I now don't think they will. Their infallible bodies are no longer, the players' honeymoon with Flip has ended, and they weren't that good in the first place (I don't care what their record was).

I still think they'll beat Cleveland (down by 2 at the moment, beginning of the 4th) ... but it would be awesome if they didn't.

"Both teams played hard."