Lottery Standing Watch

[JerkFace]

Obviously the higher draft pick the better, but as I see it the main thing is to be in the top 8. I think the top 8 are pretty consensus, but then it drops off a little after that.

 

[slinslin]

1. C/F Andre Dummond
6'11 251 His game is similiar to young Amare Stoudemire with slightly better ballhandling and passing and he is considerably bigger.

2. PF Anthony Davis
6'10 at least with extremly long arms. Averages almost 5 blocks per game and close to 2 steals. He is a mix of Shawn Marion and Marcus Camby at the PF position. He needs to get stronger and he will probably still grow. Around Anthony Davis you can probably build a great defensive team.

3. G/F Michael Kidd-Gilchrist
6'7 230 and extremly athletic. He reminds me right now of Andre Iguodala with lesser passing. He is the poster-child of a "lead by example" and would be perfect guy to rebuild around. Keepin mind he won't turn 19 until shortly before next season.

4. SG Bradley Beal
6'4 200lbs this guy knows how to score. He has an arsenal of moves and his jumper looks like he will be a very good shooter eventually. He rebounds the ball really well for his size.

5. SF Harrison Barnes
6'9 223 he is clearly a SF. He has nice all-around game but he is not a great athlete or very explosive. He could be the next Paul Pierce if he gets more aggressive. Or he could be the next Glenn Robinson or just a role player. This guy has question marks about his ceiling as a player for the position he is projected to be picked. He would be ideal for a bad team that is close to being good and has more pieces already in place.

6. SG Jeremy Lamb
6'5 190 Reminds me of a bigger more athletic version of Rip Hamilton. Moves very well without the ball. He would fit well with a PG that likes to control things, not sure how well he would play if the ball is put into his hands.

7. F Perry Jones
6'11 220lbs maybe taller. Very long and loves to shoot from the outside. This guy needs to get tougher and stronger and start rebounding like crazy. He has the physical tools to be the #1 pick but questions about his position will hurt his stock. In the NBA he has to be a PF but his skillset in college makes him look like a SF at times. Pray he turns into the next KG and not into the next Anthony Randolph if you pick the guy.

8. PF Thomas Robinson
6'9 240 this guy is an aggressive PF that is athletic and wants to dunk everything. He plays very much like Amare Stoudemire and rebounds the ball well in college. Good kid too, but he looks a little bit short and he is also already a junior I think so you expect him to be more advanced. On defense he is not much of a shotblocking presence averaging just 1.1 compared to Anthony Davis who puts up 4.7

9. PF Jared Sullinger
6'9 270 another short PF. In college he is a monster in the post. Al Jefferson off college basketball unfortunately his defense is non-existant and he is an average athlete. Blocks less than 1 shot per game.

10. G Austin Rivers
6'4 combo guard. Extremly talented, fast and athletic isolation guard. Think Jamal Crawford, Monta Ellis, Lou Williams, Allen Iverson. He comes across a little bit arrogant. He is the son of Celtics coach Doc Rivers. Explosive first step and good shooter. He has an up and down freshman season but talent is there. He would be a good player to have on rebuilding project because he gives you at least someone who can score and have big games. Attitude is the only question here.

11. SF Quincy Miller
6'9 200 small forward. He draws comparisons to Kevin Durant. He is long, athletic and skilled. He was once projected to be a potential #1 pick overall but tore his ACL more than a year ago. His knee is the issue here but considering he was just 18 years old when that happened he should have had a good recovery.

12. F Terrence Jones
6'9 forward. I did not like him much last year but he is playing really efficient all-around basketball for a talented Kentucky team. Shooting almost 40% from college 3 and averaging nearly 2 blocks per game along his teammate Davis who averages another 5 almost. Could he be what Earl Clark should have been?

13. G/F LeBryan Nash
6'7 same physique as Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. Needs to work on his jumper. If he can do that and improve his ball-handling he would be better served as a shooting guard in the NBA probably just as MKG. Had a breakout game recently but a bad freshman season overall so far.

14. PG Myck Kabongo
6'2 shooting guard. A true PG, unselfish with good court vision and passing skills. He needs to improve his shooter and be more aggressive at times. He will be a good starting SG that might not get a lot of recognition. Raymond Felton might be a good comparison or Andre Miller / Rajon Rondo mold. He is a guy I am really hoping declares and we can pick him up later in the first with an additional pick.

HOM PF James McAdoo, G Tony Wroten, PG Kendall Marshall, PF Patric Young, G Doron Lamb, Marquis Teague

I left off my list John Henson, Terrence Ross, do not like them and the center prospects Tyler Zeller, Cody Zeller and Leonard Meyers because I think when you are rebuilding from scratch drafting a center way higher than they should be is crap unless they are legitimately great prospects.

Definitely want to be in the top 6. Top 4 would be preferred.. I don't want to sit at #8 and be left with a choice of Jared Sullinger and Perry Jones or reaching for a non-PF prospect. I would reach for Austin Rivers or Quincy Miller probably then.

 

[JerkFace]

I would be extremely happy if we ended up with one of these 5:

1. C/F Andre Dummond
6'11 251 His game is similiar to young Amare Stoudemire with slightly better ballhandling and passing and he is considerably bigger.

2. PF Anthony Davis
6'10 at least with extremly long arms. Averages almost 5 blocks per game and close to 2 steals. He is a mix of Shawn Marion and Marcus Camby at the PF position. He needs to get stronger and he will probably still grow. Around Anthony Davis you can probably build a great defensive team.

