"Picking on position alone is dangerous because you might be passing up a better talent that’s available," Colangelo said. "What you hope to find is a player that satisfies both talent and need."
The Raptors GM hasn’t been shy about making moves on draft day, and could do the same this year.
"After the obvious top four or five picks, it’s pretty wide open so a couple of our targeted players might even be on the board later in the round," Colangelo said. "Thus we might consider obtaining another pick if one becomes available."
Matrix was down in Kentucky at the big race, and the Boy was getting his STANKY leg on. Dude has been killing it in league for a while, and phoenix days were his brightest. I hope that he finds a good home with raptors cuz dude a real cool dude with talent. I chopped it up with him a few times in da Chi, and he always come out to charity events. A real dude, but his dance moves look suspect HA.
Any given team only has up to a 25% chance of winning, and all three of the top teams have only a 60% chance to nab a Top 3 pick. So while the odds are good that two of the top three teams will be picking in the top three, the odds are also good that at least one straggler crashes the party. Basically, the draft lottery is like if someone gives you LeBron James to win the NBA scoring title versus any other player in the field. There’s a pretty good chance LeBron takes it, but not as good a chance as the odds of every other player in basketball combined has at winning the scoring title. The Bulls had a 1.7% chance in 2008, the Blazers had a 5.3% chance in 2007, Toronto had a 8.8% chance in 2006, and Milwaukee had a 6.3% chance in 2005–you’re not looking to find someone with impossible odds, so I think you can eliminate anyone who isn’t better than 1.0%, but the odds are likely that one of those other non-top 3 teams will jump up. A sub-1% chance has happened once, when Orlando won the #1 overall pick at 41-41 following the 92-93 season, but the odds are so stacked against it that I doubt we’ll see it again in our lifetime.
Five-time NBA champion Ron Harper, who played for the Chicago Bulls with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen and the Los Angeles Lakers with Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, and Toronto Raptors forward Jason Kapono, a two-time three-point shootout winner in the All-Star weekend, will join NBA assistant coaches Stephen Silas of the Golden States Warriors and Rory White of the L.A. Clippers as camp coaches.
Portland, Golden State, Toronto, New York and Houston are five teams we know of that are either readying or contemplating bids for Nash, with the Blazers listed first not only because of their interest in a push-the-pace veteran leader but because they could furnish Phoenix with multiple youngsters — Jerryd Bayless and Travis Outlaw, just to name two for starters — if the Suns decide they want to start over.
Let’s be clear, though: Phoenix has no such desire at present, no matter how much more the two-time MVP might fetch than its other trade assets. Rebuilding without Nash is not something Suns president Steve Kerr is ready to contemplate.
"I have no interest in trading him," Kerr said Monday. "I’ve said many times that our interest is re-signing him. Steve is the face of our franchise. I think everybody knows that we would love to be able to extend his contract so that he retires a Sun."
The Bulls finished with a 33-49 record last season – same total Toronto just put up this season – but despite a less-than-two-per-cent chance of winning the Lottery, Chi-town pulled it off.
Bryan Colangelo will be representing the Raptors in New York – on the TV set – but there’s no word yet if he’ll be carrying a lucky rabbit’s foot or anything of the sort.
Toronto’s Director of Media Relations, Jim LaBumbard, will be in the back room – as the team’s “witness” for the actual lottery itself (to verify the validity and accuracy of the selections).
Jim Kelly, Toronto’s senior director of player personnel, estimated last week there could be 25 or 30 possibilities in the 15-player group after the top three, meaning it’s entirely possible the Raptors could get the player they want regardless of how the numbers pop up in tonight’s lottery.
"There’s sort of a group in there that if you talk to other scouts and other teams, that same five names always come up," he said. "When you go down to the next group, the next 10 or 15 (draft spots), I think the variance in numbers could be 25 or 30 names. You have to be a little bit more ready; we’d like to be nine … but I think you have to be ready wherever you are."
