Had we known then what we know now?

[TroyMcClure]

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I spent about 2 months arguing over on RealGM that Shelden would suck in the pros. Then, to my shame, I flipflopped when I found out the BK liked him, because I knew we needed a big man, and because at that time I really trusted BK because so few of his picks were outright busts.

But now I'm back to thinking that Shelden was a wasted pick at the 5 spot. He may get a bit better than he is right now, but I just don't see a lot of upside...and I don't see any star potential at all. The best I can say is that he has a CHANCE to become a valuable "glue guy." But that's not exactly a compliment for a top 5 pick.

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I'm with you. He's done a lot of gay things, but the other night when he let Kidd run right beside him to get the loose ball...I mean his girlfriend Candice Parker would have given more effort. Probably diving for the ball. He has ZERO athleticism. He is also a wuss. Deadly combination.

This guy is no Hendu. It would be totally disrespectful to Alan to say that. Take from that what you will.

[SmooveTheFuture]

Shelden Williams should not even have been a top 20 pick yet alone top 5 in this draft he has no upside no athelism watching him on the floor makes me sick he looks slow and just airheaded it seems he doesnt try hard enuff and plays like a girl at times. Where is the great shot blocking he was suppose to bring can someone tell me please im dying to now. We should have packged Salim+5th Pick +future 2nd round pick to get the 4th pick to take Lamarcua Alrdige. Alridge will be so much better then Shelden and is already YOu wanna see a shot blocking presence thats Alridge. Can you imagine Alridge next to Smith and Marvin that would be a front line to be wrecken with.

[thesheedera]

I did't vote because I didn't see a selection for "I'm still learning to not hate shelden after four years of doung so, luckily he's the kind of guy that's easy to pull for. I know he's a skilled and well disciplined player and I haven't seen anything from him this season that's changed my mind. The facts that he's a rookie and has been playing with a harnass make me even less inclined to rush to judgement.

While I would have prefered to trade down and take someone like marcus williams, I understood the pick and I will continue to have high hopes for shelden until he proves otherwise."

[xhawk]

A few things...

I don't consider Sheldon a starting caliber center. By "play more center," I meant 5 - 15 min per game. Many guys that are "too short" do play effective minutes at Center (Boris Diaw, A. Jamison, E. Brand, M. Sweetney, the list goes on).

Next, I believe that Sheldon is the safest pick that addresses our needs (even in the long term). Sene may never turn out to be a decent player.

Gooden and Wilcox would have been fine, but the question was not about them.

Without being disrespectful, you don't know what would get Gasol. Also, for the system that Woody likes, Williams has a lot of value to us. Don't forget when Williams was starting at the beginning of the season and was healthy, we were 4 - 1.

I agree we are also forward heady, but JJ is going to get 30 - 40 mins a night at Roy's natural spot with Childress getting the rest of those minutes. It would be tough for Roy to break into Woody's rotation.

You try to make this pick seem terrible, when in historical context it's not that bad. In recent history, look at Darko, Olowokandi, DerMarr Johnson, Marcus Fizer, Nikoloz Tskitishvili, M. Webster, etc. These guys were all taken around 5 and higher. Williams is already putting up better career number than them.

Look...if Amare or Nene were on the board (they both went relatively late), I would have picked them. But you work with the players available.

[coachx]

I voted for the pick then and stand by it now.

Sheldon filled the hole we had in the front court. No other front court rookie has been more productive.

If Roy was here he would be sitting on the bench watching Childress and Joe play.

Why is this such a big topic every week ?

The guy is a rookie, playing injured, in limited minutes, and is still out producing any other front court rookie.

[lunar]

i still see plenty teams that can't stop players from getting to the hoop and i only see one player from that draft class other than sheldon that is doing it in milsap. all in all he's done what we've asked of him. considering we went into the draft with the sole purpose of strengthening our interior defense, i don't see how you can argue with it.

[mrhonline]

where's the "prefer we draft him, but only by trading down with Houston" option?

[Popeye]

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Had we known then that SW would only average .5 BPG in 20+ MPG would you still advocate drafting him 5th overall?

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Considering how much I knew at this point of Childress' rookie season, I am going to pass on this poll.

