The rest of the lottery a.k.a Mock Draft Part IIIn the second edition of Mock Draft, I'm gonna look through rest of the lottery picks, so it's preview of picks from 6 to 14. Most of them are centers, 4, then there are 2 shooting guards and 2 small forwards, which leaves 1 point guard left and none of power forwards are represented. 6 of these teams are from Western Conference and 3 of Eastern Conference teams are represented here. There are many equally talented players here, just like in Top 5, which made the predicting harder, but after all everything ended up into their right place. But this is just my state of opinion, which means the real Draft could turn out to be totally upside down compared to this one. There's still like 4 months until the draft, which would make a big difference, just looking at which team gets which pick.
New Orleans Hornets, 6th pick: Randy Foye, VillanovaNBA Comparison: Chauncey Billups
Current Starting Point Guard: Earl Watson
New Orleans is looking to draft another guard next to the Baron Davis, because Earl Watson isn't really a starter material. They could turn into picking Rudy Gay, who would play shooting guard then for the Hornets, or they could choose Villanova's product Randy Foye. I'll go with the lateral part; they've already got plenty of size on the wing, with 6-11 Charlie Villanueva, plus Randy can play both guard positions. Although thing is, that's the problem with Foye, his neither pure shooting guard nor point guard. Randy is a very tough player, he can finish very well around the basket, because of his great body control. He has many weapons on the offense, he's a great one on one player, also has excellent range. Also he's a great defender, hustles a lot for steals, although he can get to foul trouble often.
Philadelphia 76ers, 7th pick: Rudy Gay, UConnNBA Comparison: Vince Carter
Current Starting Small Forward: Glenn Robinson
Rudy is extremely atlethic, who can easily finish around the rim. It would be a blast to see him play together with another highflyer, Andre Iguodala and one the best scorers in the league, Allen Iverson. Philadelphia is really missing inside presence, although last years pick Tiago Splitter is showing some talent, but he isn't clearly enough; sadly this year there aren't many options on good big men, so they'll take the best player available, which is in this situation Rudy Gay. It would be very interesting how would this pan out, fortunately he is very unselfish player, so he could live with not taking many shots, since AI-s combine together a big number of shot attempts.
Portland Trail Blazers (from Golden State via Seattle), 8th pick: Shelden Williams, DukeNBA Comparison: Emeka Okafor
Current Starting Center: Reggie Evans
Portland is trying to overcome of the Jail Blazers status and become a playoff team again. They managed to succeed on last years draft, where they drafted Felton (12th pick) and Kelenna Azubuike (42nd pick). They're hoping to get lucky this year again, getting a steal out of the draft. Portland's problem is like many other team's, down low. They only got 3 players, who could play center/power forward; Zach Randolph, Reggie Evans and Theo Ratliff. Only Zach Randolph could be named as better than average, Theo and Reggie are at best role players. Unfortunately there aren't many selections, they could go with Saer "the next Mutombo" Sene, Patrick O'Bryant, Shelden Williams or could make a risk taking Josh Boone this early. Shelden Williams could be the safest pick here, he's a very hard-working guy, who does the "dirty" job that needs to be done (blocks, rebounds). After 4 years at Duke's, he has built a strong foundation with solid fundamentals. There are few cons though still, he's too stiff, he misses the ability to improvise, everything he does is "mechanical", lacks court vision, but I still think he could be a solid double-double guy in the league, but will see if he gets out of his "frames".
Utah Jazz, 9th pick: J.J. Redick, DukeNBA Comparison: Drazen Petrovic/Jason Kapono
Current Starting Shooting Guard: Gordan Giricek
After being the worst team in the league and getting No. 1 pick in Andrew Bogut last year, they've already improved, with about 30 games still left, they're already 1 win short from last season's record. They've got a great front court in Bogut - Boozer - Kirilenko plus Okur coming off the bench, but the backcourt isn't that great. Their last years second round pick, Francisco Garcia, has turned out to be a steal in the draft, he has been quite good for them as a 6th man. Apart from Garcia, Okur and Giricek, they miss outside shooting, even here, Okur is a center not a guard, so they only got 2 guards, who can somewhat shoot. There are quite a few options in the draft, if you're looking for a player, who can play a guard. But looking for a guard, who can shoot well, there aren't many options left. Without doubt the best shooter is JJ Redick out of Duke University. He's got an amazing shooting touch and he can shoot from everywhere, even at 27 feet away from the basket.
Milwaukee Bucks, 10th pick: Patrick O'Bryant, BradleyNBA Comparison: Brad Daugherty
Current Starting Center: Joe Smith
Milwaukee got an extremely deep team, apart from Michael Redd, the franchise player of the team, you can say they've got 14 other equal player, who could play big role for the team. But they've had trouble finding the most effective players out of this list and that's why they have been struggling lately. Although Joe Smith has been quite decent this year, he hasn't got much left in the tank. Apart from Joe, they have only 3 big men left, so they must find a replacement to him. If they won't trade for somebody nor sign somebody in FA (which is very unlikely, since most of the money they have left will be spent on Michael Redd), only option left is to draft a big guy. Just like before said, this draft lacks of big men, so there aren't many options. Very interesting prospect is Bradley's product Patrick O'Bryant. The 7 footer has great potential to live up with, but he won't make an impact to the team for couple of years, it might happen just when Joe is looking to hang up his sneakers. Patrick has got some solid post up moves and isn't too shabby on defense either; he is great rebounder and shot blocker as well.
