 |
| So
close |
April 13, 2010
By Ron
Richards
With every Knick win I
hear the moans and groans of the faithful.
If this or that had happened, if teams
weren’t sandbagging the season in hopes of
getting a slightly better draft pick, if
there were more than five guys in this draft
that were franchise changers……
I’m sick of it. It’s getting old.
There are NO magic bullets in the NBA. There
are NO surefire nineteen year old saviors
that are guaranteed to turn a franchise
around, or even help a very good team become
a great team, which is exactly what most
Jazz fanatics are hoping happens, even in
the face of fewer franchise makers and
eroding hope for a top five pick.
Well, what about someone as surefire
as…..Greg Oden? Sam Bowie? Oden isn’t dead
yet, but the hopes for him ever becoming the
franchise cornerstone are disappearing
rapidly. And Sam Bowie could have been one
of the greats of the game, until those knees
and legs gave out. You just never know. Most
of you aren’t old enough to remember, but
when Michael Jordan and Sam Bowie were in
the process of being drafted, the talk was
not about MJ. It was about how great Sam
Bowie was going to be. You know what has
happened since then.
So what am I saying? That Jon Wall isn’t
going to be terrific? A game changer? Nope.
I’m saying there is a chance he won’t be as
good as most of us think, and right there in
the front of the crowd calling his name is
yours truly. I think he’s going to be
terrific. One of the greats. Probably.
That’s a good word, probably. What it means
in this discussion is that the odds of Jon
Wall being a franchise player are much
greater than say….Donatas Motiejunas. I
threw that name out there, partly because I
know it rankles some of the crowd, and
partly because DM might become a much better
player than Wall. I don’t think so, but he
might.
But, you say, Evan Turner is perfect for the
Jazz. Or Derrick Favors, who I think might
be a better pro in the long run. Not as
ready as Turner, who should sprint out of
the gates right from the very first time he
steps on an NBA floor.
There is so much that can happen when a
rookie joins an NBA team. So much. Careers
are lost and founded on simple things like a
sympathetic ear, or the right kind of
coaching, or tough love from a coach who
only knows one way to do things, and that’s
the right way, not the simple or easy way.
If a certain player ends up at a franchise
that has little structure, no leadership and
lets the inmates run the asylum, his chances
of becoming all that he could be are much
less than optimal.
You tell me. What happens to someone like
DeMarcus Cousins, if he winds up with the
Washington Wizards? The same team that
mollycoddled Agent Zero before his private
gun show in the locker room, of all places,
or whined about Andre Blatche not being a
good team player, but refused to take a
stand with him when he literally called out
the coach, the franchise and all that stands
for good and evil?
They did nothing. Nor will they do anything
to any of their players who might take
offense at being held to any reasonable
standard of simply acting like a real
person, and not a spoiled, suppurating,
festering wound oozing the franchise’s life
blood and reputation slowly and agonizingly.
Put someone like DeMarcus Cousins in that
situation, and what hope does the young man
have at all? Slim? Not much? Zilch?
But put Cousins in San Antonio under Pops,
or in Houston with Mike Dunleavy, or in any
franchise that has direction, leadership and
character and his chances go up
dramatically. The problem is that the teams
drafting in this range are the same teams
that continually draft in this range, and
continually fail to improve their chances of
getting better by making mistakes with the
franchise. Look at Sacramento, LA Clippers,
Golden State, Minnesota …….I don’t include
the Nets in that group, because they have
simply fallen on bad times and will probably
get better. Just like Detroit, or heaven
forbid, the Knicks.
That’s why a player can get drafted in the
teens and wind up a superstar or a hall of
fame player. It’s not as easy as picking Tim
Duncan, and then just getting out of his
way. But two players from the Jazz have
already done just that in the last 25 years.
It can happen again.
So who is this guy? Whitesides, Aldrich,
Vesely, Monroe, Aminu, Henry? Even
Motiejunas, if he stays in this draft? There
are a couple of others I didn’t mention.
Not sure yet. I can identify which players
have that potential, but I can’t see into
their hearts and see what motivates them.
That’s why I pay a lot of attention to what
kind of person they are, who they want to be
and why.
For that I have to depend on what others say
about them, or watch for clues in their play
in the snippets of game film I can get a
hold of. It’s what makes the NBA draft so
damn frustrating and yet fun in a twisted,
perverse fashion.
The Jazz make draft day mistakes. Everyone
does. But the chances of getting a great
player at seven through nine are much
greater than at fourteen, no matter what
franchise is drafting. That’s with regular
drafts with average depth. I think this one
is a little deeper than most, in that a
couple of those guys I mentioned are going
to be very good NBA players, perhaps great
NBA players. One of the Jazzhoopers made a
list of the players selected at that
approximate position the Jazz will probably
wind up at, and commented it wasn’t a great
list. At least one of those players will be
a perennial NBA All-Star. Not great odds,
perhaps.
But look at the top five players nominally
mentioned in this draft, and at least one or
two of them won’t live up to the hype. In
five years, one or two of them might not
even be in the NBA. That’s what history
says, despite how good they look right now.
So what I’m saying is that all is not lost
if the ping pong balls don’t fall at the
lottery. If they do, and the Jazz wind up
with a top three pick, the Jazz’s job is
simpler and more certain.
Evan Turner, Derrick Favors, Wesley Johnson.
Any one of those three are likely to beat
the odds, and perhaps beat them
spectacularly.
It doesn’t do any good to whine or make
excuses if the draft stays as constituted,
and the Jazz wind up with a seven through
nine pick, as it looks right now. It just
makes the job a little harder, a little less
certain. What makes it difficult for Jazz
fans is that this is almost uncharted
territory. The last time the Jazz drafted
anywhere this low, they wound up with a
superstar.
In fact, it’s more fun beating the odds and
picking that right guy to beat the odds.
I’ll take a John Stockton or Karl Malone any
day. If this unknown player winds up
anywhere near that good, well, that’s not a
bad thing, right?
Look at it this way. The Jazz normally draft
in the twenties, and getting a franchise
changer there is almost impossible.
Getting a franchise changer in the top ten,
well, that’s a different story.
Don’t tell me about past failures with
draftees unless you admit there have been a
couple of spectacular successes as well. We
all know them, for our hopes and wishes for
this Jazz team have been built around them.
I think one of two things will happen on
draft day. One, we’ll get a guy we all are
happy about, and he’ll be a terrific player.
Two, we’ll get a guy that only a few are
happy about, and he’ll be a terrific player.
Remember how divided we all were with CP3
and Deron? I was on the CP3 side, I’ll
admit. Turns out the Jazz made the right
choice, as CP3 is showing signs of not being
as durable as Deron. Deron is a rock.
I’ve got a really, really good feeling about
this draft. Wish I could be more concrete
than that, or identify precisely who I think
might be THE guy, but I can’t yet. I’ve got
a few likely suspects, but until we get a
little deeper in this draft and know
precisely where we’re drafting, it’s too
soon to tell. The combine and workouts will
sift the players, and tell us more.
In the meantime, don’t give up hope. All is
not lost. |
|
|
|