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You got it

[lunar]

i don't know if houston was willing to give up luther head, and in the end they didn't even want gay, they wanted battier. i'm not sure that trade was going to happen.

[Guest Walter]

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You try to make this pick seem terrible, when in historical context it's not that bad.

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Even the Iraq war looks arguably good in the context of the Civil War. Tapeworms are arguably good relative to cancer. Global warming relatively good next to a life ending asteroid. Keep things in perspective, I see.

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In recent history, look at Darko

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A worse pick relatively but I'd rather have Darko than SW.

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Olowokandi

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Yes. bad.

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DerMarr Johnson

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Also poor but what an uncomperable draft. There wasn't a guy of Roy's ability in that entire draft.

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Marcus Fizer

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Same draft. How much better do you think SW is than he. Different player, yes, but how much better?

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Nikoloz Tskitishvili

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I'm seeing the trend. Every year there is one worse draft pick than SW. I still think that qualifies him as a terrible draft pick.

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But you work with the players available.

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Which is why you pick Roy and if you must trade him or from elsewhere on the team. You don't pick poorly just because there isn't an Amare, a big with superstar potential, on the board.

W

[hawkman]

Honestly, I never was in the "let's draft Shelden" camp. I felt like Foye was the way to go. I know drafting him wouldn't have addressed all of the interior defense issues we had last season but, in my opinion, we still haven't addressed that. It just seemed like we would have been better off picking up Foye or Roy and at least gotten some real value out of that draft. That way we wouldn't have felt the need to tie up any cap space by signing Speedy to a multi year deal. Foye seems to come up big in the clutch and that's something that this team needs. He's not a "pure" PG but he is more than capable at that position from what I've seen of his play so far. Roy has enough versatility to play 1-3 positions EFFECTIVELY on the court. If everyone on this board was so willing to "make room" in the lineup to draft Marvin, I don't see how we couldn't have found a place for Roy in the lineup. Don't get me wrong, Shelden is a solid pick, but I'm getting a bit tired of getting "solid" players high in the lottery. It would be nice to be pleasantly surprised by what we get out of the draft for a change. As it stands now, the 17th pick in the draft has shown the most "star potential" out of all of these other supposed "can't miss" prospects

[lunar]

speedy was the backup option though, the first person we wanted was sam cassell but he signed with the clippers. afterwards we went and got speedy.

[Guest Walter]

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speedy was the backup option though, the first person we wanted was sam cassell but he signed with the clippers. afterwards we went and got speedy.

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...more than Speedy. Yes, neither are perfect, but both would be great additions, something I can't say about Speedy with his injury history.

W

[AHF]

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speedy was the backup option though, the first person we wanted was sam cassell but he signed with the clippers. afterwards we went and got speedy.

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...more than Speedy. Yes, neither are perfect, but both would be great additions, something I can't say about Speedy with his injury history.

W

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Both Gooden and Wilcox were also restricted free agents whose deals could have been simply matched by Cleveland and/or Seattle.

[lunar]

it would have taken deals in the 50's to get them away from their prospective teams. we got speedy for 26 and the deal goes down each year (how's that for salary cap flexibility).

[Guest Walter]

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Both Gooden and Wilcox were also restricted free agents whose deals could have been simply matched by Cleveland and/or Seattle.

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Elson, Kelvin Cato, Nazr Mohammed, Mbenga, Pryzbilla, Clifford Robinson, Songalia, or even Aaron Williams.

We could have traded Al for a defensive-minded big or (gasp) gotten Milsap or Craig Smith with a 2nd rder. Now wouldn't any of that have been intelligent GMing.

Who would have thought so many MLE or less options could have given us what our "NBA-ready" 5th overall pick does?

W

[AHF]

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Both Gooden and Wilcox were also restricted free agents whose deals could have been simply matched by Cleveland and/or Seattle.

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Elson, Kelvin Cato, Nazr Mohammed, Mbenga, Pryzbilla, Clifford Robinson, Songalia, or even Aaron Williams.

We could have traded Al for a defensive-minded big or (gasp) gotten Milsap or Craig Smith with a 2nd rder. Now wouldn't any of that have been intelligent GMing.

Who would have thought so many MLE or less options could have given us what our "NBA-ready" 5th overall pick does?

