2014 NBA Draft Live Blog

Hurray!  Live Blog!  This draft could get absolutely crazy, or at least I hope so.  Seems like most drafts that are supposed to be nuts end up being snoozers, but there's so much potential for the crazy here I can't believe nothing interesting will happen.

As with just about anything, you can bet on a ton of draft related stuff.  Because you can bet on it, I did.  Here's what I have tonight:

Joel Embiid draft position over 5 (small)
Tyler Ennis draft position over 18.5 (small)
Marcus Smart draft position over 5.5 (normal bet)
Shabazz Napier draft position under 25.5 (normal)
Total seniors taken in first round over 2.5 (extra super big bet)

I also have a combination of bets where I win a normal amount if Parker goes first but don't lose anything if Wiggins go first.  It's from a combination of an early bet at great odds that suddenly looked like a bad bet but an opportunity to hedge out of a lot of it presented itself.  It's complicated and you're definitely not smart enough to understand.

Anyway, hopefully something happens with Love tonight or soon at least.  I think if they can get Golden State to include Harrison Barnes that's a pretty good trade.  Remember Barnes averaged 16 points and 6 rebounds per game in 12 postseason games in 2012-2013.  Then the Warriors traded for Andre Iguodala and his development was completely blocked.  If you can get Klay Thompson, Harrison Barnes, and David Lee you're acquiring three starters, two of whom could have significant upside and at a minimum you're getting a second tier star in Thompson, a solid starter in Lee, and at least a rotation guy in Barnes (though I think he'll be better than this).  I dunno, I take it for sure, especially if you can shed either Kevin Martin or Chase Budinger's contract while you're at it.

Anyway, on to the draft.

-  We got a new cat today.  Murray.  3 years old and Orange and super mellow.  Daughter (age 6) cried tears of joy when we brought him home.  Took him less than three hours to get stuck in the crawl space in the basement and, despite being I assured that I would have to do zero work if we got a cat, guess who got to spend 40 minutes getting him out and then figuring out how to block it off so he couldn't get out.  Yep.

-  Does anyone ever pick in this draft?

-  Cavs go with Andrew Wiggins.  Kind of a mild surprise since Cleveland is Cleveland and I could see them doing something insane like picking Dante Exum.

-  How fast does Milwaukee get this pick in?  It should take about 4 seconds.  Like you.

-  Indeed it's Jabari.  What are the odds going to be on him winning ROY?  He's got to be an overwhelming favorite as the most NBA ready talent and going somewhere he'll immediately become the #1 option.  He will be the top option there, right?  I'll admit, I have trouble coming up with Bucks.  I think they have Larry Sanders and maybe Brandon Jennings.   Or is he on the Pistons now?  Wow.  This is embarrassing.  Jon Leuer maybe?  Probably some foreign guys.  So yeah, ROY.  For a lot of monies.

-  Third pick here for Philly is the most interesting one.  Go with Embiid and take that risk or take a safer player (or somewhere in between like Exum)?  I'd go with Embiid as the Sixers since they aren't going to be anywhere near contending for at least another couple years, why not swing for the fences?

-  Boom.  It is Embiid.  No doubt about, most talented guy in the draft.  A seven footer with the athleticism of a swingman who keeps developing more offensive abilities, including a mid-range jumper mid-season.  Unreal.  IF he stays healthy, and yes that's clearly become a monster IF, he's going to be a monster.

-  Magic go with Aaron Gordon at #4.  Gross, and what horrid night for Orlando.  First they trade Aaron Afflalo for some crappy guard with a frenchy name and almost the last pick of the draft, now they take a guy with absolutely no real basketball skills when there were two much better forwards (Vonleh and Randle) available. Gross.

