Pathway23 has #1 pick.....6pm EST tonight deadline

[Admin]

Hey thanks I appreciate that.....I put a lot of work into it.

I did the whole thing in Flash. You can download a 30 day trial version of Flash from Macromedia.com and there are lots of tutorials out there to learn with. Its a fun program.

[DominiqueWilkins]

Charlotte Bobcats Select:

Player Name: Shaun Livingston

Position: PG

School: HS, Peoria Central

Reason: Livingston amazed us during his workouts for us, and we feel he can grow with our young team. Livingston is the type of point guard that gets his teammates involved, and makes everyone else better on the floor. We are sold Livingston will work hard, and become one of the best point guards in the league down the road. His size will amaze anyone, and it doesn't take anything away from his skill level. Livingston will develop into our starting point guard for years to come, and we will build a strong core of players around him.

-Washington Wizard are on the clock-

[Traceman]

Andris Biedrins an 18 year old 7'0" 238 lb PF from Skonto Riga (Latvia).

Biedrins is compared to Darko Millic though he is not considered to be as athletic as Darko. He is also considered to be a FAR better defender than Darko and is said to be an outstanding shotblocker. He allegedly has dominated 30 year old competitors in the league that he played in this season. Bringing in Biedrins will give the Wizards two young, versatile 7 foot big men (along with Kwame Brown) who have a chance to become NBA stars once they develop.

I STRONGLY considered taking Smith or Iguodala here but the Wizards have enough young talent at the SG and SF positions. What they need is for Brown to step up up front and to get him some help. Biedrins is likely a couple of years away from having a real impact but Kwame is just a kid still and Arenas, Hughes, Hayes, Jefferies etc are still years away from reaching their primes.

I tried to get on the draft site but I can't access the site from work. Dolfan, can you transfer this to the site? Thanks.

[Admin]

Yeah nobody has access to add stuff to the site.....unfortunately that is beyond my flash level at this point.......but hopefully next year it wont be.

Thanks for making your pick on time Trace

[Admin]

Please tell me that you arent going to miss out on making the Hawks selection. Right now its 1240 EST so you are 40 minutes past on making your selection. Please try and make it soon so that I dont have to just give the Hawks a default selection.

[DJ_Money]

Gah...yeah, I'm on it. I was thinking the deadline was later today, my bad.

With the 6th selection in the 2004 NBA Draft, the Atlanta Hawks select Josh Smith, Small Forward from Oak Hill Academy.

C'mon...who did you think I would take?

Right now, the Hawks are looking for anybody with talent. Not only is Smith uber-talented, but he's a hometown kid. At 6'8, 220 lbs., Smith already has an NBA body.

The two comparisons you hear most often are Tracy McGrady and Darius Miles. If he shows the dedication to improve the flaws in his game (ballhandling, shot) he can be McGrady. If he's a lazy bum like Miles, then he will be Miles.

We selected Smith because of his tremendous upside and hometown appeal. Even if he never improves, he should be good for some highlight dunks. Maybe he could even win a Slam Dunk Contest or two. It may be the only thing this team wins anytime soon...

[Admin]

Thanks dude.......that would have been pretty sad if you had skipped out on the Hawks pick LOL.

[DominiqueWilkins]

I hoped you would pass on Josh Smith, so we could see who would of selected him past the Hawks pick. I wanted to see if he would slip to the mid first round like the "experts" are saying he will.

[ATLien_]

With the 7th pick in the nba draft the suns select Ben Gordon, PG from University of Connecticut.

One of the rules I like to live by as a GM is taking the best talent available, and this is partly why I selected Ben Gordon. We have a good young pg prospect in Leandro Barbosa, but a prospect as talented as Ben Gordon is just to hard to pass up.

When you look at our team it is built around athletic explosive players. We think Gordon can be that kind of PG. We think he can give us the scoring punch we missed once Marbury was traded away, but with more strength, athleticism and better defense.

In Gordon we get a guy that can score from anywhere on the court; combining an excellent 3 point shot with one of the most consistent midrange jumpers in college basketball. Not only is he a excellent free throw shooter, but he is clutch also. We feel Gordon will adjust well on defense, for he spent much of his NCAA career guarding SG well.

The only real knock we had on Gordon was his lack of PG experience. While he averaged good assist numbers, he never really played the pg position. We don't feel him playing SG was because coach Calhoun thought he couldn't play the pg postion, but because of his desire to get his best 5 players on the court. We feel we have the perfect backcourt mate to help him learn the pg postion in Joe Johnson. Joe handles the ball very well and should help to take some of the pressure off Gordon while he learns the PG postion.

Honestly I just get giddy thinking about Ben Gordon, Joe Johnson, Shawn Marion and Amare Stoudemire running on a fast break. Everyone of them willing and ready to catch an oop and throw it down on your head.

[Lascar78]

Devin Harris, 6'3", 185lbs, PG from Wisconsin

The raptors have good talent at SG (Vince Carter), SF (Jalen Rose), and PF(Chris Bosh). So they are looking to adress their weakness at the point guard and center positions. Bosh can play as a center allowing donyell marshall to play power forward, but Bosh's true position is at PF.

The main prospects remaining at center are Martynas Andriuskevicius and Pavel Podkolzine, two euros who are said to have tremendous potential. Unfortunately Andriuskevicius reportendly will not go to the nba if he is not a top 5 selection. He also is thin for his position, and if the raptors invest in a center, they would like a bigger body to pair up with bosh's wiry frame. Pavel has that big body, but has yet to contribute much professionally. The raptors saw what happenned with darko, and can't afford to wait for him to develop. Pavel has alot of potential but opinions on him seem to be very split.

