What if the Browns had some good luck?
April 6, 2012Short Handed Cavaliers Must Make Most of Opportunities Against Toronto
April 6, 2012Though the official NBA Draft is over two months away and we still need the lottery to be set, NBADraft.net has updated their two-round mock and have the Cavaliers bolstering their center position with their two first-round selections.
Opting to pass on wing players like UNC’s Harrison Barnes and Florida’s Bradley Beal, the mock has Chris Grant’s Cavaliers selecting Connecticut’s Andre Drummond, the draft’s top-rated center. The 6-foot-11-inch, 270-pound Drummond failed to live up to some expectations and averaged 10.0 points, 7.6 rebounds and 2.7 blocks per game. He moves well on his feet and can dominate at times.
Perhaps showing just how weak the Cavaliers’ center position may be, the NBADraft.net mock has the Wine and Gold selecting another big man with the 26th-overall pick, Vanderbilt’s Festus Ezeli.
Though it will be very surprising if Chris Grant actually uses all four of his draft selections in 2012, the mock has the Cavalier selecting a pair of small forwards in Michigan State’s Draymond Green (6-feet-6-inches, 225 pounds) and Syracuse’s Kris Joseph (6-7, 210) with the 33rd- and 34th-overall selections.
[Related: Sullinger Departs Ohio State, But Not Without Accomplishing Plenty]
25 Comments
That draft has Terrence Jones falling to #20 and Tyshawn Taylor and Scott Machado near the end of the 2nd round. I don’t agree with those at all, I will be baffled if that happens
Meh. I’ll pass. Like the Ezeli pick… don’t really like the others.
I would be very happy with Drummond. A point guard and 2 bigs in the 1st round in 2 years? I’ll take that any day.
I can’t agree with this mockery yes the Cavaliers need a big man but I can’t see them using their first two picks specifically on center. I’m not high on Drummond for me either Beal or Lamb based on the fact they had Davis, Robinson and MKG going 1-3. I do like Draymond Green in the second round however but I seriously doubt he lasts that long. Green reminds me alot of another former Spartan, Zach Randolph.
Drummond would give the Cavs a wealth of athletic, defensive minded big men. What they need, and will need even more of after Jamison is gone, is scoring. Gotta take the wing scorer at 4. Beal, Barnes or Lamb in that order. Although an Austin Rivers pick would yield a young, tremendously skilled backcourt. If Chris Grant could somehow trade back into top 10 and come away with a Barnes/Rivers combo I would do backflips.
Barnes troubles me this guy should have been all word instead he turned himself into nothing but a shooting guard. When Kendall Marshall went down this guy was lost. The good thing is the Cavaliers have a maestro in Irving who can get Barnes the ball where he likes but I’m not big on players who are dependent upon being set up. I saw enough of this with the Cavaliers the last 5 or 6 years.
As for Rivers he needed to stay at Duke another year. He’s no Kyrie Irving. He’ll do well but I’d much prefer Beal or Lamb in the backcourt.
Drummond has looked bad in just about every game I’ve seen him in. In the tourney, he put up a meager stat line of 2 pts, 3 boards and 4 blocks. This was against Iowa State, whose starting “center” was 6’8″. He’s an absolute project, as he lacks any sort of offensive game. In the games I’ve seen, it wasn’t even clear that he was the second best player on his team behind Lamb. There are project centers available later in the draft like Ezeli and Fab Melo. They don’t have as high of an upside, but the Cavs need a wing scorer more than anything.
Although, a previous draft had Drummond going to the Wizards, which would be hilarious. Because the thing the Wizards definitely need more of is freak athletes who aren’t very good at, you know, playing basketball.
I would not be at all happy if we pass on Ray Allen 2.0 (Brad Beal) for a center who was well below average at the NCAA level just because he has a ton of potential based on his body type.
Ray Allen was a bad man when he came out of UConn. He still is to some degree his shot is lightning quick. The Cavaliers have had alot of “project” centers on the roster including one right now in Erden. I agree with MattS guys like Ezeli or Melo could be had much later. You also have the two bigs from UNC in Zeller and Henson who I’d take over Drummond. Just my opinion though.
Im not high on the Drummond pick, in this scenario Id take Barnes, but i like Beal as well
Sullinger at 15, ouch
I personally feel like Beal is just about a perfect fit to play with Irving. However, no team has won a title without having the dominant front court (even Jordan’s Bulls), specifically center. That being said, I hate going the “in (place Cleveland GM’s name here) we trust…” but if Grant sees Drummond as being acceptable than I’m more than okay with it. No matter what else he is, he is one of only 2 guys in the draft with back to the basket skills and NBA size (sorry Sully).
Again, if he checks out I’d take Drummond, and then move up a little from the Lakers spot to take Doron Lamb, assuming he comes out. Career 47% 3 point shooter, and 48% field goal. He’s not the defender that Beal is, and I don’t think he have the overall game of Beal, but his stroke is every bit as good, and to me Drummond (for the 3rd time IF) plus Lamb is better than Beal plus Festivus (I know its not his name but c’mon) or Fab Melo.
