continued............................
---------------------------------------------
Around the League
The College Hoops Drought: Every year Insider breaks down the best college basketball has to offer to the NBA at the start of the NCAA tournament as a kick-off to our more detailed coverage of the NBA Draft.
This year, we were left with a quandry -- should we even bother? NBA GMs and scouts are claiming that, for the first time ever, players who've never played one minute of college basketball will outnumber college players in this year's first round.
The closest we've ever come to such a phenomenon was last year when eight international players and four high school players went in the first round of the 2003 draft.
This year, if things go according to plan, as many as 10 international players and up to eight high school stars could hear their names called by David Stern in the first round on draft night. With 29 draft spots up for grab, that means that as few as 11 college players might slip into the first round.
If you've been following Insider's draft coverage so far, that shouldn't come as a big surprise. For the past few years the trend has been moving away from college basketball as the NBA's preferred farm system. But the standard has always been that high school players and international prospects supplement the collegiate draft -- not supplant it.
But with one of the weakest college basketball draft classes on record, an influx of 6-10 or taller 18-year-olds from the high school and international ranks, and improved scouting by NBA teams, the standard is on the verge of changing. Trends go away. The young high school and international phenoms just keep coming and coming.
What's interesting is that, to a large extent, the trend seems to really bother people both in and outside the league. Obviously college basketball proponents (along with college basketball analysts who once made a side income from prognosticating about the draft) are outraged. Who can blame them? They suddenly become less relevant in the game of playing gatekeeper for the pros.
But NBA GMs can also be sticks in the mud. Pat Riley and the Hornet's Bob Bass have publicly scoffed at the international trend in recent weeks claiming that they're proud to have the majority of their draft picks wear a "Born in an America" button on draft night.
"Where we usually draft [in the mid-first round], taking a foreign player is a big risk," Bass said recently. "If the talent is the same, I'd just as soon draft an American -- you don't have the problems of language and other things. Or maybe I'm just a patriotic guy."
Riley was more blunt. ''There are 70 international players in the NBA, and 20 are impact players,'' he said last week as he slogged his way through Europe. "The best players still come from our country.''
Sebastian Telfair's emergence signals a new era in the NBA.
That may be true. But how will that dynamic look three years from now? As more young American kids decide to skip college ball and more international 7-footers think about defecting, the composition of the league is going to continue to change.
Fans aren't happy either. If David Stern polled Insider readers, I think he'd find them running about 70 to 30 for an age limit. There's something about kids skipping college that still makes fans uncomfortable despite the fact that they've embraced so many kids like LeBron and Kevin Garnett who have done just that.
Our readers appear to be even more uncomfortable with the international invasion. After Friday's draft rumors column detailing the flood of young international big men set to declare for the draft, I got a plethora of reader mail protesting the deluge.
Some of it was xenophobic. A little of it was racist. More of it was from the school of, if I didn't see them on T.V. this year they don't (or shouldn't) exist. Others wondered aloud whether Insider was pushing a larger agenda by publicizing so many high school and international players at such a young age.
I'm not sure what I can do about the xenophobia (do we really care whether a great player comes from South Africa or South Bend, Indiana), the racism (why the obsession with the corn rows, tattoos, Escalades, accents or unpronouncable last names? If the kid can play . . .) or the T.V. complaint (so far my pleas to televise a few Euroleague games on ESPN2 has fallen on deaf ears).
The agenda one I can address easily. My draft commentary is based on what I hear from the numerous scouts and GMs I talk to every day. I'm also telling you what I see when we bother to take a trip or two to a high school tournament or to a game overseas.
What I hear are scouts gushing over potential, especially when it comes in the form of an athletic kid taller than 6-foot-10. What I see are a copious consortium of scouts and GMs packed in the bleachers of high schools and foreign gyms taking notes on some pretty talented kids who just so happen to play something other than college ball.
Insider isn't alone. While the influx may be more prominently documented in Insider than anywhere else, I'm not the only one who's noticed. Veteran NBA columnist Mark Heisler from the L.A. Times has been doing an annual mock draft around the start of the NCAA tournament since 1978. Heisler is conservative, careful and as well connected as any NBA writer in the business. He consults six general managers, personnel directors and scouts to put together his list. On Sunday he released this year's top 29. It contained ten international players and five high school players ... and Heisler left out three sure fire first rounders in LaMarcus Aldridge, Marvin Williams and Sasha Vujacic.