W

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Evans is not a center but could have added some nice rebounding (his defense is not that good). The problem is that he signed a five year deal and we aren't allowed to sign him for that long.

Ely is a fine, limited role player. He was also a restricted FA who turned down a multi-year contract to sign with Charlotte saying, "It's happy to be loved, but I didn't feel comfortable making a move. I know Charlotte is home to me, so I came back."

Butler would have been nice to go after, although he is doing jack squat in SA and I think it is fair to say you would be bashing him pretty hard if he had done in Atlanta what he has done in San Antonio.

Cato is averaging 1.6 ppg and 1.9 rpg. Again, not exactly a godsend to the Knicks. At his price, not a bad gamble, though.

Nazr Mohammed signed for 5 years - a contract we are not allowed to provide by court order. Not sure what you are proposing with him.

Mbenga - we probably could have beaten his $6M contract from the Mavericks. He is, however, averaging .8 ppg and .5 rpg which puts into question how much he would do here.

Pryzbilla was signed to a 5 year, $32M contract. This is longer than we can provide. He has also been a huge bust this season.

Cliff Robinson is a vet who would not play for a losing team and would do nothing to sheer up our interior defense. Good enough guy but why talk about him when he is like a much older, worse version of Josh Smith at this point of his career.

Songalia's contract is for 5 years, also longer than we can sign under the court restriction. He also plays for a team that is desparate for interior play and averaged 2 ppg and 1.8 rpg in the 4 games before he was lost for the season for back surgery.

Aaron Williams is old and has averaged more than 2.3 ppg once over the last 5 years (including this season). I am not sure what he would be expected to do that Lorenzen Wright isn't.

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I am just not seeing many legit options on the board here from the people you listed. Butler is the guy I would have taken a shot on but so far, not so good for the Spurs so I am not sure how much to criticize the failure to get that done.

[Guest Walter]

...rather than 5 years with a few more $$$ (especially up front like Speedy's deal) just like we convinced Speedy with more than his market value and a front loaded deal. Mind you that the 4 year stipulation was nøt in effect at the time of the draft so this was in no way a restriction for drafting whomever.

Butler would have been my choice also (then Evans) amongst these guys but he was not likely because of whatever run in he had with the team or BK prior.

Regardless, I could trade SW and not get a 20th pick right now. I could trade Roy and likely improve upon a 5th pick in a comperable if not even this year's draft (not 1 or 2). It takes a horrible GM to drive a player off the lot and loose 50% of his value in the 1st year when the car he passed on would have appreciated. Think about it. If Memphis wanted Deng and Gordon certainly Roy and MW is at least equal if not more as they are both well-sized and suited for their position. They EASILY get Gasol. JO also. You HAVE to think about these things.

Frankly, I couldn't see us trading Roy as I think he would have locked down the Pg position by now next to JJ, but if we ever thought to trade SW we couldn't get back an Indy-pick worth of talent.

Simply put, the draft and FAcy were weak on bigs, but you don't throw your hands up and waste your 5th pick over it! You draft to the draft's strength and fill another need equally well in a Sg-sized combo guard (since it was we needed a defensive-minded C and not a NON-shot blocking, short Pf) that can play NBA Pg next to JJ. You then address your need for interior D. Mind you. You have at least acquired enough talent with Roy to later solve once and for all one major team need. As it stands, we still need a post presence and defensive minded center AND a Pg prospect after the drafting of SW. Alot of good that 5th pick did to resolve our needs as SW will neither grow into or trade into either.

W

[AHF]

So are you advocating a 4 year, $32 million deal for Joel Pryzbilla?

I understand your point that you wanted Roy over Shelden and where you are going with this. I don't think we had many options in FA as far as big men -- I don't expect that to change your view on the Roy/Shelden pick, though. The early returns are not good on that selection and like you I was appalled by the failure to work everyone out as part of the lottery preparation.

[Duff_Man]

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or didn't initially want to but would choose to do so now, I would like to know who you are. Partly because of the recent disengenuous history of voting. Partly because I find these two positions rather astoundingly inconceivable and might come to whomever for clarification if not their justification.

I of course voted the 3rd option.

W

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If you are just going to say that anyone who votes a certain way is being dishonest or is just wrong...why start a poll in the first place? You're getting as bad as those Nigerians who keep e-mailing me.