Don’t be fooled by the fact that the site is called nbadraft.net. That’s literally the only reason anyone ever brings it up. It’s by far the worst NBA Draft related site. If you guys do any more posts on mock drafts, please use DraftExpress.com. NBAdraft.net is just terrible, the prospects are all rated way off base, no other site comes close to agreeing with half of their rankings, especially the two most prestigious, Chad Ford’s ESPN mocks and DraftExpress’ mocks.
I post something like this every time I see someone mention this awful, awful site, because I hate for people to be misinformed come draft night.
Doron Lamb could easily be had in the early 2nd round, don’t let this mock fool you. NBAdraft.net is awful. That being said, I think the best route for us to take is to take Beal, trade Andy for a late lottery pick, take Tyler Zeller, then trade up a couple spots from our Lakers pick with another pick or two to grab Terrence Jones or Terrence Ross. Then we can take Doron Lamb with an early second rounder.
This would give us a starting SG, starting C with a jumpshot to compliment Tristan, a backup SF/PF in Terrence Jones or a backup SG/SF in Terrence Ross, and a backup PG/SG in Doron Lamb.
Lamb should return to UK he’s not ready for primetime.
Yeah. Luc Longley and Bill Cartwright dominated the league.
Yeah. Luc Longley and Bill Cartwright dominated the league.
Seems ready enough to me. He’s not fully developed as a player, but where do you think you can work on your basketball skills more, a place where you play 30 some games a year and have to attend classes, or by working full time as a basketball player? He might as well come out now.
Austin Rivers and Kyrie Irving? What are we the Warriors now?
Please re-read, won the finals not dominated the league, and not one player, but frontcourts. Patrick Ewing dominated the league but couldn’t win a title. The Bulls are nearly the exception to the rule, but remember they still had 5-6 big capable bodies they could throw out, and in both incarnations they had a great power forward Grant then Rodman.
And if you look at the series they played the Bulls front court held their own or won battles with Divac and old Worthy, Duckworth and Buck Wil, Kemp and was it Polynice? not sure.
If you just want to poke at the Bulls thing thats cool but I don’t think you can debate that having the dominant bigs in a series almost always means winning.
Just look at the impact Chandler had against 3 scorers last year, look at the difference in the Celtics Lakers series 2 of the last 3 years and how who had the healthy bigs won the series. My point is that if Drummond has the chance to even be a Chandler or even Okafor than he is more important than a guy that can core 25 a game.
I agree on not trusting NBAdraftnet but I think Lamb’s going higher than the 2nd, we’ll see. I don’t see the point in trading Andy for a Zeller type, even if someone would go for it. You’re basically trading a guy with a great contract and 4-6 good years left and hoping the new guy can do exactly the same thing. I can’t see Henson or Zeller, or Festivus having a higher ceiling than Andy. I do really like grabbing a guy like Jones or Ross. Jones is a project but I could easily see platooning him and Gee and get very effective production at the 3 from them. I only saw Ross play a couple times when it looked like we were drafting in the low teens and liked what I saw, he could be a great pickup if Jones were gone.
Just wanted to throw this out, I have found swishscoutcom to be a really good site for projections on players. Good detailed analysis, pretty extensive breakdown of many facets of players games, and lots of video to back up each point made about a player. Only downside is that they aren’t very hard on anyone, you could come away thinking everyone on their could be getting fitted for a hall of fame jacket
I’ve read way too many times that Drummond is lazy and doesn’t seem to have the desire to be great. If the Cavs are sure that this guy is the next Tyson Chandler or better then obviously you can’t pass that up. However, everyone raves about Beal on both ends of the court and I’d rather see the Cavs take the sure thing and take our chances on a project center later in the draft, like Melo or Ezeli. The Cavs have the cap room to overpay a center that’s proven something next year or down the road. I would just hate to see, what we hope, is our last top 10 pick for a long time wasted on a guy that only plays hard when he feels like it.
Drummond reminds me of Bynum coming out of high school. I’m sorry, I just don’t see how you pass on that combination of size and athleticism. The kid won’t turn 19 until August, I’m not sure why he’s torn apart for not being a polished player yet. Yes, you’re going to have to coach him up well, but you’re not going to find many kids with those kinds of tools to work with.
And I know the Cavs need wing scorers, but they need a lot of things. I don’t think they’re going to get a chance at Drummond if they stay at 4, but if they do and pass on him, they deserve what they get for running the likes of Erden, Hollins, etc or undersized guys out there every night.
I didn’t see Bynum out of HS and really haven’t seen that much of Drummond but I have seen alot of the other guys who could be potential draft picks for the Cavaliers. For me the Cavaliers need scoring whether it’s on the wings or down low. The perfect combination is a big man who can score. That’s not Drummond for me. I could be wrong. Personally I draft a skilled wing man for Irving and then add height later. I would prefer the Cavaliers to go after a FA big man which would allow them to add two dynamic skilled scorers in the draft.
First off, good luck just getting a dent in the FA market from this town. But you’re not finding a decent big man at a reasonable price, they just don’t exist on the FA market. Everybody’s desperate for more size. You’re going to have the draft and develop your big men. And I know, everyone gets excited for scoring, but this team is 26th in the league in both offensive and defensive efficiency. They need defense just as much as they need scoring.