Michael Beasley found himself at the very top of the draft boards late in the season. A lock, some said. A sure thing. Then Chicago got the pick. Whoops. Granted, the Heat probably would have taken Rose as well. Sure, it would have been nice, but now he has less pressure.

The big concern when all the "whispers" (read: Bullshit) about the Heat passing on Beasley for Mayo stemmed from his attitude. He's a goofball. Not a problem child, but a goofball.  To be certain, this same laid back attitude causes Greg Oden to be revered as "cool."  Because being 7 feet changes things. The thought was that there was no way Riley would put up with Beasley being all nimbly pimbly (meow), and wanted another guard. The problem with this theory, is that it's completely asinine. Putting OJ Mayo in the same backcourt with Wade isn't just counterproductive, it's negative basketball. FAIL.  So in the end, of course the Heat took Beasley. They have no frontcourt scorers.  Beasley was leaps and bounds above the other picks.

This worked out better than the Heat could have imagined. Not only did Mario Chalmers show up for Summer League looking like a legit starter (late night partying in the worst circumstances with chickadees not withstanding), not only did Dwyane Wade show up for the Olympics looking not only healthy but somehow improved, but Beasley shredded the Summer League from the start, showing that he could contribute immediately. He played with passion, resolve, and confidence, all of which Rose lacked in that same league.

On this roster, Beasley enters a completely perfect situation.  Rose walks into a clubhouse loaded with overpaid guards with egos, a psychotic frontcourt, and numerous questions at multiple positions.

Beasley walks into the worst team in the league last year, record wise.  So there's no expectation. They're rebuilding post-Shaq, so there's no heightened anticipation for them to make the playoffs. He doesn't have to come in and be a world changer. He's got a superstar already on roster. Think about that. You're the #2 pick, but you don't have to make a huge impact every night because DWade's going to shoulder the load. He's not going to rebound incredibly well, and he'll suffer on defense.  That's fine. Because he's got Shawn Marion and Udonis Haslem to back him up. All Beasley has to do is keep pace, drop some buckets, show some hustle, be willing to work, and do his thing. He's got free range to work his game into the offense, but he doesn't have to force attacking the basket while he gets himself in NBA shape. He doesn't have to be the guy taking the clutch shots down the stretch, and he doesn't have to even worry about dominating. He needs to be good to justify his pick, but he can also afford to develop. He's in the perfect situation.

In a way, it's a revealing look at the pressure variations between forwards and guards. Derrick Rose was screwed either way. He's in Chicago, where they're talking about starting him like it's a no-brainer, even though he hasn't showcased that he's ready for that kind of push yet.  In Miami, he'd be expected to blend perfectly with Wade, to be some sort of ultimate set-up man. He was doomed either way. But Beasley doesn't have to facillitate Wade. He's got to give him room and let him do his thing, but that shouldn't be terribly hard. Asking a rookie NOT to instantly be an All-Star is a rare treat. OJ Mayo has more pressure.

There's discussion of Beasley starting at the 4. This is madness, and not Sparta. Slide him in at the three, put Marion at 4. He's got the body to bang, but there's a steep curve in size to the NBA level, and he needs time to adjust. Let him drain mid-range Js and work the running game while he adds muscle. Marion's not built for the 4, either, but he can do it, and do it effectively. With Haslem availability to provide muscle, even if Marion gets moved for pieces, hopefully a legit 5, Beasley can work his way into it. In a way, it's similar to the path for Kevin Durant.  It's clear that he's going to end up as a 3, but they chose to ease him in at the 2. I can see the same with Beasley. There's no reason to throw him to the Tim Duncans and Kevin Garnetts of the world when he's more aptly built to guard the Luol Dengs and Boris Diaw's of the world.

The exact opposite is true of Beasley in almost every way. He's coming in confident, with a roster situation he fits perfectly in, he's not under pressure to make an immediate impact, he's got guys to help teach him, and the thing he's bad at are things he's supposed to be bad at as a rookie for his position. It's going to be a very good year for Beasley.

Premature Evaluation looks at how certain rookies seem to be fitting in at this point in their very young careers, and what the next year looks like for them. It's based on an extremely limited set of information like summer league, and roster changes that we haven't seen in action yet.  So we're jumping the gun by far, and we're aware of it.  The biggest reason we want to do this is to look at just how different things seem after the useless summer league before the season.  A year from now, we expect to look back at these and be stunned by how wrong we were. But we're all about looking at things way ahead of time, and in that spirit, here's the first in our Premature Evaluations series, regarding Chicago point guard Derrick Rose. 