The point guard prospects that are left are Devin Harris, Jameer Nelson and Sebastian Telfair. The raptors need immediate help and telfair won't be a significant contributor for a while. Jameer Nelson is barely six feet tall, and is unlikely to be the scorer that he was in college as he won't dominate physically as he did. No one knows how effective he will be at distributing and being more of a pure point guard. Devin Harris has good size and NBA ready skills. He is not a pure point guard yet but is working on those skills.

All in all, the raps already have a good young frontline when they play bosh as a center, whereas alvin williams is starting to slow down. With Devin Harris they don't take a risk on the somewhat unknown euros and take a player for which they know what they get. He's shown his skills in college ball and is ready to start sharing the spotlight at the 1.

[Admin]

Both of those were exactly what I have been hoping to get from everyone. Thanks for making your on time guys.

[CHORO44]

With the 9th pick in the NBA Draft Philadelphia selects Josh Childress from Stanford.

With defensive-minded coach Jim O'Brien on board the 76ers are looking for immediate help due to a veteran-filled roster. With Glen Robinson, DC, McKie, and Snow aging by the season Philly needs an injection of size, defense, atleticism, and experience.

Philly is covered at the PG and SG spots with Snow, Iverson, and Salmons able to cover those spots effectively. The 76ers also have plenty of size with the emerging Dalembert along with Marc Jackson, DC, and reliable Kenny Thomas. The clear need is a long, above average shooting small forward where Glenn is a shadow of his former self and McKie is often injured.

Childress is long and can guard the talented small forwards in the East from Prince to Carter. He brings tremendous experience from Stanford which gives him an advantage over younger players and gives O'Brien the ability to teach more than the fundamentals of basketball. Childress is also adept at creating his own shot thereby injecting some much needed offense in Philly's one man show. His length will also protect AI defensively on switches.

The 76ers were tempted to go big with Ramos or Harrison but having a 6'8" SF with tremendous length is a no brainer and should put Philly back in the playoffs.

[Diesel]

JR Smith

Birthdate: 11/9/85

NBA Position: Shooting Guard

College: North Carolina

Class: HS Senior

Ht: 6-5

Wt: 210

Wow... Can't believe we choose him but we did. We took him based on his athleticism and his outside shooting. Those things fit the mold of our team. We liked Iguodala, Monya, and Jackson but neither exhibited both outisde shooting and athleticism. We were really close to taking Telfair too, but we like McInnis and Ollie. So don't be surprised if you see James playing Point Forward and Smith playing the 2 in years to come...

Boozer, James, and Smith!

[Admin]

Okay guys slow down. We are now 2 days ahead of schedule......so lets please slow down so that this thing doesnt get out of hand and people dont get confused.

[capstone21]

When do you want me to select?

[Admin]

Well your pick comes to the table at 6am on Wednesday morning Cap.......so if you want to pick Tuesday night that would be great. I would appreciate it. I dont understand why people cant just follow along and make their pick around when its the time for their pick....anyways, thanks for asking I appreciate it.

[Weez]

perhaps had some taken more time (Diesel) then their pick would have been more appropriate for their team. Why in the hell would Cleveland take yet another sg/swing player? Hasn't it already been established that LBJ is best suited to not play point? Granted, point-forward is something different....but it simply makes no sense. When did cleveland fall out of playoff contention? Was it when Boozer got hurt? no. was it when LBJ got hurt? no. it was when lowly mcinnis went out that the wheels fell off that track...about as fast as you see in a cartoon. They already have Kapono, and 'lil AI (Wagner)...and may be very close to moving Z this year, after having had two injury free years only to see the team dynamic change, his attributes no longer fitting the team that showed him so much patience. They'll take either a pg or a center, if decent's of the two still exist. If not...then maybe they'd think about a wing player, but it wouldn't be yet another highschool, of that I'm certain.

[Admin]

I completely agree, I really dont understand that pick and its apparent by the 2 sentence writeup that Diesel didnt put much thought into their pick. Perhaps he was too busy dreaming up ways to screw the Hawks? I dunno....let me just say that I am STUNNED that Igoudala is still there at the 11th pick. I honestly believe that there isnt a chance in hell that something like that could really happen, but we shall see.

[Diesel]

I kinda knew that I would have a peanut gallery.

However, I did the research.... Cleveland has 2 needs going into the drafts. Backup PG: For which I considered Nelson, Telfair.

Sf: For which I had hopes on Childress.

They also need a Shooter.

Kapano is the best shooter on the team but Silas doesn't play him much.

This is when the choice came down to Monya, Telfair, Nelson, Iguodala, Smith, and Jackson.

Luke Jackson was strongly considered because of his all around game, but Luke's knock is his lack of NBA Speed, plus, the Cavs will get one if Not both Barry Brothers in FAcy.

Monya was a strong choice because of his defense.

Iguodala was a strong choice because of his defense/atheleticism.

However, neither are good shooters from outside.

That leaves Smith. Good outside shooter. Good atheletic player. Good Speed.

What about Telfair. Well, every message board I went to was high on Telfair. However, I can't see Cleveland burning a lottery pick on a backup PG. That was the Cleveland's commentary about getting Nelson. They said it may be doubtful that they bring him in because it's only a BU position.

The only real Wingman left was Ryan Gomes. He's doesn't have the potential or the outside shot.

So when it came down to it, this pick was based on outside shooting, atheleticism, and potential.

If you have forgotten, James is 6'8" 240. He couldn't play Sf next to Ricky Davis because Davis always hogged the ball. I don't think Smith will have the same problem.

[Diesel]

No C was addressed because:

Big Z, Battie, Diop all under contract and Silas likes Diop.