2009 Draft Prieview (NBA)

[Red Falcon]

The 2009 NBA draft doesn't appear to have the sex appeal of this year's draft. So far there are no Rose- or Beasley-type players. In fact, many NBA scouts are saying the upcoming draft could be the weakest in several years.

Still, there are some very good players in next year's draft.

The '09 draft should be richer in point guards than the '08 draft. Led by Arizona's Brandon Jennings and Spain's Ricky Rubio, 11 point guards are ranked in my top 30.

The crop of small forwards also seems enticing. Eight of the 30 slots in my first-round projections are occupied by small forwards, led by Gonzaga's Austin Daye.

But the center and power forward positions are terrible. I have only four power forwards and four centers in my top 30 at the moment.

To see how everyone stacks up, check out my 2009 Top 100.

Here's why the class appears to be weaker than usual:

1. There are fewer high-quality college holdovers

Hasheem Thabeet

Jim McIsaac/Getty Images

UConn's Thabeet's defensive presence alone will get him drafted in the first round.
Thanks in part to the NBA's new eligibility rules, a record number of "one-and-done" freshman hit the draft this year.

Only a small handful of talented players decided to skip the draft this year and return to college. Only one of them -- Oklahoma's Blake Griffin -- could have been a lottery pick this year.

A few others, including UConn's Hasheem Thabeet, Gonzaga's Austin Daye and Arizona's Chase Budinger, likely would have been first-rounders had they decided to declare.

Had players such as DeAndre Jordan, J.J. Hickson, Kosta Koufos and Donte Greene stayed in school, next year's draft class would be much deeper.

Given the drain on this year's freshman class, there aren't a lot of other up-and-coming college players. But a few, like Louisville's Earl Clark, Arizona State's James Harden, Florida's Nick Calathes, Tulsa's Jerome Jordan, Arizona's Jordan Hill and Kansas center Cole Aldrich, look like they could make a splash.

In short, this class isn't brimming with returning college players who look destined to be great.

2. The incoming freshmen class is weaker

In 2007, a record six freshmen -- Greg Oden, Kevin Durant, Mike Conley, Brandan Wright, Spencer Hawes and Thaddeus Young -- were drafted in the lottery.

In 2008, seven freshmen -- Derrick Rose, Michael Beasley, O.J. Mayo, Kevin Love, Eric Gordon, Jerryd Bayless and Anthony Randolph -- went in the lottery.

This year I'm projecting only four high school prospects as lottery picks -- USC's Demar DeRozan, Ohio State's B.J. Mullens, Arizona's Brandon Jennings, and UCLA's Jrue Holiday.

One of those four, Jennings, is still trying to qualify academically. If he doesn't, he may have to skip college and head to Europe or the D-League. That would potentially hurt his stock and push him out of the lottery.

Several other freshmen, including Wake Forest's Al-Farouq Aminu, Memphis' Tyreke Evans, West Virginia's Devin Ebanks and Tennessee's Scotty Hopson, are possible first-rounders, but most scouts think they really need at least two years on the college level.

3. The international crop remains thin

Danilo Gallinari was the hot name in 2008, but the rest of the international class was subpar. In the end, only four international players went in the first round and only two -- Gallinari and probably Nicolas Batum -- are expected to play in the NBA in the upcoming season.

In 2009, the talent is even weaker. Spanish point guard sensation Ricky Rubio is widely seen as a top-10 pick, but no one else is a lock for the first round.

A few interesting international prospects, such as Spain's Victor Claver, Israel's Omri Casspi and Lithuania's Dontas Motiejunas, will get close looks. But they'll need big seasons with their clubs to move off the first-round bubble.

Overall, the draft class of 2009 will probably be better than it looks now. Some players that we're not talking about will rise -- they always do. Russell Westbrook, for example, wasn't in my top 50 a year ago. Ditto for Anthony Randolph.