So we've taken a look at Rose's pure point skills and where they match up with Gordon and Hinrich.  Common consensus over at Blog-A-Bull seems to be that Hinrich is expendable because he's not a playmaker, and Ben Gordon is not expendable, because he's offensively solid.  Elsewhere, Bulls fans feel that  Derrick Rose is the next coming of something between Chris Paul, Michael Jordan, and Magic Johnson.  Now, I've made it pretty clear in other forums that I don't necessarily think either line of thinking is on the money. But for the sake of this analysis, let's throw that out completely.  

The Bulls are, as we all know, obscenely loaded at guard.  Well, maybe not loaded. How about overstocked?  Larry Hughes, jacking machine extraordinaire, Kirk Hinrich, king of the underwhelming, and Ben Gordon ... um.... yeah.  Ben Gordon (This is one of those "if you can't say anything that doesn't piss off Blog-A-Bull's readers, don't say anything at all" moments.)

Continue reading this post »

The following is an independent work based off of the previous work done by Tom Ziller for BallHype.com.  While Ghostface Ziller was kind enough to provide me with the resources for this analysis, he was not involved in this project, nor does this column present any data he supports. I'm basically piggybacking off of his hard work.

"Derrick Rose is not a pure point! I'm going to kick the next guy that says that in the nuts!"

This was me about three weeks before the draft, screaming at Corn in a Winston-Salem bar.  ESPN was having a little draft preview segment and I caught the words on the subtitles and immediately started freaking out.

This isn't a criticism of Rose, in fact, some might consider it a compliment.

Particularly when you start to look at Tom Ziller's BallHype Ballad for the Combo Guard.

In short, Ziller's analysis measures "pure" point guard tendencies and "impure" point guard tendencies, and creates a metric, which is then translated to a 100 point scale to analyze a guard's "purity." This scale isn't an efficiency scale like PER or even a Pure Point scale like Hollingers', which rewards assist tendencies as a positive metric.  Basically, it looks at the tendencies of NBA point guards without putting value judgments on them. It's descriptive, not good or bad. I cannot stress this enough, because it's easy to get caught up in that when you start looking at numbers. You have to examine it as a descriptive look at relative skills, not an analysis of how good or bad a player is at passing.

The result puts Kidd, Nash, and Calderon at the top, and Barbosa, Terry, and Ellis at the bottom.  So it passes the common sense tense.  What's interesting is where the Bulls' guards lie.

On the scale, seen here, Hinrich ends up as a 56, which is on the far end of combo guards, right on the cusp of pass-first guards. Gordon is, predictably, much lower, ranking in at about a 21 for last season, as well as his career. But that's Gordon's job, as a primary scorer.

But it got me thinking.  Where would Rose ift on this scale? Was I completely nuts in my perception that Rose's game focused on transition baskets and that he was much more of a scoring force than he was an assist passer? It's not that I think Rose isn't an all-world talent, it's that I'm concerned about his career being hurt by the Bulls trying to make him into something he's not.

What I wondered was where the rookies would end up on this scale.

After obtaining the necessary formulas from Mr. Ziller, I decided to compare the players based on their last year in college.  Now, this is a messy comparison, I'm in no way denying that.  You could choose to take their total college statistics, or just the freshmen years (a highly valuable comparison), or a differential-based projection of their rookie seasons based on previous cases (a dangerous projection I'm not willing to make).  I settled on their final year of college because I felt it best represented where they were when they entered the NBA.  This is an exploratory study, not a formal one.  If further work is going to be done on this, a comparison of both this metric and the comparative seasons is advisable.

So I took five point guards in the NBA, and analyzed their last years in college on the purity scale.  I decided to look at Jason Kidd, Steve Nash, Chris Paul, Deron Williams, and Baron Davis.

Here's how they shake out.

Now, the Purity Scale is only if you extrapolate them onto an average of NBA players, not college players.  So, if anyone's got some time and wants to develop a baseline average for college basketball players across time, that would be awesome.  For now, we're just looking at where they were coming into the season, so the second column, purity, is really the important analysis. Since this isn't a value based tool, but a descriptive tool, the third column can be used to look at comparisons between players in comparison to where they end up in the NBA.

Outside of Nash, who of course was a bit of a late bloomer as far as his passing prowess, this seems to match up with our conceptions. 

Now let's take a look at the rooks. I started with Rose, Mayo, Gordon, Bayless, Augustin, and Westbrook.  I threw in Chalmers later after his summer league performance and the needs of Miami, specifically.