The flood gates are open. Kevin Garnett and Dirk Nowitzki may have kick started the trend, but LeBron James and Yao Ming have blown the door off the hinges. Now GMs believe that there are high school kids who can make immediate impacts on their team. They now also believe that great talent (especially big talent) can be found anywhere in the world.
When scouts can't stop talking about drafting 5-11 high school point guards in the lottery (see Sebastian Telfair) and drafting 16 year-olds from Serbia and China in the top three picks in the draft (see Nemanja Aleksandrov and Yi Jianlian) the old days are gone -- totally gone.
-------------------------------------------
Peep Show
NBA Insider
Monday, March 15
Updated: March 15
8:44 AM ET
Minnesota Timberwolves:
Sam Cassell opened his mouth wide to guarantee a victory yesterday against Portland and the Blazers were glad to shove his foot in it. "Anytime someone says they guarantee a win, just talking like we're scrubs, of course, that's going to get under people's skins," center Theo Ratliff said in the Star Tribune. "You definitely get motivated from stuff like that." And that wasn't all. "That was garbage, what Sam said," said Ruben Patterson. "That didn't do nothing but fire us up. Go ask Sam what just happened. That's what he deserves. Eat his quote. He's a good friend of mine, but you can't disrespect us like that. If he'd kept his mouth shut, they might have had a chance. Quote that one to him." But not even that could shut Sam up. "They won the game. They've got bigger problems than that," Cassell said. "We're a team that's locked into the playoffs. If they're worried about what we say to get us motivated, that goes to show about their concentration toward their team. They're worrying about us? We're fine. We're definitely going to be in the playoffs. I said that to try to motivate our guys. We haven't won on Sunday in a month. So I'll say it again -- we play next Sunday here. We've got to win the game on Sunday."
Miami Heat:
Brian Grant's right knee is killing him. Brian Grant's left knee is killing him. But that doesn't mean Brian Grant is going anywhere. "I'm going to be in there until the wheels fall off," Grant said in the Miami Herald. "There are certain things I can do at certain times to help myself feel better, relieve my pains. But you can't do it all the time. It's not healthy."
Memphis Grizzlies:
The Grizzlies may be the third youngest team in the league and the third winningest team since January, but that all goes away once the regular season ends. "They'll get that notoriety when they get to the playoffs," head coach Hubie Brown said in the Commercial Appeal. "Reputations are made in the playoffs. Young teams don't have (respect) until the success comes ... Look. We have a lot of room for improvement. But when we get Mike Miller and Lorenzen Wright back, I'd like to think that we're going to be a handful."
Detroit Pistons:
Detroit has now held four straight opponents to less than 70 points. Do I hear five? "If we look up sometime in that fourth quarter and we're in range or in reach of keeping a team under 70 then we're going to shoot for that," said Chauncey Billups in the Detroit Free Press "That's exactly what happened today. We take a lot of pride in knowing that (the streak) hasn't been done before and it could not have happened to a better team. We don't talk about the streak in pre-game talks. We just worry about how we are going to play offensively and defensively. But late in the game if it's 50-something or 60-something, we say 'All right, let's do it now.' We definitely take a lot of pride in our defense."
Boston Celtics:
How is Paul Pierce enjoying the rollercoaster ride so far? "Hey, this has been the craziest year -- ever," said the Celtics captain in the Boston Herald. "We're going to have two or three teams in the playoffs that aren't even over .500. If we win one more game over Philadelphia and Miami, then we have the season series (clinched) against those two teams, too. I'm drained, but I'm just as happy. As big as this week was, we have to look at every week as being big. It definitely gives us the confidence to carry into the rest of the schedule."
Chicago Bulls:
Jamal Crawford wants his teammates to stop pointing fingers and start playing basketball. "Look back at everything everybody said," Crawford said in the Chicago Sun Times. "Everybody should look in the mirror. Everybody has a flaw. Everybody is going at everybody. When things get tough, it says a lot about the person's character if they could stick in and stand in and withstand that and go through adversity without separating themselves. It tells you a lot about people.'' The most recent scuffle involved Kendall Gill and Eddy Curry with the elder player yelling the younger one to hang up his cell phone in the locker room before a game and act more professional. "Every day, somebody's writing a different article and taking shots, not just here, but across the country," Crawford said. "We're not the only team to have drama, but we're losing."
