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Rodrigue Bobois.(Courtesey Reebook Eurocamp)
Henry Abbot more or less summed up my thoughts: "Rodrique Beaubois was not in any of Ford's six tiers. Thunder take the title from Portland for Euro-reach of the night...Marc Stein has sources saying that Beaubois is actually going to Dallas (with a future second-rounder)...."
I really did not get into this business to insult or demean anyone. I'm not in this business, I get paid approximately what the coke machine at a small business gets paid for this. For those of you who read the Dallas Morning News sports pages you know that it is a haven of the bitterest, most nit-picky, tear you down kinda reporters who think they know everything, even the personal things, about the people they're talking about---I hate that kind of thing.
But I do really think Donnie Nelson, as a GM, doesn't get it, and I think he's kept his job so long, with so little scrutiny because one time he managed to pick Dirk with his "always going for a homerun" strategy and because Mark Cuban seems to run the whole ship.
The Mavericks and the Cowboys have been sort of similar these last couple of years in terms of stockpiling useless picks because they don't feel like taking any reasonably sure thing. They're sort of like that guy in your fantasy baseball team who tries to trade you three decent players for one really good one and you're like, dude, I can fill that stuff from the waiver wire and this is a position game, man.
So the Mavericks first traded the 21 for the 24 and the second to last pick this year, and the 2nd round pick of an alright team next year. Since the Mavs have never turned a second round pick into anything, this didn't seem to make the most sense, but hey, at least it's the exact same guys who have failed to pick anyone useful but Josh Howard in the last decade, picking tonight.
Then the Mavs first picked a tremendoulsy raw center who apparently doesn't feel like playing hard but at least COULD develop into a force at aposition the Mavs have NEVER had a player at, and then traded him for, as usual, Some Guy You've Never Heard Of, Rodrigue Bobois. Scouting report here. Rumor is it that he can jump out of the gym, has arms as long as the guy from the Fantastic Four, etc. But he's rough. Carlisle said that Bobois will be here next year, in contradistinction with ESPN which would send him overseas to get some polish. What are the odds that they picked a quick point guard just to stop getting burned by, say, Tony Parker? What are the odds that Some Guy You Never Heard Of is going to be real competition for TP? There is stuff to like here. But not now. I think that's a problem.
When will NBA teams realize that the NBA draft is not like the MLB or NFL draft. You don't have a bench to hide players. You don't stockpile them for later. You don't have a place to get them game time experience because you're too busy trying to win fifty games. There are five guys on a basketball team. Seven or eight guys play in a game, on average. Long-term prospects?
Never. It never happens. Dirk was scoring 17.5 by his second year. Steve Nash took a couple years, but he shot 40% from three and 45% from the floor from day one. It does not happen. And if it does happen, how much longer do they have before the nucleus of their team, which, in contradistinction to most other successful teams, is one person, isn't what it once was, and it no longer matters.
Mavericks fans I've spoken to are more positive about this pick than I expected. I guess they didn't like BJ, which makes sense. However, as usual the Mavericks refused to draft conventionally and drafted a guy in the first round who was projected to go in teh second round, or undrafted, and was in his third year of being in the draft--meaning he couldn't come back if no one picked him.
The Mavericks also traded for Nick Calathes who is really a pretty good value for a 2nd round pick but already has a contract with a Greek team. And has some areas of concern at the pro level. There's some hope here, he's supposedly quite the passer. Here's this from ESPN "struggles in man to man defense against quick guards", so THAT'S good. Maybe they'll use Calathes against the slow guys and Bobois against the quick guys. It's brilliant. But he'll play overseas next year.
Donny Nelson had an interview after the game in which he said they really liked Bobois but that the odds of himm being a rotation player this year was "asking a lot" and that it was likely he'd see some D-league time.
The Mavericks talked, on and on and on, about win now. Dirk has only a couple of years left. Now, now, now.
Then they picked two guys who just will NOT help them next year.
Maybe they'll both be fantastic players. Maybe, they'll be the best point guards of all time. It really doesn't matter (okay, it might matter if they turned out to be the best players of all time).
What exactly don't the Mavericks get about the fact that they have one superstar, one guy who's a star every fifth day, one guy who's technically a star but would literally attempt a reverse layup rather then a straightforward one in hopes of being sent to the line instead of having to shoot and who, incidentally, is currently a free agent and not a Maverick at all, and five or so other guys who a lot of teams would love to have as sixth men and NOTHING else.
What exactly don't the Mavericks get about how abysmally awful they're going to be the very second Dirk starts seriously declining?
