This Draft Not A Good One?

[Tim W.]

From RealGM:

A draft class is evaluated numerous times, but the three most important judging periods come right before the draft, the first few weeks into the player's rookie season and then again at the end of the rookie's inaugural campaign.

Overall, the judgments made prior to the NBA Draft each June might be the least accurate, but they are important for obvious reasons. Each of the league's 30 teams need to do their homework to take some of the guess work out of the process.

They may not be able to gauge a player's value perfectly (see: Brown, Kwame and Milicic, Darko), but as a whole the league does a very good job of evaluating talent. That's why it's important for rebuilding teams to have a series of high picks. Just look at what the Trail Blazers and Thunder have done over the last handful of years.

In the weeks and months leading up to this week's draft I conducted an informal poll among a number of NBA front office executives to gauge how they felt about this year's draft class.

Not surprisingly, all the executives I talked to gushed about Kentucky point guard John Wall, the consensus top pick in Thursday's draft and the cream of this year's crop.

After that, opinions were wide-spread.

Read more: http://www.realgm.com/src_wiretap_ar...#ixzz0rcKCdkTs

This is something I've been saying for a while. I just don't see nearly as much talent with this draft, which is why I wouldn't be heartbroken if Colangelo trades the pick. I think they'll be a few good players outside of the top ten, but not a whole lot.

[jjiio]

I was really surprised when i read the article, because i like this draftclass, there is major talent and some nice depth. In my opinion, this draft isn't worse than the last 4, but we need to wait, how it all is paying out before judging.

[Nick]

Really? I think this year's draft is as good as any other. I think 1-5 are going to be franchise players.

[Tim W.]

It's funny. Every year as the draft gets closer and closer, fans seem to like it more and more. I haven't seen a draft that most fans didn't think was pretty good...until after the fact. Of course, these are the same people that assume that 20th pick is going to be anything more than a scrub, which is what most 20th picks end up being.

I really like Wall, Turner and Favors, and there are a handful of other players I like, but I think there are going to be very few impact players outside of the top five.

[jjiio]

"Chad Ford: Analyzing the Draft Tiers:

...

Tier 4

Cole Aldrich, Luke Babbitt, Eric Bledsoe, Avery Bradley, Gordon Hayward, Xavier Henry, Paul George, Daniel Orton, Patrick Patterson, Ekpe Udoh

Note: This is a huge tier and shows the parity in the draft. Theoretically, teams are saying you can get the same quality of player at No. 9 that you will get at No. 19. This is where the real depth of the draft is. Of this group, Udoh, Hayward and Henry each got a vote for Tier 3, and all three were unanimous selections from the other teams in Tier 4. Orton and Bledsoe were borderline between here and Tier 5."

I still think, this is going to be a nice class. Wall, Turner, Favors, Johnson and Cousins will likely be impact players from the start, which would be already more than last year.

Maybe some folks were caught in the hype around Kentucky and guys like Whiteside, which seems to be not justified after workouts.

[Rainman]

Every year experts decry the lack of talent in every draft class.
You can't really tell until 5 yrs after the fact.
Let's let this one play out.

[Apollo]

Every draft class for a while now has been deemed "weak" leading up to it. They've all been pretty good in recent years. This one, to me, looks a lot better than the 2006 class for example.

[hateslosing]

This draft has a lot of flawed players in it and is very weak at the point guard position. When a guy who played the two guard is being called the second best point in the class (that's Avery Bradley) you know there is some issues. The other thing is that out side of Cousins and Favors, all the bigs have huge holes in their games and project to likely be role players or busts. I wouldn't say it's worse than last years class, and it's significant better than some classes, Apollo mentioned 2006 which was an absolutely terrible class for example. I do whish we could pick in a different spot, either 5 up or 5 down because the talent between 13 and 18 is not that different and the talent at 7 is significantly better.

[LBF]

you know I don't think you can judge if a draft was crap until at least three to five years after it.