---------------------------------------------
Around the League
The College Hoops Drought: Every year Insider breaks down the best college basketball has to offer to the NBA at the start of the NCAA tournament as a kick-off to our more detailed coverage of the NBA Draft.
This year, we were left with a quandry -- should we even bother? NBA GMs and scouts are claiming that, for the first time ever, players who've never played one minute of college basketball will outnumber college players in this year's first round.
The closest we've ever come to such a phenomenon was last year when eight international players and four high school players went in the first round of the 2003 draft.
This year, if things go according to plan, as many as 10 international players and up to eight high school stars could hear their names called by David Stern in the first round on draft night. With 29 draft spots up for grab, that means that as few as 11 college players might slip into the first round.
If you've been following Insider's draft coverage so far, that shouldn't come as a big surprise. For the past few years the trend has been moving away from college basketball as the NBA's preferred farm system. But the standard has always been that high school players and international prospects supplement the collegiate draft -- not supplant it.
But with one of the weakest college basketball draft classes on record, an influx of 6-10 or taller 18-year-olds from the high school and international ranks, and improved scouting by NBA teams, the standard is on the verge of changing. Trends go away. The young high school and international phenoms just keep coming and coming.
What's interesting is that, to a large extent, the trend seems to really bother people both in and outside the league. Obviously college basketball proponents (along with college basketball analysts who once made a side income from prognosticating about the draft) are outraged. Who can blame them? They suddenly become less relevant in the game of playing gatekeeper for the pros.
But NBA GMs can also be sticks in the mud. Pat Riley and the Hornet's Bob Bass have publicly scoffed at the international trend in recent weeks claiming that they're proud to have the majority of their draft picks wear a "Born in an America" button on draft night.
"Where we usually draft [in the mid-first round], taking a foreign player is a big risk," Bass said recently. "If the talent is the same, I'd just as soon draft an American -- you don't have the problems of language and other things. Or maybe I'm just a patriotic guy."
Riley was more blunt. ''There are 70 international players in the NBA, and 20 are impact players,'' he said last week as he slogged his way through Europe. "The best players still come from our country.''
Sebastian Telfair's emergence signals a new era in the NBA.
That may be true. But how will that dynamic look three years from now? As more young American kids decide to skip college ball and more international 7-footers think about defecting, the composition of the league is going to continue to change.
Fans aren't happy either. If David Stern polled Insider readers, I think he'd find them running about 70 to 30 for an age limit. There's something about kids skipping college that still makes fans uncomfortable despite the fact that they've embraced so many kids like LeBron and Kevin Garnett who have done just that.
Our readers appear to be even more uncomfortable with the international invasion. After Friday's draft rumors column detailing the flood of young international big men set to declare for the draft, I got a plethora of reader mail protesting the deluge.
Some of it was xenophobic. A little of it was racist. More of it was from the school of, if I didn't see them on T.V. this year they don't (or shouldn't) exist. Others wondered aloud whether Insider was pushing a larger agenda by publicizing so many high school and international players at such a young age.
I'm not sure what I can do about the xenophobia (do we really care whether a great player comes from South Africa or South Bend, Indiana), the racism (why the obsession with the corn rows, tattoos, Escalades, accents or unpronouncable last names? If the kid can play . . .) or the T.V. complaint (so far my pleas to televise a few Euroleague games on ESPN2 has fallen on deaf ears).
The agenda one I can address easily. My draft commentary is based on what I hear from the numerous scouts and GMs I talk to every day. I'm also telling you what I see when we bother to take a trip or two to a high school tournament or to a game overseas.
What I hear are scouts gushing over potential, especially when it comes in the form of an athletic kid taller than 6-foot-10. What I see are a copious consortium of scouts and GMs packed in the bleachers of high schools and foreign gyms taking notes on some pretty talented kids who just so happen to play something other than college ball.
Insider isn't alone. While the influx may be more prominently documented in Insider than anywhere else, I'm not the only one who's noticed. Veteran NBA columnist Mark Heisler from the L.A. Times has been doing an annual mock draft around the start of the NCAA tournament since 1978. Heisler is conservative, careful and as well connected as any NBA writer in the business. He consults six general managers, personnel directors and scouts to put together his list. On Sunday he released this year's top 29. It contained ten international players and five high school players ... and Heisler left out three sure fire first rounders in LaMarcus Aldridge, Marvin Williams and Sasha Vujacic.