So if we look at this, it's clear that the idea of Mayo running point may be a dangerous idea.  Rose is right about in the middle, which makes sense, and Augustin is considerably lower than you would anticipate him being.  Bayless is another player that if you look at this, the coaching proclamations about forching him to play point may be trying to put a square peg in a round hole.  Oh, and Russell Westbrook is in a pretty nice spot.  Let's look at the two lists together.

First off, you'll notice that most of the first round draft picks are more scorers than pure points.  Also, Jason Kidd is freakishly pure, not only in the pros, but college as well.  Also, Deron Williams is a pretty pass oriented guy.  We've been looking at the Heat and saying they need to find a guy to complement Dwyane Wade. Well, as far as skill set goes, not skill value, but skill set, Mario Chalmers is what they're looking for. Ditto for OKC and Westbrook. Hope the Bobcats are looking for a scorer, and dear Lord, despite what Corn tries to tell me, if this analysis has any validity whatsoever, don't let Eric Gordon go near the point guard position. 

Now, of course, you've got to look at growth potential. Nash of course made an atmospheric jump on this scale, but so did several other players, and that's just in this limited analysis. So, while any good statistician will tell you that any metric is merely one way of looking at the game, this is a particularly narrow look.  This is like looking at the Sears Tower in pitch black with a flashlight.  While it does provide us with some interesting concepts, it also must be taken with a considerably large grain of salt. I'm not saying this to backpeddle on the research, but there's a reason I'm not posting this on APBR, you know?  I think it's interesting, not predictive.

So that leads us back to our original question that led me to pursue this little endeavor.  Where does Rose fit in with the Bulls? With Gordon as low on the scale professionally, and Hinrich as mid to high, looking at those two's college numbers should produce a similar result which will validate me and let me gloat, right?

Oh, hell.

Take a look at the three.

Well, ain't that a doozy.  So Hinrich goes from a 27 to a 56, while Gordon goes from a 32 to a career 21.  And Rose is more of a pure point than either of them.  A bunch of ideas spring to mind here.  One is the effect of coaching on players.  The second is that Rose could end up going either way.  He could move more towards a negative purity (which is not bad, but more scoring oriented) and be the primary scorer the Bulls have been looking for.  Or he could focus more on his passing talents and become more of a pure point than Hinrich is.  Right now, this only shows that Rose is more of a centric guard on the scale than either of the main Chicago guards.

So to sum up, while this analysis is not meant to be predictive in any sense, it does illustrate the strengths of the rookies in comparison to other elite guards upon their entry to the NBA.  Further development might help to present a more accurate view point and provide a predictive scale for purity, but that's certainly a task better left to those more capable in statistical analysis than I. The realities are that the pure point scale analysis provides a descriptive tactic for examining the strengths of players upon entry to the NBA, and helps us to understand where they were at this particular point in time. It'll be interesting to compare rookie years of this year's crop with the rest of the guards discussed here in a year.

Special thanks to Tom Ziller for his assistance with this work, i.e. the actually hard work.

We're going to do this bullet form. It's always easier that way.

• Within ten minutes of the games starting, I get five emails from bloggers all with the same message. "Announcers make want stab eyes, vomit blood, make stop..."
  
• Russell Westbrook is the sweetness. Good ball control, nice explosiveness on the pick and roll.  It's summer league, but he came out like a pro. Great start for the youngster.
  
• Earl Calloway did the exact same thing he did in the D-League.  He filled up the stat sheet, and yet I cannot remember a single play he made.  He's an invisible scorer. He's invisible. He's a ninja.
  
• Speaking of, the black on black for Oklahoma City? Oklahoma City Ninjas? Anyone? Anyone? No?
• Shawne Williams had a nice stroke. Too bad the coaches aren't looking for scorers here. They're looking for defense and basketball IQ.
  
• Of which there was not enough to fill a bucket, by the way.
  
• Gulobovic gets the "Works Hard For Nothing" award for the day.
  
• Stanley Burrell at the halftime buzzer! FTW!
  
• That new director of NBA Digital should start by looking at the crappy production at this game. Does it really cost that much to get us a score in the corner? Really?
• Oklahoma City Thundercats. Okay, we can go with that.
  
• 95-78 Pacers.  I think.

If you know the NBA blogosphere, you know Boom Tho.  You know, Boom Tho.  But we're a little perplexed. 

He's on Phoenix's roster.

And he's on Toronto's roster.

Interesting.

Games begin at 3PM EST, 4 10 minute quarters, next game starts 20 minutes after the last one ends, all games available on the Magic's website.