Los Angeles Clippers, 11th pick: Thabo Sefolosha, SwitzerlandNBA Comparison: Reece Gaines
Current Starting Shooting Guard: Kerry Kittles
After last years disappointment as being the 2nd worse team in the NBA, you can see the improvement of the Clippers. It has a lot to do with Brand and Maggete both having MVP-a-like seasons. The addition of Deron Williams at point guard has helped a lot as well. By far the worst position is for them shooting guard, only aging Kerry Kittles is left. Fortunately there are many good shooting guard prospects in this draft and many of them are reasonable to select at this point of the draft. We've got amazingly athletic small forward/shooting guard Carney, very versatile Brewer and great ball handler Sefolosha. All of them aren't great shooters, the Clippers doesn't need shooting anyway that much. They don't need another All-Star, they could just use a great roleplayer and all of them could be that guy. I guess they're looking for a guy, who can do it all, but don't need much to do it. This is a very hard decision, but I'm gonna go with international prospct, Thabo, who can even play small forward AND point guard if needed. But that's not why i chose him, I'm really waiting to see how will he adjust his playing style to NBA basketball and his last years improvement has shown that there is a lot to wait from this guy.
Orlando Magic, 12th pick: Ronnie Brewer, ArkansasNBA Comparison: Marquis Daniels
Current Backup Small Forward: Andre Emmet
Orlando got a bunch of scorers in their team, both inside and outside. The main inside scorer is of course Dwight Howard, Sean May could sometime soon pair up with him down low, while there are more than two options outside, their guard - small forward positions are filled with shooters, just look at their starters in Hedo Turkoglu, Cuttino Mobley and Steve "Franchise" Francis, you may think that's enough, but it isn't, Nate Robinson, Keith Bogans and Willie Green are all great shooters off the bench (you could also add Pat Garrity, who is currently on the IR list). What they do are, is missing a player, who could be the "distributer", since their starting point guard, Francis is more of a scoring guard than passer. But I think they'll continue with Francis at point guard and Mobley at shooting guard, so they could use a guy who could be a "point" forward, Hedo has shown some abilities to become that guy, but they could use another one. Another thing they could want is perimeter defense. Ronnie Brewer fills the both needs for the Magic and I think he could be a lock for them.
Phoenix Suns, 13th pick: Saer Sene, SenegalNBA Comparison: Dikembe Mutombo
Current Starting Center: Akim Ben Harper
Phoenix's frontcourt, excluding Amaré Stoudemire, is as thin as Adam Morrison's moustache, their starting center was Jake Voskuhl (!) last year, and this year it isn't much better, it's undrafted rookie Akim Ben Harper, who even could make Robert Swift look good on offense. So they desperately need another big men (even Marc Jackson would be an upgrade). Now they're trying to draft a solid center. He don't have to be an All-star, he could be just a 8 point, 8 rebound, 2 block guy. Since Shelden Williams and Patrick O'Bryant are already taken, it's left to Saer Sene and Hilton Armstrong. They are quite similar players, they're both 7 footers, who are good on defense, but their offense needs to work on. Sene is more of a unknown potential, he could turn out to be the next Dikembe, but he could also fail big time and even get no playing time whatsoever. Hilton on the other hand is a much safer pick, since he has played college in US and it's much easier to understand, what kind of player he will turn out. But if you will look Phoenix's previous drafts, you'll see they've taken somewhat risks, which has turned out to be steals in the draft, just look Amare, Joe, Shawn and Steve, all of them were picked in mid-first round. So taking account that, I think they'll go with Sene and turn him into solid player.
Los Angeles Lakers, 14th pick: Hilton Armstrong, UConnNBA Comparison: Ervin Johnson
Current Starting Center: Chris Mihm
The Lakers is almost as thin as Phoenix down low. Although they've got a bunch of power forwards, only players, who can play at center are Brian Grant and Chris Mihm, both of them aren't starter material (anymore fo Grant). It will be an easy pick to predict (if the players above are drafted before Lakers turn). After Phoenix picking Saer Sene, it only leaves them Hilton Armstrong, who isn't very polished on offense, but compensates it on defense. I don't know if there's much more to say about this, only thing that comes up in my mind, if they would release Odom, George, Butler and Jumaine Jones, they could draft the best talent left in Rodney Carney, but in this situation he could end up being stuck behind 4 (maybe 3) players in small forward position.
Next up: Mock Draft Part III, where are the remaining 1st round picks
