2009 NBA Draft Coverage: Hello, My Name Is Blake Griffin
by Mr Pappagiorgio on Jun 3, 2009 5:00 AM CDT
in Draft Coverage
44 comments
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I’m posting from my phone so I’m not sure what links you posted, but I imagine it’s just a couple of the many cheap shots thrown his way. I’ve never have seen a guy take so many cheap shots in one season and react so positively each time they happened.
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by Mr Pappagiorgio on Jun 3, 2009 6:45 AM CDT up reply actions
I also
Tried to portray him as a humble guy with a hungry work ethic to continue to get better and be the best player he can be. Of all the “My name is” posts so far, you’d probably think think this guy has the most stuff to work on to be a great player at the next level. Just trying to show the amount of character I think Blake has.
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I'm amazed
Every time I come to this blog. It’s the best put together sports blog I’ve ever seen. The designs are crisp and the content is well written.
Those are truly humbling words to hear...
Thanks so much for the compliments Red Dirt. As the blog grows I find myself becoming more and more focused on putting out quality content and maintaining a high level of professionalism in terms of the look and writing of the site. The recent additions of daddydai and dishingoutdimes has also really added another dimension to the site.
Thanks again and we hope you recommend us to anyone you know wishing to follow the team.
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by Mr Pappagiorgio on Jun 3, 2009 9:35 AM CDT up reply actions
I concur wholeheartedly
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain
Just to let ya know...
I was a Supersonicsoul junkie when I learned that we might be getting the team, yet I was afraid that Thunder wouldn’t have a blog of equal quality. Boy, was I wrong.
Also Known as "4D" one step beyond 3D
More humbling words...
The most amazing thing about Supersonicsoul is that even now they keep the site updated. Gotta give them love for that kind of dedication.
…as much as I love the Thunder. Boy do I miss my Sonics. I hope they get a team in the next few years. There are quite a few teams out there that I couldn’t care if I ever heard from again, so Stern needs to go ahead and just move one of them to Seattle.
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by Mr Pappagiorgio on Jun 4, 2009 5:27 PM CDT up reply actions
I know there's already a post about this,
but what realistically do you think would you have to give up to get Griffin?
Either Green or Westbrook, the #3 pick, and either a 1st next year, or take on a crap contract of the Clips?
If I’m the Clips, I implode that team except Eric Gordan. No one wants Zach Randolph or Baron Davis though, but I’m sure there would be several takers on either Kaman or Camby (not sure what their contracts are like though) but at least they are talented big men who aren’t considered ‘cancers’.
Is Blake Griffin a breath of fresh air for them? Yes. Will there still be cancers and bloated contracts on the team? Yes. So either they could go with Blake, or use him as trade bait to get rid of one of their contracts. I think Sterling cares more about the P&L column than he does the W-L column. If OKC can take advantage somehow, I think a deal can get done.
In all honesty...
I really don’t expect there to be any chance of a deal getting done between the Clippers and Thunder, but when the outcome is acquiring a talent like Griffin, you have to at least explore the options if the Clips decide there is a price where Griffin can be had. But like you mentioned, I don’t expect Presti to touch any of their bloated contracts with a 10 foot pole…especially if they also demand RW0 or Uncle Jeff.
The bottom line for Presti is to find out the price, see if there is any room to work a deal that would be to our benefit, and then move on of the price remains as steep as it likely is now.
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by Mr Pappagiorgio on Jun 3, 2009 12:12 PM CDT up reply actions
It depends on how great you think a Durant and Griffin combo will be.
I firmly believe this is a two superstar league in terms of championship teams (though the trend lately has been more towards three stars). If Griffin and Durant are one of the 15 players in the NBA that can qualify as superstars, then I’d say it would be worth it. The team would just have to be very shrewd with the role players it signs. It couldn’t get any Gortat-type players or any players with upside, but there are always bargain picks that are available.
What’s better, KD and Grifin, and a few Collison/Weaver/Watson type players, maybe one Green-type in there, or Durant and 3 Green-type players (RW, Green, Harden/Thabeet) and a future first round pick or two (so it REALLY depends on how good you think the Thunder could be on an immediate level)?
Disagree with the "two superstar league" premise.
What matters is overall talent level. The 2002-2003 Spurs were not two superstar teams, and you could make an argument against the 04-05 Spurs as well. If the Magic win this year, they’ll have won with one superstar (so long as your definition is a top 15 player). None of the 05-06 Pistons qualify.
