Friday, June 24, 2011

The Sky Is Not Falling - NBA Draft 2011

I have to admit, I was at a bar/grille (they don't serve food at Ohio University, the "grille" part is just for show) and I was a bit upset with what transpired during the draft last night, but after waking up this morning with a slight headache, I realized something: We did good.  


Kyrie Irving is the only player in this draft that people think can be an All-Star.  It's that simple. We got the best player in the draft and our best player on the team, Baron Davis, is excited to teach him. Davis is still a top 10 point guard in this league when he wants to be, and I am more than happy to hear that he is on board.  


Irving can shoot it from everywhere and has natural point guard instincts.  He will see time next to Davis in the back court right away, and that is where we will see that he is a much better scorer than advertised at.  He will be a double digit scorer right off the bat if he receives the amount of minutes necessary.


The #4 pick is where things started to get a bit blurry. I had been hearing for most of the last two days that Tristan Thompson was being considered at 4, and after a late push from Dan Gilbert, the Texas power forward was the next selection.  People, let's calm on this.  


No one was all that excited to see Jonas Valanciunas, don't try to give me the b.s. that you wanted him here. The only reason why I was okay with it was the fact that we could suck next year while he got better in Europe. I'd much rather have Thompson.  Besides, I think we all are forgetting our own Euro center, Semih Erdin. I think he's going to start at some point next year and contribute big time. That being said...


The south paw from Toronto does not have a polished inside game, but he seems to do the two things that the Cavaliers could not do at all last year: rebound and protect the rim.  He will rebound right away as well as get garbage dunks and put backs from our bevy of shooters (I didn't say makers).  We needed a guy who will play defense, run the floor, and clean the boards. He's better than Samuels, trust me.  


So let's all calm down a tad, we still have time to make moves, get free agents, and use the TPE. There is time, and it's not like we have a gun to our heads to win the title next year, LeBron is gone, we can do this the right way. In Chris Grant I trust-- because we won this draft the day we traded for Baron Davis and the 1st pick, not last night.  (Do I really need to talk about the 2nd round? No. We can sign everyone's precious David Lighty as a FA. I would.)

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