Now that we’ve all had time to recover from yesterday’s mania, it’s time to go through everybody’s reactions to what should be Kevin Pritchard’s last hurrah in the NBA Lottery.
You can see all that we came up with in the post below, and while all the 2nd Round picks were fine and dandy (typical KP maneuvering) Bayless was the real prize. A quick analysis on him shows just how well he’s going to fit as a combo guard next to Brandon Roy. He doesn’t need to be a “pure point” as was the biggest knock on him since Roy handles the ball so much anyways. What matters is how he and Brandon work together, and that he can run pick-and-rolls and feed our big guys in the post. That’s easier said than done, but there’s no indication Bayless can’t do those things — he can even throw a lob, something Jarret Jack never could do. We don’t need Bayless to be Steve Nash, we need him to help produce wins.
Some Blazer fans had trouble getting behind giving Darrel Arthur up for Nicolas Batum. I can understand why. Arthur slipped ridiculously far because of that bogus kidney-ailment claim and should be a good player, there’s just no way he was ever going to get playing time for us. I’ll admit that at first I thought Batum could be stashed in France, but KP seems to think he’ll come over this year. We’ve got a bit of room for a project, but McMillan and staff will have to be diligent in keeping up his development while the rest of the team concentrates on winning.
There’s a ton of links to go through, so let’s get going:
Part of what makes the Bayless and Batum moves so good was how they were made. Bayless never worked out for the Blazers, and when Sacramento thought he might drop to them, KP swept in and stole him. Same deal with Batum, KP got Houston to pick him for them since San Antonio was surely going to take him at 26, one spot ahead of Portland. Basically, the Rockets and Spurs joined the growing number of teams to get Pritchslapped. Mike Barret has the rest of the details on the “smokescreen draft.” A must read.Chad Ford has his team grades out. The Blazers got an A-. mostly because Ford liked Arthur more than Batum.Sacramento was really the team that ended up getting Prtichslapped by the Bayless deal, but the Pacers fans’ reactions to the whole thing was high comedy. Read through at least a couple pages of that and you’ll be laughing. It’s hard not to feel a little bad, until you remember the Dale Davis/Jermaine O’Neal trade. There were many more bombastic reactions, but my favorite was the fan who just said, “wtf, no Larry….no.”NBA.com’s initial Rookie Rankings. Oden is a “cautious” fourth. Meanwhile, ESPN and Scout Inc’s David Thorpe has four Blazers in his Top-20 Rookies.Blazersedge has some good analysis of our picks and how they fit in.Bill Simmons’ Draft Diary is up. Not one of his best efforts, but the Blazer-related email is top-notch.An Indianapolis Columnist’s take on the draft. General attitude seems to be, ‘well, at least the team is different now.’Houston ended up getting Donte Green out of the Batum deal, and even though Batum carried most of the Rudy Gay comparisons with him, they stuck Green with them too.Mike Kahn of Fox Sports has his draft grades up as well. His brief analysis doesn’t really explain why he gave Portland a B.Winners and Losers from NBADraft.net.Jonathan Giovany’s live blog of the Draft. If you caught him on NBAtv afterwards, he was gushing about the Blazers.A quick Jerryd Bayless highlight video. Batum at the Nike Hoop Summit.That’s all for now. There will be more as the day goes on. Hopefully some video of KP’s press conference will go up soon.
