LaMarcus Aldridge

[Andy]

I've omitted the comically overused word "official" from the title of this thread.

On Aldridge: I've seen him play a few times and maybe he was having off nights, but despite having physical tools, he lacked intensity and precision. In short, he looked raw and far away from being a contributing pro.

Did I just catch him on some off nights? Because he certainly did not look like a top level draftee on those occasions.

Perhaps someone who has seen him more often could correct my impression if it's wrong.

[Jonathan]

It does sound gay, but the whole official thing is so when people from the site come to make a new comment, it bumps up the thread to the top and allows them to write whatever they want. This way we don't have a bunch of dupes. Hopefully people will chill out soon enough with just pressing the discuss this player button and not actually writing something, but I am trying to brainstorm a good way to make that better.

Aldridge looks amazing sometimes and very average in others. It's easy to blame his guards who are some of the worst passers in D-1 basketball and absolutely love to ignore him when he has him man sealed off in the post, but some of that is certainly on him. I just don't think there is another big man in this draft who has his combination of size, length, athleticism and terrific offensive skill. He's got all-star potential for sure, but his team will have to get it out of him. Don't think he will come in right away and light the world on fire, but the guy is nowhere close to reaching his cieling right now, only having played about 35 games in college so far.

BTW, welcome to the forum.

[Andy]

Thanks Jonathan, nice to be here. That's a good explanation of both Aldridge, and of the "official" epidemic, which I now graciously accept.

Let me ask you since you spend a lot of energy on this and have good insight: Is this as it appears, an extremely weak draft? Or, is this just a time of year thing, where all these guys will look a lot more attractive as late June nears?

Andy

[Rodger]

I personally feel that this year's draft is extremley weak. The age limit has really hurt this year's draft, as the HS class of 2006 is a great one and there would have been quite a few first round picks out of that class (Oden, Durant, Young, Wright, etc)

Don't worry, the draft will pick back up in 2007!

[Jonathan]

I'm liking the top 5 right now, I think it is just as good if not better than last year with Aldridge, Gay, Morrison, Bargnani and Splitter all being super solid picks that you just can't go wrong with.

Outside of that things get a bit murky, but its still too early to judge since there are quite a few guys who will up their stock significantly in the tournament and workouts. We don't really know who will declare but I think this draft will be absolutely fine. Maybe not so deep because of the things Rodger talked about, but there are some excellent NBA players to be had if you know what to look for.

[dorkinitup]

I agree with Jonathan about the top 5.
I don't see as much depth in it as last year, though there are a lot of late lotto/mid-first players who are real interesting like Carney, Collins, Foye, Redick, Ager, Brewer.
As always, regardless of quality, the draft will be interesting to say the least.

[Jonathan]

annoying problem of empty threads has been officialy fixed for now. bumping all old threads to the top now.