-  Utah travels back in time to when high school kids were drafted in the lottery despite having no real game tape against proper competition and takes Dante Exum.  Look, maybe he'll work out - KG, Kobe, and Lebron certainly did, but thanks to Jon Bender, Kwame Brown, and Kovortney Barber I wouldn't touch him with so many semi-proven good players still on the board.  And this means the Lakers will get either Vonleh or Randle.  Stupid Lakers.

-  Exum's accent makes him sound like a dandy.

-  Celtics go with Marcus Smart, and this has to mean they're trading Rondo, right?  They're practically the same player with the ball, in that their strength is their strength when it comes to getting to the rim to either score, get fouled, or dish.  Both are good rebounders for guards, both are excellent defenders, and neither can shoot outside.  I had heard earlier that Rondo might be on the move to Sacramento for #8, and now that sounds more likely to me than it did earlier today.

-  Vonleh or Randle is one hell of a tough decision.  It's like choosing between Knob Creek and Woodford Reserve.  I LOVE YOU BOTH.

-  I think how they can't stop talking about how Smart is so competitive.  Sure, but he's kind of an asshole too and he still can't shoot.

-  Randle is the choice.  `If Sacramento goes Vonleh and that trade with the Celtics is real a Smart/Vonleh draft is a great one for Boston.  Oh, and the cat's in the ceiling somehow.  Time to visit my good friend liquor.

-  Whoa, Nik Stauskas.  Wasn't expecting this.  Would Boston want to reload with Smart/Stauskas?  Would the Kings really want Stauskas when they took Ben McLemore last year?  Well nothing really fun has happened yet, but there are enough questions about this first round that there's got to be some wheels turning.

- Hornets, who have been basically been linked to Doug McDermott by everyone, do the smart thing with Vonleh having slipped and take him.  He's going to be a star.

-  Interviewer guy to Vonleh, "How important was Tom Crean in your development."  Give Vonleh and incredible amount of credit for not just plain bursting out laughing.

-  Philly goes Elfrid Payton at #10, which is a horrible pick and also doesn't make a whole lot of sense because he's a point guard and the Sixers have rookie of the year Michael Carter-Williams and neither one of them can shoot.  Both are good defenders, but neither has a whole lot of strength and they could both just get brutalized by stronger 2s.  I feel like this is another trade waiting to be announced.  And never, ever trust a player who shoots up draft boards late for no real reason.  It never works.  Probably.

-  Here comes Denver, a pick that has been rumored to be heading to the Wolves along with Wilson Chandler and Kenneth Faried for Kevin Love and if that happened I would kill myself.

-  Nugs take McDermott.  Now I'll double kill myself if that trade happens.  1 senior off the board.  I need three to go.  That's seriously a really big bet.

-  There you go, McDermott traded to Chicago for #16 and #19.  Let the trade waters flow.

-  The Magic take Dario Saric from Croatia to go with trading Afflalo for nothing and Aaron Gordon.  Oof.  This is like watching Dawger at a fantasy football draft.

-  I suppose that means the Wolves are up.  I have very little interest in anyone here.  Gary Harris is probably the most ready.  Adreian Payne is interesting.  Zach LaVine is Bilas's best available and even though I think he has bust written all over him I suppose at this point he also has the most upside of anyone available.  I dunno.  I am strangely ambivalent, but that's probably because I know the Love trade is coming up at some point and that's way more interesting.

-  Zach LaVine it is.  Any time you can get a point guard who was a backup at UCLA and averaged more rebounds than assists you have to do it.

-  Sixers and Magic trade Saric for Payton.  One time I gave this bum a bag of trash and he gave me back his bag of trash.

-  Suns go with T.J. Warren.  This either going to be an absolute steal or a huge bust.  Warren is a monster scorer, but he doesn't really look the part.  He has a goofy looking jumper and he scores a ton of his points on weird shots that go in because he can just do it no matter how off balance or out of rhythm.  He should actually do quite well in Phoenix.