Teams win with talent, discipline and coaching. That’s it. When thinking about a deal for Griffin, I think about baseball and WAR. Is the WAR of Green + Harden/Rubio/whoever + a future first better than the WAR of Griffin + whoever OKC would get to fill the other two roster spots? I think so.
Watch out now, because I’m about to contradict myself and agree with you (in a way). I do think the NBA salary cap does favor teams concentrating their talent into a few superstars and filling out the rest of their rosters with cheap role players. Namely, because I think teams have a tendency to overpay for sub-elite talent. A contract for a 11 WAR player usually does not scale linearly for a 4 or 5 WAR player. That said, I absolutely 100 percent believe that if you have a GM that will not overpay (or will overpay only when strategically necessary to bring a team over the hump) it doesn’t matter how many elite talents you have as long as the aggregate team talent level is high.
That's why I put a clause for 3 stars.
Though I’m not sure if TD and Manu don’t qualify as two superstars. It’s hard to use regular seasons stats for Manu since the Spurs just want him to be tip top for the playoffs.
The Pistons are the obvious exception, I don’t think there has been a team like them for the past 20 years, perhaps ever.
Take a look at the 2002-2003 numbers.
I agree that Manu was a legitimate star during the last run. All I was disagreeing with is the notion that you need two top-15 talents to take the trophy home.
One precedent was set in '93
when GS traded third overall Penny Hardaway + two future firsts for top pick Chris Webber.
As has been noted, the probability of a deal is really really slim
one minor correction
one minor correction the penny webber deal is i believe gs gave them 3 future 1st round picks in 98, 99, 2000.
Ooops.
You’re right, it was three future firsts, not two. The picks for the 96, 98 and 2000 drafts. What an odd trade.
[BTW, that draft has got to have the highest talent to production ratio of any in history. So many flame-out would-be Hall of Famers. Look at this list:
Chris Webber
Shawn Bradley
Penny Hardaway
Jamal Mashburn
Bobby Hurley
Vin Baker
Allan Houston]
As great as blake can be
as great as he can be he is not worth a 17 and 7 22 yr old forward, James Harden and potentially a player like Greg Monroe or a Derrick Favors next year. I understand the draw of Blake being the hometown boy, but this move creates more holes than it fills. Use the precedent of the 93 trade. Last i checked Orlando won that deal.
draft rumours
there is a rumor thunder might be intersted in ben gordon of bulls and stephon curry ?
any truth to this
i would doubt both
i think there is probably truth to some extent to rumors about both individually, but not both as they would be redundant.
I think Ben Gordon has a lot of ability to score the ball, but i dont think he is an 8-10 million dollar player when this team has a strong young core that will all need to be resigned in a couple years.
Curry i like, think he is a great shooter, but he and Gordon, but curry even more so is small to play the two guard. If Curry was a more proven passer he and Westbrook could take turns running the club, but i dont think he is and some of that is probably attributable to the quality of players around him at Davidson. I would rather pick curry than pay big money to sign Gordon, but in the end especially after proving many doubters wrong about his athletic ability in think Harden is the best choice for this team at the 2 spot.
I'm smitten by Curry, but I don't know who OKC would trade with to get him.
I don’t think they take Curry over Harden at three. I’d be intrigued with taking Hill at 3, then finagling a trade to get back into the lottery to grab Curry. Washington seems to be interested in getting out of the lottery for salary reasons; maybe the 25th + a future first would be enough?
Washington is Interesting
Some of these trade rumors floating around w Amare are kind of ridiculous. Why would the Suns want Jamison and the 5 pick. Jamison is already 33 and will make around 40 million over the next 3 years so there has to be better value for Amare.
The other Amare deal i heard today was this idea of Amare and 14 pick to Boston for Ray Allen and Rondo which makes no sense for either team as Phoenix two best players would both play the pt and Boston’s would both play the 4, which would mean Boston has no point and their 4’s in Powe and Big Baby are expendable while Phoenix has no rebounding 2 pts and 2 starting two guards.
Back to your question:
Washington has been out there talking about wanting a veteran to play now and i think mainly it is because Flip never has liked developing players.
I dont think you have to give up the 25 and future picks to get the 5 from Washington you just have to save them money and give them a veteran who can play now.
If we give them Collison and maybe the 25 and take two bad contracts back for a year (thomas and mike james) i think we could get it done. This would save the wizards about 12 million between salary and luxury tax costs and give them a double double producer.
We have the cap space to do this and still go out and sign gortat.
This would make the 3 spot even more interesting because Washington is the other team in the top 5 that i think would pick Harden, so at 3 we could trade down if rubio is still there and get harden at 5 and pick up whatever else.