The flood gates are open. Kevin Garnett and Dirk Nowitzki may have kick started the trend, but LeBron James and Yao Ming have blown the door off the hinges. Now GMs believe that there are high school kids who can make immediate impacts on their team. They now also believe that great talent (especially big talent) can be found anywhere in the world.
When scouts can't stop talking about drafting 5-11 high school point guards in the lottery (see Sebastian Telfair) and drafting 16 year-olds from Serbia and China in the top three picks in the draft (see Nemanja Aleksandrov and Yi Jianlian) the old days are gone -- totally gone.
-------------------------------------------
Peep Show
NBA Insider
Monday, March 15
Updated: March 15
8:44 AM ET
Minnesota Timberwolves:
Sam Cassell opened his mouth wide to guarantee a victory yesterday against Portland and the Blazers were glad to shove his foot in it. "Anytime someone says they guarantee a win, just talking like we're scrubs, of course, that's going to get under people's skins," center Theo Ratliff said in the Star Tribune. "You definitely get motivated from stuff like that." And that wasn't all. "That was garbage, what Sam said," said Ruben Patterson. "That didn't do nothing but fire us up. Go ask Sam what just happened. That's what he deserves. Eat his quote. He's a good friend of mine, but you can't disrespect us like that. If he'd kept his mouth shut, they might have had a chance. Quote that one to him." But not even that could shut Sam up. "They won the game. They've got bigger problems than that," Cassell said. "We're a team that's locked into the playoffs. If they're worried about what we say to get us motivated, that goes to show about their concentration toward their team. They're worrying about us? We're fine. We're definitely going to be in the playoffs. I said that to try to motivate our guys. We haven't won on Sunday in a month. So I'll say it again -- we play next Sunday here. We've got to win the game on Sunday."
Miami Heat:
Brian Grant's right knee is killing him. Brian Grant's left knee is killing him. But that doesn't mean Brian Grant is going anywhere. "I'm going to be in there until the wheels fall off," Grant said in the Miami Herald. "There are certain things I can do at certain times to help myself feel better, relieve my pains. But you can't do it all the time. It's not healthy."
Memphis Grizzlies:
The Grizzlies may be the third youngest team in the league and the third winningest team since January, but that all goes away once the regular season ends. "They'll get that notoriety when they get to the playoffs," head coach Hubie Brown said in the Commercial Appeal. "Reputations are made in the playoffs. Young teams don't have (respect) until the success comes ... Look. We have a lot of room for improvement. But when we get Mike Miller and Lorenzen Wright back, I'd like to think that we're going to be a handful."
Detroit Pistons:
Detroit has now held four straight opponents to less than 70 points. Do I hear five? "If we look up sometime in that fourth quarter and we're in range or in reach of keeping a team under 70 then we're going to shoot for that," said Chauncey Billups in the Detroit Free Press "That's exactly what happened today. We take a lot of pride in knowing that (the streak) hasn't been done before and it could not have happened to a better team. We don't talk about the streak in pre-game talks. We just worry about how we are going to play offensively and defensively. But late in the game if it's 50-something or 60-something, we say 'All right, let's do it now.' We definitely take a lot of pride in our defense."
Boston Celtics:
How is Paul Pierce enjoying the rollercoaster ride so far? "Hey, this has been the craziest year -- ever," said the Celtics captain in the Boston Herald. "We're going to have two or three teams in the playoffs that aren't even over .500. If we win one more game over Philadelphia and Miami, then we have the season series (clinched) against those two teams, too. I'm drained, but I'm just as happy. As big as this week was, we have to look at every week as being big. It definitely gives us the confidence to carry into the rest of the schedule."
Chicago Bulls:
Jamal Crawford wants his teammates to stop pointing fingers and start playing basketball. "Look back at everything everybody said," Crawford said in the Chicago Sun Times. "Everybody should look in the mirror. Everybody has a flaw. Everybody is going at everybody. When things get tough, it says a lot about the person's character if they could stick in and stand in and withstand that and go through adversity without separating themselves. It tells you a lot about people.'' The most recent scuffle involved Kendall Gill and Eddy Curry with the elder player yelling the younger one to hang up his cell phone in the locker room before a game and act more professional. "Every day, somebody's writing a different article and taking shots, not just here, but across the country," Crawford said. "We're not the only team to have drama, but we're losing."