3. G/F Michael Kidd-Gilchrist
6'7 230 and extremly athletic. He reminds me right now of Andre Iguodala with lesser passing. He is the poster-child of a "lead by example" and would be perfect guy to rebuild around. Keepin mind he won't turn 19 until shortly before next season.

4. SG Bradley Beal
6'4 200lbs this guy knows how to score. He has an arsenal of moves and his jumper looks like he will be a very good shooter eventually. He rebounds the ball really well for his size.

5. SF Harrison Barnes
6'9 223 he is clearly a SF. He has nice all-around game but he is not a great athlete or very explosive. He could be the next Paul Pierce if he gets more aggressive. Or he could be the next Glenn Robinson or just a role player. This guy has question marks about his ceiling as a player for the position he is projected to be picked. He would be ideal for a bad team that is close to being good and has more pieces already in place.

 

[Absolute Zero]

Well Nash is now out with another bruised thigh so this will help our lottery chances.

 

[Griffin]

Currently the Suns have the 8th worst record. If the lottery was held today, they would have a 10% chance to get a top 3 pick. Charlotte has the worst record, although the difference is only five games. Yet, their chances of scoring a top 3 pick would be 64.3%, more than six times as likely as the 8th seed. They would also be almost nine times as likely to get the first pick. This is what bothers me about the lottery. The number of ping pong balls each team gets should not be determined by their relative seed but rather by their winning percentage. This way teams that finish with relatively similar records would have similar chances at a top 3 pick. Clearly a team whose record is a few games worse than another team is not that much worse that that team, so why should it have a much higher chance of getting a top 3 pick?

 

[AzStevenCal]

Currently the Suns have the 8th worst record. If the lottery was held today, they would have a 10% chance to get a top 3 pick. Charlotte has the worst record, although the difference is only five games. Yet, their chances of scoring a top 3 pick would be 64.3%, more than six times as likely as the 8th seed. They would also be almost nine times as likely to get the first pick. This is what bothers me about the lottery. The number of ping pong balls each team gets should not be determined by their relative seed but rather by their winning percentage. This way teams that finish with relatively similar records would have similar chances at a top 3 pick. Clearly a team whose record is a few games worse than another team is not that much worse that that team, so why should it have a much higher chance of getting a top 3 pick?

I agree. It was an overreaction to one team beating the odds twice. I don't really believe in conspiracies in general but I've often wondered if they would have taken such drastic steps if it had been Boston, LA, New York, Philly etc that snuck away with that top pick twice.

Steve

 

[Griffin]

Obviously the worse record you have, the more ping pong balls, but many teams over the years have managed to move up and secure a top-3 pick without having one of the three worst records. It happens virtually every year. Since 1994 (16 lotteries) when the lottery system was changed, the first overall pick has gone to teams outside of the 5 worst records 5 times. The team with the worst record overall only won it twice.

Here's a breakdown showing which seed won which top-3 pick each year:

[B]	1st	2nd	3rd	moved up[/B]

2011:	8	1	6	2 teams
2010:	5	6	1	2 teams
2009:	3 	6	4	2 teams		
2008:	9	1	3	1 team
2007:	6	5	4	3 teams
2006:	5	2	3	1 team
2005:	6	1	5	2 teams
2004:	1	4	2	1 team
2003:	1	6	2	1 team
2002:	5	2	1	1 team
2001:	3	8	5	2 teams
2000:	7	4	1	2 teams
1999:	3	1	13	1 team
1998:	3	5	1	1 team
1997:	3	5	2	1 team
1996:	2	3	1	0 teams
1995:	5	1	4	2 teams
1994:	4	1	2	1 team

Now here's a breakdown that shows how many top-3 picks were won by each lottery seed:

[B]	Odds	1st	2nd	3rd	Total[/B]

 1:	64.3%	2	6	5	13
 2:	55.8%	1	2	4	 7
 3:	46.9%	5	1	2	 8
 4:	37.8%	1	2	3	 6
 5:	29.2%	4	3	2	 9
 6:	21.5%	2	3	1	 6

 7:	15.0%	1	0	0	 1
 8:	10.0%	1	1	0	 2
 9:	 6.1%	1	0	0	 1
10:	 4.0%	0	0	0	 0
11:	 2.9%	0	0	0	 0
12:	 2.5%	0	0	0	 0
13:	 2.2%	0	0	1	 1
14:	 1.8%	0	0	0	 0

Obviously your odds increase the higher the seed and the success rate reflects that, but the magic number seems to be 6. In the last 16 years, the top 6 seeds have won 49 top-3 picks whereas the lower seeds have only won 5 top-3 picks. This distribution is probably partially due to the small sample size, but since the Suns will likely not finish with one of the three worst records, this shows that they still have a good chance of securing a top-3 pick if they finish somewhere around 4th-6th worst. From 7th seed on the odds are getting considerably worse.

 

[Gaddabout]

The Suns will sign Nash for at least another year. They're already talking to his agent about it.

 

[devilalum]

The Suns will sign Nash for at least another year. They're already talking to his agent about it.

Too bad there won't be anybody in the building next year to watch him play.

 

[slinslin]

Lon Babby is going to be worse than Sarver for this franchise.

What can't he just retire like every other grandfather.

 

[Griffin]

The Suns will sign Nash for at least another year. They're already talking to his agent about it.

I seriously doubt that Nash will even consider re-signing unless the team improves considerably in the off-season. He said many times that the team simply lacks talent to compete, that they are one or two players away and he didn't mean Telfair, Brown or rookies. And given who's left in the 2012 free agent class, it just doesn't seem very likely the Suns will be able to do much with their cap space.