-  Atlanta takes Adreian Payne (senior #2), which means we get to hear that whole story about him and that little girl again.  Yes, it's a great story, but does it make me a bad person if I'm bored hearing about it?  Actually I don't care.

-  The Magic should have their two picks, Aaron Gordon and Elfried Payton play horse.  Could last until infinity.

-  Denver takes some foreigner from Bosnia whose name I don't feel like typing, Celtics go with James Young (who I like a lot, mostly because he's a lefty, he got a lot better last season when he decided to be more than a jump shooter), and the Suns take Tyler Ennis to go with T.J. Warren.  Tyler Ennis goes #18.  I had the over 18.5.  Dammit.

-  Vance Worley with 7 innings of 1 run ball tonight, running his ERA to 1.74 in 3 starts with the Pirates.  It's like the Twins coaches somehow actually wreck players.  I know I've joked about it before, but I think maybe it's time to stop joking about it.  They're doing something very wrong over there.

-  I'm strangely super bored by this draft.  Nuggets take Gary Harris, which means Denver has acquired both Aaron Afflalo and Gary Harris, which is redundant.

-  Raptors select some buy from Brazil who nobody has ever heard of.  I'm bailing on this draft as soon as Napier goes.

- Jesus Christ with this cat stuff.  Now my son, who is kind of scared of everything, is freaking out if the cat goes in his room while he's trying to fall asleep.  But he also cries if we shut his door because he likes to sleep with it open.  Remember back when I started this blog and I was basically just a drunk stupid kid?  Growing up and having to take care of things like kids sucks sometimes.  I'm out boys.  Pray for Shabazz Napier.

Game Preview: Gophers vs. Lafayette (and some general college hoops stuff)

Let's get this out of the way:  Lafayette is bad.  Like, really, really bad.  All five wins this year (vs. 8 losses) have come at home vs. terrible teams, including a non-D1 school.  The only decent teams they've played this year are Kentucky (lost by 52 yes 52), Maryland (lost by 9), Princeton (lost by 19), and Long Island twice (they split somehow).  Kentucky shot 65% against them.  They've given up 80+ points five times this year despite not being an uptempo squad.  Of the 347 Division I teams, they rank 313th in 2-pt field goal defense, 323rd in 3-pt defense, and 311th in total defensive efficiency.  They're a little better with the ball thanks to good three-point shooting (hit 36%) and great free-throw shooting (76.4% - 21st in the country) but they better take advantage of any shots they can get off because they don't take care of the basketball (227th in turnovers) or rebound their misses (316th in OReb %).  They don't have a single player averaging more than 4.3 rebounds per game, and it's not like they make it into a group effort because they're 324th in the country in rebounds per game.  They're horrible.  Kenpom predicts the Gophers to win this one 85-55.  That might end up being generous.

They've got a handful of semi-interesting players, I guess.  Seth Hinrichs is a 6-7 guard who averages 14 per game, and Dan Trist is a highly efficient (55% FG) power forward who also averages 14 per.  Tony Johnson is the point guard who averages a respectable five assists per game and was the only Leopard to hit double digits in scoring against Kentucky, and Joey Ptasinsky is a three-point chucker who hit seven against Morehead State.  But in reality it's an undersized, undermanned, and under-talented team going against one of the ten best teams in the country (yeah, I said it).  Lafayette could keep it interesting because they move the ball well (assists on 60% on their FGs, 54th in the country), shoot well, and hit all their free throws and in previous years that's the kind of thing that would worry me.  Not this year, however.  Lafayette's inability to rebound and the Gophers dominating defense will collide to make this an absolute ass-kicking of the highest order.  Get ready to see a whole lot of Kendal Shell.  More college basketball thoughts after the girls.

Gophers 90, Lafayette 52.

You're not going to believe this, but there aren't a lot of Lafayette chicks pictures out there.

