Timberwolves the Team to Watch on Draft Day

Whether it be the NFL or NBA draft, there is always one team to watch that will determine how everything falls into place. In this year’s NBA draft, that team is the Minnesota Timberwolves, which own four picks in the first-round. The Timberwolves already had picks 6, 18 and 28, and they were able to grab the 5th overall pick when they traded Mike Miller and Randy Foye to the Wizards. With so many picks, the options are limitless — and the possibility of affecting what happens with other teams in the draft is inevitable.

With so much ammunition, the Timberwolves have the perfect opportunity to move up a few spots tomorrow night. But it all depends on what players the T’Wolves are looking to add. If they want a center such as Hasheem Thabeet, they will likely have to trade up with Oklahoma City in order to get him. The Thunder, however, reportedly want Thabeet, so it will take a great offer from the T’Wolves to move up to that spot. If they want a player such as Ricky Rubio, James Harden and/or Tyreke Evans, they likely will not need to move up as all three are expected to be available at picks 5-6. Trading up for the No.1 overall pick is out of the question, as the Clippers have already indicated that they will select Blake Grifiin. Plus, Griffin is the only player in this draft that has been talked about going No.1, and the T’Wolves do not need a player of his type. With Al Jefferson and Kevin Love, they already set at the forward positions.

Minnesota general manager David Kahn will have to weigh all of the possibilities, and the decision on whom the T’Wolves will select must come down to what type of player they feel they need to compete. I feel that they need a bona fide wing player who can score the basketball — someone that you can count on late in the game to take over.

James Harden, a shooting guard out of Arizona State, is an option. Harden averaged over 20 points per game and college, and last year was named the Pac-10 Player of the Year. But he comes with some question marks. Though he was a prolific scorer in college, he tended to disappear at times, most notably in the second round of the NCAA tournament against Syracuse. There’s no question that Harden possesses the talent necessary to be a very good player in the NBA, but the fact that he didn’t step up for every game is a huge concern. The No.1 trait of the best players in the league is consistency, something he must develop. But if he does, he has the talent to be a top-10 player in the NBA.

Question Marks Surround Future No.1 Pick Griffin

The NBA Draft will be conducted in New York on Thursday, and the drama has already been taken away with regards to whom the Los Angeles Clippers will select with the first-overall pick. Oklahoma forward Blake Griffin — widely considered to be the best player available in the draft — will be the choice. The Clippers said so the minute they won the lottery, and they have also said that they are not willing to trade the pick.

The question now becomes just how good Griffin will be for the Clippers. Currently, there are more than a few question marks surrounding his game and why he will be the No.1 pick.

First off, the 2009 draft class is weak. Very weak. In fact, many analysts are calling this the worst NBA draft class in the last 25 years, and I would agree. There seems to be no debate about who the best player available is, and though Griffin is a very talented player, he really is the only player executives can justify selecting with the first-overall pick. After Griffin, there are no players that jump off the page. No one that would make a team attempt trade up for the No.1 pick because his a player that can turn a franchise around.

As a result, Griffin will be the No.1 pick, no questions asked. Analysts will spend all of Thursday discussing how good of a player Griffin is, and there is certain to be high levels of hyperbole involved, as there tends to be with every No.1 pick. But can Griffin live up to that hype?

 

Second, Griffin is a very athletic and raw player, to say the least. His athleticism is off the charts. At his size, it’s amazing the things he can do with the basketball, especially his leaping ability. He used his athleticism to his advantage in college, and that is how he scored most of his points.

He is a 6-foot-10, 251 pound forward. It is hard to know if he truly is 6-foot-10, because most colleges tend to exaggerate on player’s height. In the NBA, his body type puts him in between the small and power forward positions. His game, however, points heavily toward power forward. Griffin was a very good rebounder at Oklahoma, averaging 14.4 rebounds per game. The problem with that is that he used his size and will to bully around smaller players in college. In the NBA he will only be facing bigger players who want the ball just as much as he does. Currently, rebounding is the best aspect of his game. Moreover, it is the only part of his game that is developed. That is why the best description of Griffin would most likely be “raw.”

The negative facets of his game are not good signs, at all. For one, he showed no signs of knowing how to play any defense, whatsoever. The excuse that has been floating around is that his head coach, Jeff Capel, told him not to play defense because he didn’t want Griffin to get into foul trouble. That excuse is Bologna, and it speaks to Griffin’s knowledge of the game. If he were a good defender, he would know how to play without fouling. The fact that Capel was worried about Griffin getting in foul trouble speaks volumes about just how good of a defender he was. Plus, he went up against smaller players all throughout college, and the fact that he was not able to bully them around and pile up on blocks is disconcerting.