Just once, while I'm a Mavericks fan. Just once, I would like the Mavericks to make the typical pick. The tall, athletic guy with a big motor who dunks and drives. Comes from a good college program, had a good college career. You can say I'm being cruel, that the Mavs had the 24th pick. Taj Gibson. Wayne Ellington. Dajuan Summers. Dejuan Blair. Sam Young. Any of those guys. Any of those normal, healthy, help you right now, but a quality role player type of guys. The Mavericks never do it.
There's an article up on ESPN (here) about the GMs who've been most successful in drafting. Isaiah Thomas, incidentally, is number two. Just pointing out that the successful picks of the top four guys on that list (Colangelo, Thomas, Paxon, and St. Jean) include the following: Nash, Finley, Marion, Stoudemire, Stephen Jackson, Ariza, Nate Robinson, David Lee, McGrady, Marcus Camby, Lebron, Boozer, Jamison, J-Rich, Arenas---well not one of those guys was really a stretch. Not McGrady or Stoudemire (or Lebron), the hgih-schoolers, not Lee (due to where he was picked)--they were solid, smart choices who had obvious NBA skills, who had a lot of date on them, and who were simply not the product of a GM trying to hit a homerun. Misse for those four guys? Bargnani. Diop. Dajuan Wagner. Casey Jacobsen. You know what I'm saying? Sometimes what makes sense is sensible. More often than the lastest 9 foot Senegalese guy OR the lates tremendously long French guy. And if the Mavericks haven't learned that over the last 8 years when their ONLY succesful pick, still with the team, was a four year college player, ACC player of the year, for Wake Forest---
Well, they will never learn it, I guess. Pisses me off, but what can you do. This isn't rocket science, and maybe the Mavs shouldn't have astrophysicists at the top anymore.
Oh well. You have to give them credit for taking a borderline second round pick in the first round--and a borderline first round pick in the second.
In other news, most of their potential tradiing partners (Wizards, Suns, etc.) made trades and no longer have what the Mavericks wanted from them. That leaves, say, the Clippers and the Bobcats on the list of teams looking to make moves and may have some interest in what the Mavericks have. It seems quite possible at this point, with two major trades (Shaq and Richard Jefferson) for very little but salary cap relief that, perhaps, some owners just don't want to trade with Mark Cuban.
Well, at least they didn't draft Chase Budinger which waws my fear, and they did get some guards which is theoretically what they should have been doing.
Damp's contract
Stack's contract
Josh Howard or Jason Terry or Barea or whatever.
So hopefully they will still make some noise. As it is, I'm guessing their number one priority is signing Kidd, since they got no one who will be ready to replace him soon--and it's suddenly made it extraodinarily likely that the Mavs are going to try to get a big man through the draft say, Marcus Camby, or Chris Kaman, or (this would be the best) Emeka Okafor, since they don't want Dampier but didn't do anything to even prepare to replace him.
I could say they really don't want to start the season starting three guys who score less than ten points a game, but that might be projecting.
The Bobcats cancelled summer league because it was too expensive. Guessing Cuban smells blood in the water, and the Bobcats are one of the only teams to trade with the Mavericks in recent years. So pay attention to that.
We're not feeling too good at the Mavericks ranch, tonight. In most respects, a typical Mavericks draft. Still time to make some noise, but you have to wonder--even if both Calathes and Bobois turn into good players in a couple of years (when Dirk will be 34) where exactly their heads are at, and whether the boys up top really do think it's worthwhile to try to make this team better now. They have not so far managed to improve at a single position for next year. But it's a long summer.
They asked Donny Nelson whether he felt any pressure, given that the team had talked so much about getting better now, to pick a more NBA ready player. He said pressure is part of the job--a non-answer that is reasonably troubling, giving that the last half-decade has shown no evidence that the Mavericks management knows how to improve, or, even are aware of what their problems are--as this draft also implied. We'll see.
Update: The Mavericks did NOT trade their 56th pick for Calathes, they traded a second round pick they'd already traded for. So they still get Ahmad, who you can find a scouting report on here. Sounds like a typical late second-round pick, but somebody who may be able to help next year and may be abel to bang just a little bit. Although that particular report may have broken records for citing lack of speed.
Update 2: I enjoyed this scouting report on Bobois. Highlights include a french write-up that says he's just over six feet and "quite small" as compared to his perfectly acceptable 6'2" and a half, according to the video below. Write up also says that he has a quite consistent shot, where the player rater puts it at a 7 out of 10. Hope the Mavs had better scouting reports...
As Tim MacMahon pointed out, the 32 pick was acquired from the Wizards, by the Rockets, for 2.5 mil straight up. Just sayin'.
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