Say Sacramento gives up Thompson or Hawes to move from 4 to 3 to get rubio.
Take Harden and im not sure who else there cause i dont know where the “need” is at that point.
If Sacramento gives up Hawes we dont need to sign Gortat cause we have Kristic and Hawes at C.
If they gave us Thompson we dont need to draft hill since we have green and white already.
I might be inclined to take Curry to let him develop as a backup one and a Jason Terry type 6 man scoring role off the bench.
Interesting to speculate on.
I don't think you draft Curry with the bench in mind.
If OKC drafts Curry, I think they move Westbrook to the nominal 2, letting them both share ball-handling and distributing. This would give them a pair of combo guards in the backcourt, which would give them a pretty acceptable solution to the Westbrook conundrum and would be a suitable role for Curry’s skillset. You could rotate Thabo and Weaver in for either player.
Agreed that neither of those Amare deals make any sense.
That’s an interesting take. The question is, can that type of tandem be a potent enough backcourt on a regular basis in terms of creating/assisting as well as scoring?
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by Mr Pappagiorgio on Jun 3, 2009 5:22 PM CDT up reply actions
I wouldnt take Curry over Harden
Let me be clear the only way i would take curry is if they got a 2nd top 10 pick like washington’s because his game is not as complete for this team’s needs as Harden’s is. I would consider Curry or another guard that could be a combo 1/2 that could play with Harden or Westbrook when the other is on the bench or take over more scoring when someone like Thabo is out there. I think Curry as i said could certainly mold into a Jason Terry type role where he has some distribution skills but that said is a knock down shooter capable of averaging 15-20 a night.
In some sense i envision curry as a player who could fill the role i think Ben Gordon is actually better suited for. The Jason Terry, Manu, old school Vinnie Johnson type role.
Never thought about the idea of taking Harden AND Curry.
Interesting idea, but wow, that’d be a small team. Who’s going to grab boards, especially with Collison gone? Even supposing you did sign Gortat, your only bench bigs over 6’7" are Krstic and White?
not true
kristic and white sure. but if the detroit trade happens you have amir johnson and probably a big at 15.
Kristic-Gortat/Hawes
Green-draft pick-White-Amir Johnson
Durant-Thabo
Harden-Curry
Westbrook-Livingston
You forgot Weaver.
But, huh. That looks like a playoff contender. So much speculation.
Things that would need to happen for this to go down:
Trade Collison to Washington for the 5
Trade 25 to Detroit for Johnson and the 14.
Sign Gortat.
Do all of this without hurting your ability to sign Durant and Green to an extension at the end of the season.
I love the offseason.
i figure weaver would be in the dleague
with that lineup they would probably send weaver to the d-league, but maybe not. i mean technically i left watson, and wilkins off too but hopefully they will get dumped even for 2nd rounders.
and detroit has the 15.
The only real spec actually is about the 5 pick. the detroit move has been talked about so it would just have to happen.
all of those moves make us better next year and you are correct do not impact our ability long term with the cap. in fact the collison trade while hurting us this year in not being able to spend more helps us next year as we get out of his deal a year early.
The other spec was the possibility of the Sacramento deal and i like that because as much as i think gortat can improve paying 2 million to Hawes sounds a lot better than 4-6 to Gortat. Could allow them to go after big baby instead to be a 4 man since you were concerned about boards.
I'm perfectly fine with giving Weaver the boot.
He’s a better shooter than Sefolosha, but Sefolosha is the better defender, has a bigger body and is more experienced. Since they were both acquired to fill the same role, I think we can assume who the FO prefers.
The Detroit move has only been rumored, and I’d still be pretty surprised if it came through.
I still think Memphis gets something done with the Kings, just because it seems like such a no-brainer move, but I suppose you can never underestimate the stupidity of the Chris Wallace.
I’m ambivalent about Hawes. I’d rather have Gortat to pair with Krstic because I think Hawes is way too easy to attack. Gortat brings a better defensive presence and toughness, plus he runs the floor well.
Scoring you don't need to worry about.
Curry can shoot the lights out and we know Westbrook can create shots for himself in the half court and in transition.
As for passing, Curry’s game IQ is exceptionally high. At Davidson, he played pretty much 1-on-5 every game out of necessity. With the ball in his hands, I have a fair amount of confidence that his floor vision and passing ability won’t be an issue once he trusts his teammates. I think he’ll be a much more judicious distributor than someone like Ben Gordon, who pretty much looks for his shot and only his shot. Being able to play off the ball with Westbrook on the floor means Curry gets to space the floor and spot up for 3s, which was one of his highest percentage shots at school. It’s his defense I worry about, but the combine did a lot to quell those concerns.
curry
things in favor of curry:
*he is terrific shooter.