As the Nike and ABCD camps and international tournaments get underway, look for further reports, including my stock watch.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/draft2...preview-080627

First things first...Congrats Brandon, I hope everything goes as planned for you fam. That article says he has to get his SAT scores striaghtened out, but there is another that said "Brandon Jennings seemed likely to get cleared by the NCAA after the discrepancies between his first and second SAT scores were clarified."

I will def agree that this draft class looks pretty weak overall. I think Thabeat has a lot of potential. He is still pretty raw, but his natural instincts on defense are superb and he has the coordination and strength that his offensive game will come around.

[Red Falcon]

Also to go along with this...the NBA one year rule might be toast.



A few years ago, NBA Commissioner David Stern and NCAA President Myles Brand came together and established the one year rule, which states that an incoming NBA player must be out of high school for at least one year prior to the draft. The rule was stated as a move to lead high school players into college to help them mature and get an education.

In reality, it was a financially driven move by both sides. NBA owners could see these anointed high school prodigies for at least a year in college to help weed out the busts.

Meanwhile, big conference college programs could essentially rent these players out for at least a season and reap huge profits and program notoriety. It was a win-win situation, and there has been talk of expanding the rule to two years out of college.

Proponents of the program claim the rule is a safeguard for high school seniors who are egged on by their peers to go straight to the NBA but aren’t ready or at least good enough to get drafted in the first round. Others say that it’s the right of these players to jump ship if they feel like it.

Some of today’s best young players made the transition straight from high school with immediate success: LeBron James, Dwight Howard, and Amare Stoudemire. All of these players were physically ready to enter the league, and that is the main difference between modern high school prep stars and the ones in the days of Kobe and KG.

Greg Oden was physically able to play in the NBA out of high school. Michael Beasley and O.J. Mayo could’ve been playing in the league for a year now, and their success or struggles would have nothing to do with their physicality.

In the last high school draft classes, even the high school players that misjudged their decisions ended up having more success then failure.

Here is the last high school draft class (2005):



Martell Webster, 6th overall

Andrew Bynum, 11th overall

Gerald Green, 18th overall

C.J. Miles, 34th overall

Monta Ellis, 40th overall



Just three years later, all but one of these players have made their mark on a team.

Webster is starting to emerge as another scorer in Portland. Bynum has developed into one of the league's most promising young centers. Ellis is one of the league’s most electrifying players.

Miles has turned into a defensive force and would get a lot more playing time if not for the great depth in Utah. Green is the only one that hasn’t truly panned out because he is still mentally a kid, but he did dunk while blowing out a cupcake—and no one else can say that.

An 80 percent success rate is pretty good and is easily competitive with players drafted from overseas. A lot of high school players have to mature into their bodies before making it in the NBA, but so do many European players.

But those from across the Atlantic and beyond get paid for their development, while American kids aren’t enjoying the same ability to make a living from their best talent.

The argument that the rule is protecting players isn’t true—it is just delaying the inevitable. College players are still very young in age and there is a good batch of them that make the mistake of coming out early each year.

The draft a couple of days ago had no high school players, but Davon Jefferson and DeAndre Jordan can tell you they made a mistake by coming out early. There are a handful of players who make a bad decision for every Chase Budinger that stays in college.

So what am I getting at? A week ago Brandon Jennings, the second ranked PG prospect in the country, finally became the voice of reason and said it like it is. He said he has absolutely no interest in going to Arizona to get an education. He basically said he’s going there because he has to. That is how many of these players ultimately feel.

Could you imagine someone telling LeBron at 6’8”, 245 pounds of chiseled muscle at his graduation that he wasn’t ready for the NBA? I didn’t think so. Jennings feels he is basically in limbo, waiting to get into the NBA.

Now Jennings sees a way out. He is the first high school star to seriously consider going to Europe and capitalizing on the same development the European players enjoy. If he goes he is expected to earn the American equivalent of $200,000-$500,000 for the year.

Considering that in the States he can only make a couple grand according to NCAA rules if he has a job, without any proceeds from his jersey sales and marketing, plus the fact that he won’t get a degree, Europe seems like the logical choice.

On top of that, he would play against weaker competition then in big time college basketball, making it easier for him to dominate and preserve his high draft stock. Going to Europe involves less risk with more reward.