THE MOST MASSIVE MATCHUP OF ROOKIES EVER! MONDAY, MONDAY, MONDAY! BE THERE!!!!: Derrick Rose and Michael Beasley face off today as Chicago meets Miami in the second game today. Unfortunateley, Beasley won't have Dwyane Wade and Shawn Marion to give him some help. He'll have Kasib Powell and Mario Chalmers. This is Chalmers first chance to try and show the Heat that they don't need to bargain basement deal Marion or Haslem for a point guard. On the other side, the Bulls should KILL this team. Keith Langford is still a deadly shooter and probably would have gotten called up last year had he not headed overseas for the cold, hard, cash. Tyrus Thomas is still a beast from time to time, and if he's going to be on a mission to rehab his image after last season's disasters, this is a good time to start. And oh, yeah, Joakim's there too! Party on Jo! Party on Ty! Biggest reasons to watch this game? It's the last chance this season you may have to watch Beasley play at the 4, and seeing him go up against Ty Thomas is the stuff Upside is made of.

The Oklahoma Whatchamacallits: I seriously support this being the actual name of the club. I think it would be great. They would get killer marketing dough from Hershey, and the Bill Walton clips alone would be comedy gold. Anyway, the "new" (?) team debuts today against Indiana in the opening game, so that should be fun. Things to watch for? The biggest thing is going to be Russell Westbrook against Earl Calloway. Calloway's a D-Leaguer, and a top-flight one. He's got good size, athleticism, and a solid shot. Westbrook could get taken down a notch today. Also Jeff Green will be around, dunking. Hurrah!


Styles Clash: It's Orlando's size versus New Jersey's athleticism in the nightcap. Orlando has Gortat, who's blogging, Courtney Lee, Justin Reed, and James Augustine, while New Jersey counters with CDR (who will hopefully come out with a vengeance and kill everyone), Will Conroy, who is one of the fastest D-League players I've seen, and who an assistant coach said he would immediately take if he gets a chance next year in the D-League, Brook Lopez, Sean Williams, and Julius Hodge. Hodge worked with Arenas' shooting coach over the summer. Two coaches have told me that shooting was the only thing standing in his way of an NBA comeback.

Watch Your Back, Jack: The scariest part for coaches from June to November is injury.  It's one thing to lose your guy in transition defending the break against the Lakers.  It's another to come down with a bad leg trying to stop a D-Leaguer who's going to do anything short of stabbing you to get a guaranteed contract so he can stop stealing cracker packets from Wendy's for meals.  Beasley is going to be playing with a chest protector today for his sternum, but you can bet he'll get yanked at the first sign of trouble with it.  Rose's ankles have been problematic, and who knows what's wrong with Courtney Lee.  The longer this thing goes, the more frantic you're going to see coaches.

Why For, No Playoff?: I know these are just coaching things, and there's nothing serious about them. But come on.  What better way to judge what a player has inside him than putting him in a miniature playoffs situation?  Put up a small amount of money and have the two teams with the best record at the end of the week play in a game for it.  Come on, it'll be fun! No? Really? No? And why aren't these things televised?  And why can't I get any damn crackers at Wendy's?! Oh...

You know, Nate Tibbets is kind of a pimp.  He's young, a first year coach that took his D-League team, the Sioux Falls Skyforce to the playoffs, and now, he's working for the Timberwolves as an assistant coach for the Summer League.  Tibbets is a sharp guy with a bright future, and this is a great opportunity for him to build some bridges to the NBA-level and scout some guys for next year.  Best part is this signals a great move by Timberwolves management to develop a relationship with Tibbets.  The biggest impediment to the D-League is coaches not trusting D-League staff to handle the players they assign.  By building a relationship, this means Wittman et al will have more confidence in sending players down when they need it.  Good times all around!

The Rio Grande Valley Vipers finally have a coache,  to fill their vacancye created when their last coache diched theme.  Now if they can just finde a generale managere to find them playerse and lead the staffe, they'd be sete. (Look, I live in Texas. I don't mind, and even like the bicultural attitude towards Mexicano words and culture.  But when the league pronounces it gr-and, and not gran-de, it's going to irk me a bit that the "e" just sits there, mocking me.)

I've made it kind of obvious, I think Sam Vincent got screwed in Charlotte. But it looks like he's coming back to what got him to the NBA in the first place, the D-League. In Charlotte, he got very little roster support, had a series of bad breaks, and could never land a marquee free agent.  In Reno, he'll be with an expansion franchise, and will have the Kings as one of his affiliates, who, given their D-League history, will completely ignore his phone calls.  So hey, maybe it won't be a big change for him after all.

