This NBA season allowed my inner draft geek to get off for the Cavs like I haven’t been able to in sometime. We were terrible, and with a terrible team it allowed me to start looking at players for the Cavs around… well, January. I am a draft geek. I love watching YouTube videos and I love looking at mock drafts. This season having two top five selections it has allowed me to look at just about every draft website known to man, scouring many mock drafts, and picking the brains of any scout or reporter that I could. This year it was very easy for me to realize which sites had any brains in their operations.
How in the world could the Cavs NOT take Kyrie Irving number one overall? The thought of them passing up on someone who scouts talked about as the best player in college when he was healthy all year, for a guy who snuck into the minds of many draft gurus during the NCAA tournament, blows my mind. People want to talk about Derrick Williams and how versatile he is, and how he can play the small forward position in the NBA, but I have three major issues with what everyone gushes over him about.
Number one: If he is a small forward, why didn’t he play it in college? This parallels what my dad hates more than anything in the world, the defensive end you take in college football that’s supposed to stand up and play linebacker in the NFL. Why would you take a chance on changing a guy’s position at the FIRST PICK in the draft? That doesn’t seem logical to me when there is a point guard who comes from an elite program that will be ready to play meaningful minutes at the position he has played his entire life, not to mention the most important position on the court. I for one am not picking a project linebacker over the best quarterback in the draft.
Number two: He will take away minutes from the only position the Cavs have decent talent at. Even if one day Williams can play the 3 spot, he is going to have to play 4 right away in order to get him onto the court and appease fans for taking him number one overall anyways. The issue? J.J. Hickson grew into his own by the end of the season, averaging almost 17 points and 11 rebounds over his last 23 games. Why would we want to stifle the growth of what is probably the Cavaliers best young player going into his all-important fourth season? Along with Antawn Jamison and Anderson Varejao, it seems the Cavs could use more help at the center position, not another player to throw into the mix at the 4.
Number three: Something about Williams, when I hear him talk or I read his tweets, gets to me. I can’t put my finger on it, but this #23 has a little bit of a cockiness to him that seems to go a little further than just confidence in his game. And maybe this is just me, but a guy who supported LeBron vehemently all season until the Cavaliers got the number one pick just doesn’t sit well with me. Maybe I am just gun shy, but this guy to me looks like he wants a little bit more from his NBA experience than living in Cleveland
All of my concerns may change however, if we are able to get the both of them, which is more and more looking like something the Cavaleirs are trying to do. If we could make this a tandem of Irving and Williams, I think that the Cavs would have taken a very quick first step into rebuilding on the fly. Together these two would be great building blocks to start the franchise back up with, but I would rather have Irving
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