This week on The Doctor Is In, it’s time to bring clarity to the draft in the age of mis-information. I return to the Big Board to share some insight into why the Raptors will draft Avery Bradley despite of what you are hearing elsewhere. The top 5 of Udoh, Bradley, Patterson, Hayward, and George stands true because those are the best fits at each position. Having said that, unless Udoh falls down to #13 or Indiana draft Bradley, the latter will be our man as noted on the Republic months ago.
The Raptors are at a defining moment in their franchise’s 15 year history. Do they let Bosh walk, trade guys like Turkoglu and Calderon and rebuild around a core of Bargnani, DeRozan, Amir Johnson, and the #13 pick? Do they draft a “NBA ready player” , trade one of their point guards, take on some salary and try to rework the existing roster to remain competitive with or without Bosh? Or do they go all in and try to retool by moving the #13 pick and one of Calderon, Turkoglu or DeRozan in a play to land another big name player to impress Chris Bosh and coninvce him to stay – to try and make a run at the East. Whatever their decision is, their selection on draft night will be a good indicator of their path moving forward.
I also explain the Steve Nash rumour from a couple days ago.
[audio:http://raptorsrepublic.com/audio/2010-06-23-phdsteve.mp3]Download it here (26:05min, 20.8MB). Grab the RSS feed (still waiting on Steve Jobs, but he’s busy with some iPhone release).
Check RR on draft night as we’ll be holding a live blog and chat with pick analysis as they happen. All this of course live from Sports Centre Cafe where we’ll have an interactive draft going with the audience. As always, you can follow updates on Twitter and Facebook.