In all honesty, I’m surprised it’s taken this long for someone to wake up and consider the opportunity. Considering the growing pool of international players in the NBA, the trip overseas is a good learning experience.

If Jennings goes through with this and plays well in Europe, he will be a top five pick in next year’s draft and have some money to his credit in the process. This will inevitably start a chain reaction of players heading overseas instead of big time college programs.

They would circumvent the intent of the rule, and the NBA would lose valuable scouting information and essentially lose these players for a season to European leagues. College basketball would revert to what it was a few years ago and would thus have no incentive to hold on to the rule—and there’s nothing the NBA can do about it.

Ultimately, if Jennings makes the right personal decision it will signal the end of this rule. The pretense of allowing these young kids to get an education will be thrown out the window. In the end, it’s a money game, and if the NBA is going to lose the revenue these players can bring in for a season to European leagues, Commissioner Stern won’t stand for it.

Unless Myles Brand and the NCAA actually start sharing the mega-millions of dollars that the basketball players rake in, the one-year deal is officially on life support. And as the BCS debacle has shown us, college presidents don’t like to give up money for any reason.

The NBA is not the NFL. Players can come into the league at 18 years of age and contribute to a team. Brandon Jennings is playing the Maurice Clarett role of trying to break down an age rule. Clarett never had a chance because the NFL truly is a monopoly in its field, and because common sense says you have to be a certain age before grown men start trying to smash your head off.

But even in Clarett’s efforts there was a possible exception to the rule. Along with Clarett there were six high school football players who tried to get into the NFL. One of them was Adrian Peterson. Looking back at his freshman year at Oklahoma—and what he did as a NFL rookie—perhaps he was ready.

In the case of the NBA, there is competition from leagues overseas both in their basketball and in their currency. The U.S. Dollar is weakening with every record-setting day for oil prices, and inflation continues to rise.

International players eligible for the NBA are now signing long-term deals in Europe more often and are ultimately passing on playing in the NBA for better money in Euros overseas.

And for the first time ever, an international player that proved himself in the NBA and would’ve netted a sizable contract chose to play overseas instead.

Juan Carlos Navarro was a promising SG for the Grizzlies and could’ve made somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 million for a new contract, but instead he chose to go back to Spain.

If Jennings goes to a major European powerhouse like CSKA Moscow, Real Madrid, Panathinaikos, Partizan, or Maccabi Tel Aviv, and helps them win a Euroleague or country championship, it will start a bidding war for high school basketball standouts.

As far as the NBA and NCAA, are concerned that would be the nail in the coffin.

Since this is America, and Jennings has freedom of choice like every other American, this one-year rule might as well rest in peace.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/3...-one-year-rule

[B Snide]

Aint that next year? Bit early aintcha bruh?

[Red Falcon]

Originally Posted by C-Joe

Aint that next year? Bit early aintcha bruh?

[greasybugsy]

Originally Posted by C-Joe

Aint that next year? Bit early aintcha bruh?

Yea, He Is..But these types of stories/articles are all over the place.Personally I don't like them, in any sport you can try & predict what is going to happen.You just never know what College/European Player could have a crazy, come from no where kinda year. It's just like when someone started a NBA preview for next season, I was pretty short on comments because you just have to look at the draft, and first few days of free agency to see how much things can change so quick..
Not hating on the poster of this, people are just always draft crazy when it comes to the NFL & NBA..

[greasybugsy]

& yea.. that rule that put in on High School Players. That really pissed off when The Raptors had the #1 Overall Pick.We could have Greg Oden Instead of Andrea Bargani...I believe that was the 1st year they put it in as well...If a player has the talent to crack the roster & excel, why hold them back? The NHL doesn't.

[centexboi254]

you gotta include tyreke evans into the 09 draft going to memphis i think he is one of the better players outta high school

[Red Falcon]

Originally Posted by centexboi254

you gotta include tyreke evans into the 09 draft going to memphis i think he is one of the better players outta high school

He was in the article as a possible first rounder.