*is versatile and can switch between point and shooting guard.
*good work ethic and team player and probably would develop good chem with other players.
*showed better than anticipated ball control and dribble skills in combine and so could develop dribble penetration and a fadeway jumper.
*has a good mentor in thabo to show him to play defense.
*would be a good complimentary player to westbrook.westbrook with his athleticism and penetration and curry with his crisp shots.
just my 2 cents
different question
Maybe the wrong place for this but with all this talk of big men this year and who has what value, what is the value of someone like DJ White?
I mean it is terms of if DJ was in this draft where would he go…around where guys like James Johnson and Blair are slated being late lotto mid first or late first as he did last year?
I say somewhere from 18-28
Which is more a testament to how weak this draft is for big men than anything else. You know things are bad when people are talking about Hansborough going to the Bulls at 15. BTW, DJ was projected as a 30-40 pick, if I remember correctly.
Here is a trade idea....
Three team trade: Clippers, Warriors, Thunder
The Clippers receive:
OKC’s 1st round pick (#3) (Rubio)
Warrior’s 1st round pick (#7) (DeRozen)
Earl Watson PG
Anthony Morrow SG
Brandan Wright SF
The Warriors receive:
Spurs’ 1st round pick via OKC (#25)
Suns’ 1st round pick 09/10 via OKC
Baron Davis PG
D. J. White PF
The Thunder receive:
Clippers 1st round pick (#1) Blake
Kleena Azubuike SF
Ronny Turiaf PF/C
Thoughts?
Also Known as "4D" one step beyond 3D
Why on earth
would the Warriors give up:
Azubuike, Turiaf, Wright, their #7 and Anthony Morrow
for
an overpriced Baron Davis, a late-pick power forward that’s only played 7 games in the league, a late pick in this year’s draf, and what’s at best a late lottery pick in next year’s draft?
Or, worded differently,
Azubuike, Turiaf, Wright, Morrow and a 7
for
Davis, plus two late firsts and a future middle first
I just know...
The Clippers are looking to deal Davis, and I hear the Warriors are still interested in him.
I’m sure we could sweeten the deal a bit for the Warriors with a better player, and/or the highest between our two 1st round picks next year.
Longshot, yeah I know. I’m just throwing around possibilities.
Also Known as "4D" one step beyond 3D
phoenix will struggle next year
i would not be at all surprised if that phoenix team falls to 11th or 12th in the west next year.
As for this trade the only team that wins is the clippers. They get 2 top 7 picks unload baron’s deal and get a another former lottery pick with upside in wright.
OKC make out like bandits.
Watson, White, the 3rd, 25th, and a future middle-first for Griffin alone would be an amazing coup. Thowing in Azubuike and Turiaf? Why not Anthony Randolph while you’re at it?
Although he doesn't have a likely scenario above...
4D Could be on the right track in terms of what it will take to get the Clippers to Come off the #1 pick. Probably a 3-way deal involving two top 10 picks and a salary dump. The problem is finding the right combination between three teams to get it done.
A 3-way deal seems like it could be more workable than a 1 on 1 deal. Either way though, it still seems rather unlikely right now.
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by Mr Pappagiorgio on Jun 4, 2009 5:05 AM CDT up reply actions
Baron Davis needs the Warriors like the Thunder need Durant...
They just fit the script!
"Where's the beef?"
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Northwest Standings
| W | L | PCT | GB | STRK | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Denver
|
53 | 29 | .646 | 0 | Lost 1 |
|
Utah
|
53 | 29 | .646 | 0 | Lost 4 |
|
Oklahoma City
|
50 | 32 | .609 | 3 | Lost 2 |
|
Portland
|
50 | 32 | .609 | 3 | Lost 2 |
|
Minnesota
|
15 | 67 | .182 | 38 | Lost 7 |
(updated 9.2.2010 at 4:09 PM CDT)
Thunder Schedule
Last 5 Games
|
Los Angeles Lakers
|
Fri 04/30 | L 94 - 95 |
|
@
Los Angeles Lakers
|
Tue 04/27 | L 87 - 111 |
|
Los Angeles Lakers
|
Sat 04/24 | W 110 - 89 |
|
Los Angeles Lakers
|
Thu 04/22 | W 101 - 96 |
|
@
Los Angeles Lakers
|
Tue 04/20 | L 92 - 95 |
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