9 Days and Counting to the 2009 NBA Draft

Posted Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Rumor mill abuzz as clock ticks on draft day
Nine days to the draft, nine random thoughts:


News that Tracy McGrady is on the trading block – is that really news? McGrady wanted out last summer and Houston was considering offers until the Ron Artest deal fell into the Rockets’ lap. The thought of an Artest-McGrady-Yao nucleus, surrounded by a nice cast of role players, was irresistible for a one-year experimental run.

But when McGrady got hurt (again) – and the Rockets played better without him (again) – thinking has changed in Houston, it stands to reason. Plus, with just one year left on his contract (though a whopper of a year at $23 million), he’d now be easier (if not easy) to move.

You might recall there was a rumor last July that the Pistons were close to a deal for him. It was never particularly close – the Rockets wanted both Rip Hamilton and Chauncey Billups. But the Pistons were at least intrigued by what adding McGrady to their lineup would mean. They could be again, but McGrady won’t be Plan A (or Plan B, for that matter).

While it remains true that point guard is the strength of the draft – as many as 10 could go in the first round – my hunch is that the Pistons probably will wind up picking from among Earl Clark, James Johnson, Austin Daye, B.J. Mullens and DeJuan Blair on draft night.

There seems to be some separation among point guards with one group consisting of Ricky Rubio, Jonny Flynn, Jrue Holiday, Stephen Curry and Brandon Jennings. If any of the first four would fall to the Pistons, I could see them jumping – but they’re all more than likely to be gone. The next group includes Ty Lawson, Jeff Teague and Eric Maynor.

I projected Maynor as the Pistons’ pick on May 19, the night of the lottery. While he’s reportedly worked out well for many teams, and it still wouldn’t surprise me if he’s the pick, the shot at taking a big man with a high ceiling might carry the day.

There are a million mock drafts out there, but the ones I’ve found that carry the most credibility are ESPN.com’s by Chad Ford and DraftExpress.com’s by Jonathan Givony. Ford came out with the fifth version of his mock draft today and, for the third straight week, has the Pistons taking Louisville’s Clark. His first two mocks had them taking Daye and Johnson.

When I laid out plans for the draft series we’re currently running on Pistons.com, I identified 12 players and had another list of players that I felt would be out of reach at 15. Clark was initially on that out-of-reach list. He flirted with leaving Louisville after his sophomore season and, in fact, most scouts felt he was a fringe lottery pick in a deeper draft.

So we’ve added a 13th player, Clark, to the list of profiles for No. 15 possibilities. Then we’re going to wrap up the draft series with three segments that look at a range of prospects who’ll be available with the Pistons’ three second-round picks, followed by a full mock draft on June 25 – draft day.

Only one player that scouts thought projected to the first round, Georgia Tech sophomore power forward Gani Lawal, decided to pull out of the draft at Monday’s deadline for decisions.

Three players we included in our profiles of possibilities at 15 who were fence-sitters – Holiday, Daye and Teague – all will be in the draft. If I had to guess, Holiday is the only one that really affects the 15th pick. I’m projecting Daye and Teague to still be on the board when Chicago picks at 16.

There’s heavy speculation that the economy is going to have a serious dampening effect on the free-agent market, but until July 1 rolls around nobody knows for sure. There just aren’t enough teams with cap space at this point, barring movement on draft day that could put another handful of teams in play, to predict how fluid the market will be.

But Orlando management has been adamant in saying the luxury tax won’t scare the Magic away from making a competitive bid for Hedo Turkoglu, who surely helped his bargaining stance with a postseason that showcased his unique offensive skill set. You don’t find 6-foot-10 players who can both make plays off the dribble and knock down deep perimeter shots.

The other thing that really helps Turkoglu’s position is that the teams rumored to be most interested in Turkoglu – Portland, Toronto and the Pistons, perhaps – are teams with either cap space, a healthy balance sheet or both. Turkoglu could be the first one to pop when the curtain opens on free agency.

One thing that might help Orlando in its bid to keep Turkoglu is to find a taker for the contracts of Rafer Alston or J.J. Redick.

Alston becomes expendable with the expected full return to health of Jameer Nelson. He played well enough in the playoffs to give him some value on top of a somewhat reasonable ($5.2 million) expiring contract. Redick has two years left, though the second is at the team’s option, and next year he comes in at less than $3 million. They found some minutes for him in the Finals, but with rookie Courtney Lee plus Mickael Pietrus ahead of him, he’s become a luxury that a team paying luxury tax would be wise to move.

So if either of those two players goes somewhere before July 1, you can bet it’s because Orlando is prepared to do everything to keep Turkoglu.

Still mixed signals on the Chris Bosh and Carlos Boozer fronts. If Toronto is shopping Bosh, management is doing a masterful job of keeping the rumor mill muted. Best guess now is that Toronto is proceding with Bosh in the plans and, worse case, will put him on the market at the trade deadline next winter.
While that could drive up the bidding, it also could work the other way. It’s easier to execute trades in the off-season when teams don’t have to worry about roster spots, taking on three or four extra players in a deal with still plenty of time to turn around and make more trades before training camp.

As for Boozer, the ball is in his court – sort of. It’s his choice whether or not to opt out, but you have to believe it’s a decision that will be driven by opportunity. If Boozer’s agent, ex-Michigan player Rob Pelinka, believes he can strike a quick and lucrative free-agent deal, then Boozer will opt out. If he can’t scare up interest, Boozer might decide he’d be best served by playing out his contract and taking his chances in 2010, when the free-agent pool will be deeper – and the number of fishermen with lines cast will be, as well.

There were two equally forceful schools of thought about a month ago regarding LeBron James and his future. One held that he would be more likely to leave Cleveland next summer as a free agent if the Cavs won the title on the notion that he’d paid off his hometown obligation by finally delivering a title to long-suffering Cleveland fans. The other suggested he’d be less likely to leave because where else could they more graphically show the promise for future titles than a team that had just been molded around and won with him?

Now there’s a third rail. If this Cleveland team, one that wasn’t good enough to beat the team that got carved up in the Finals by the Lakers, couldn’t win this year, how is it going to convince him to stay beyond next season after being seriously exposed?

Cavs fans are just going to have to wait this one out for another agonizing year, because just as things look much more bleak for them today than they did throughout a magical regular season, they can – and, most assuredly, will – change many times again between now and July 1, 2010.

Still think it’s worth keeping in mind that trading out of the first round would put another $1.5 million, approximately, in the Pistons’ pocket for the pursuit of free agents.

Just as there has been a lot of speculation that many teams are looking to trade out of the first round to save the money, there have been reports of other teams without picks looking to move into the middle of the draft.

If that’s true, the Pistons would probably have interest in listening. If the difference between having $17 million or $18.5 million to offer free agents is the difference between landing one or two free agents capable of giving them 20 points a game next season, then the sacrificing of a draft pick that history suggests is just as likely to be a washout as a role player, and far more likely to be either one than a star, makes eminent good sense.