Here we go folks.  It's go time.  We'll be with you starting at 4PM EST.  There will be a whole host of blogger stopping by tonight, so be sure to check back to see who's stopping by.  Leave your last minute predraft mocks in the comments, along with rumors and comments on what's up. It's one of the best nights of the year, NBA fans!

Participating:

Empty the Bench

The Blowtorch

Upside and Motor

Pure Point

Bullets Forever

The Peninsula is Mightier

Clips Nation

Posting and Toasting

The Dream Shake

3 Shades of Blue

BrewHoop

Me

And some dude named KD. I'll update this as we go.

In the words of Inigo Montoya... "Let me 'splain. No. It would take too long. Let me sum up."

Okay.

It's Draft Day.

The Blazers have traded with New Orleans for the #27 pick.  The price? Just cash.  Speculation is rampant that the Blazers are trying to trade up, with DJ Augustin the most popular target. 

The Bobcats traded a future first rounder to the Nuggets for the 20th pick.  Which essentially means the Bobcats can take the best available guard and get a competent big man, or take the best available big and go after one of the Kansas guards at 20. 

And oh, yeah, the Pacers now have the 17th pick, too, and a glaring hole at the Power Forward position. 

We're running the longest liveblog tonight.  We're starting at 5PM EST and taking you all the way through.  Giddyup.

Here's my personal lottery pick mock draft, as always, projecting what teams SHOULD do. This version? Short and sweet. Five words or less edition.

1. Chicago Bulls- Derrick Rose: Okay, you've convinced me, BlogABull

2. Miami Heat- Michael Beasley: Trade or no trade, Beasley.

3. Minnesota Timberwolves- OJ Mayo: Big Al and Big Ego.

4. Seattle/OKC Sonics- Jerryd Bayless: Give Durant a running mate.

5. Memphis Grizzlies- Kevin Love: The Bobcats say "Thanks, Lord!"

6. New York Knicks- Joe Alexander: If you reach, reach hard.

7. Los Angeles Clippers- Russell Westbrook: Livingston insurance is certainly wise.

8. Milwaukee Bucks- Eric Gordon: Say Goodbye, Mr. Michael Redd.

9. Charlotte Bobcats- Anthony Randolph: Sometimes you have to gamble.

10. New Jersey Nets- Brook Lopez: Trade this pick and fast.

11. Indiana Pacers- Danilo Gallinari: Point guard no longer priority.

12. Sacramento Kings- Brandon Rush: With both points gone, surrender?

13. Portland Trailblazers- Mario Chalmers: Reach for fun, wooo hoo

14. Golden State Warriors-Kosta Koufos  : Defense! Defense!

Here's my mock

With the thirtieth, and final pick in the 2008 SBNation NBA Mock Draft, the Boston Celtics, represented by GGreen Bandwagon, select ...

DJ White, Power Forward, Indiana University. 6-10, 250 lbs.

Green Bandwagon says:

Not to be obnoxious but I was a little busier this year watching the Celtics dominate opponents and take names later. As a result I'm not as up to date with the draft prospects as I should be. However, at least one Green Bandwagon reader is adamant that the team takes D.J. White. Immediately I have my reservations. First he's a senior. Unfortunately we've reached the point where we look at seniors a bit funny. That's just the way it is. Secondly White has some injury concerns. NBADraft.net points out that he broke his left foot twice. http://www.nbadraft.net/admincp/profiles/djwhite.html Obviously that's bad. And finally the Celtics are already set as far as undersized power forwards go with Leon Powe and Glen Davis manning the position. Although to be fair if the Celtics drafted White it could lead to a reenactment of one of my favorite scenes from The Program.

"D.J. White, back up power forward." – D.J. White
"Leon Powe, primary back up power forward." – Leon Powe
"I know that's why they drafted me." – D.J. White

At that point I can only assume Powe would attack the former Indiana Hoosier.

Thankfully I've come up with ways to get around those reservations. White used all of his college eligibility. So did Al Thornton. Touché. Meanwhile, concerns about his health and drafting for need can somewhat be answered the same way. According to Ben Q. Rock of Third Quarter Collapse it is rare to get impact players in the bottom third of the first round. That's why the Celtics may want to roll the dice with White, someone who may have dropped due to health concerns, much like the aforementioned Leon Powe did in 2006.

That concludes our first ever SB Nation Mock Draft! Thanks to all those who participated!