Ok, I know that Blake Grifin is a damn sexy player, but is he worthy of a 2cd round pick, with no keeper status? This question is for all of you. He seems to be going mid-second round. I thought he might still be available as an early 3rd round pickup, with first round keeper status for next season. But that's just me, what about ya'll?
Who knows what he is worth. Duncan and Shaq had great rookie (kfba) years. Most others haven't. However, many of the second or third round projected players are keepers, so the talent dropped off significantly (other than some older, injury prone players). There aren't any guaranteed .900's left. At that point, would you rather take a chance on Griffin, rather than Billups, Brand, or Pierce who were chosen shortly thereafter? I don't know that you can even hope for .850 out of any of them.
Would I rather have Brand and let Griffin slide so someone can take him and keep him?
The market is definitely saying 2nd round. Consider that so far there have been three drafts that have progressed through 2 rounds. The OR, the JW and the travisham and in all three Griffin has been plucked in the 2nd round. Personally i think he's an ideal 3.1 pick, but he's yet to make it that far. We'll see where he goes in the Greatest Show tommorrow.
The colonel and I have a $5 under/over bet on a Griffins season average at .855... so i guess you can call that our E(X).
While I suppose Brand has potential to get into the mid .900s he's much more of an injury risk than Griffin, in my opinion at least.
I think another good Griffin vs. is with Beasley. Beasley does have the baggage, but is coming off an .867 rookie season and plays on a team in desparate need of scoring. Pretty sure that i read somewhere that in Miami's 1st round playoff exit against the Hawks Dwayne Wade scored all but 59 points for the heat. Will they feed Beasley the ball like a starving bastard child? I think they might.
Let's look at the rookie years for some comparable consensus #1 overall picks (big men, with college/overseas experience):
Duncan .997
Shaq 1.144
Brand .930
Ming .879
LeBron .877
Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but I think his rookie upside is at least that of Brand. I used that as my baseline for evaluation. After the first few picks of the second round, the is a lot of risk. There are a lot of guys who are on the downside of their careers and sinking fast (Nash, Carter, Brand, Pierce), injury prone (Maggette, Camby, Nash, Brand) or will see far fewer shots this year (Jamison, Butler, Randolph).
A few more rookie comps:
Webber 1.048
Coleman .944
Impressive stats.
Some more #1 picks' 1st year stats:
Derrick Rose .769
Greg Oden (DNP)
Andrea Bargnani .714
Dwight Howard .782
Yao Ming .879
Kwame Brown .664
Kenyon Martin .721
Michael Olowokandi .676
Neither Brown or Howard went to college, which, I believe, is a big distinction. That is probably a significant part of the explanation as to why both Howard and LeBron needed an extra year before having monster years.
Oden was injured, but put up a respectable .851 his first year, and without any offensive game. Heck, Beasley put up an .876 high as a kite.
Rose is a point guard, which is a completely different comparison.
But, yes, Martin, Bargnani and Kandi give reason for pause, although none came out with the expectations of Griffin (were not the same sort of consensus #1 picks that Grif was). I remember Bargnani could've been drafted anywhere between 1-8.
I'm not real up on the college game these days, but is there a reason to think that Griffin will be less effective than Kevin Love?
For that matter, it seems to me that Hansborogh is a lot like Love, but he seems to get way less respect as a pro.
ESPN is reporting that Griffin will miss 6-8 weeks. That selfish bastard. He is attempting to undermine the Chicago Stallions and Isiah Thomas teams before the season even starts.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=4597949
Griffin seems to be proving himself more than worthy of his second round selection in most leagues...
That he is. I'd love to have him as a first round keeper next year. If I remember right, he even went in the 4th in one league.