-  I wish you could bet on things like "Jabari Parker is going to dominate next year."  He just announced he's going to attend Duke (over Michigan State, BYU, Stanford, and Florida) and he's going to thrive their.  Guy is like a more athletic version of Carmelo Anthony.  Granted I'm only basing this on some highlights I've seen because I've haven't watched a game of his because only weirdos watch high school basketball, but that was enough to convince me that Duke will win the National Championship next season.  Look man, I'm not happy about it either but I'm just reporting the facts.  Maybe we'll get lucky and somebody will pull a miracle upset in the tournament.  Seems likely, actually.

-  I'm so disappointed in the Ohio Bobcats.  I thought they'd be good enough this year to get an NCAA at-large bid (if they didn't win the MAC) and even ranked them as the 26th best team in the country this year before the season started.   After starting the season 6-0 (with decent wins over Richmond and St. Bonnie mixed in) things have fallen apart with the Bobcats going 1-4.  They missed out on a chance to add another top 100 type win by losing to UMass, missed their shot at a big-time marquee win by getting killed against Memphis, and threw two very ugly wins on the ledger dropping games to Winthrop (RPI 211) and Robert Morris.  With a weak conference again this year (Akron is the only other decent team) Ohio absolutely has to beat Oklahoma  next week in their last non-conference shot at a Top 100 win and then will have to roll through the MAC at pretty close to undefeated to get a bid if they don't win the conference tournament.  Although, really, that Winthrop loss and the rest of this stretch say it might be too late.

-  After a little bit of a dick tease that the Pac-10 was going to be back to being relevant this year after what feels like 10 years of shittiness they're clearly going for the shittiness thing again.  UCLA was supposed to be a top 10 team but is in shambles (with a loss to Cal Poly) and will likely get their coach fired soon.  Colorado and Cal got off to great starts, but Colorado needed double overtime to beat Texas Southern, lost to Wyoming, and got crushed by Kansas and Cal lost three straight against legit competition including getting absolutely destroyed by a terrible Wisconsin squad.  USC had their sites on a NCAA Tournament bid but has been a total train wreck, Stanford hasn't won a single meaningful game and lost to Belmont, and Washington has lost to Albany and Nevada.  Other than Arizona (fool's gold, trust me) and Oregon (their win over UNLV was more impressive than the loss at UTEP was harmful) I don't know that there's a team in this conference who can win an NCAA Tournament game, assuming anybody else can even get there.  But I suppose we should be used to this.  The Pac-12 is just awful at hoops now. 

-  Obviously it will all come down to match-ups so this isn't a prediction per se, but these are the teams I think are most likely to make the Sweet 16 this year:  Indiana, Duke, Michigan, Syracuse, Minnesota, Louisville, Florida, Kansas, Gonzaga, VCU, New Mexico, and Creighton.  No that's not 16 but I can't find 16.  These 12 I would be willing to bet will make up at least half the Sweet 16.  I'm too tired and drunk to figure out how big a limb that is to go out on, but I'm out on it any way and I'm loving every minute of it.

-  The NCAA is suspending Texas guard Myck Kabongo for the entire season.  Why, you might ask?  Sounds like he might have had some dealings with an agent and/or had a workout paid for by someone when he was flirting with entering the NBA Draft last season.  But wait, you'd say, I thought you only got like a 10 game suspension for that kind of stuff, and you'd be right.  The NCAA, however, has brought the hammer down on Kabongo because he wasn't immediately forthcoming with all the information, similar to when they clamped down on my main man Dez Bryant.  You know, people always talk about how guys like Bud Selig and Roger Goodell are too heavy handed, but the NCAA is a total joke.  They make billions of dollars off student athletes and then rule them with an iron fist.  I was going to write more but I can feel my train of thought going right off the rails as I'm trying to watch The League right now as well.  Effin' Rafi. 

 Yeah that's about it.  Should be plenty.   For those who don't believe in Twitter you'll notice that on the right hand column my tweets are showing up over there so you can read them.  Much thanks to Stroms for the help.