Hibbert- more NBA ready, princeton o, no baggage, good for BH
Speights- possible all star and AJ’s heir to the PF
Hickson- big body, space eater, offensive rebounds, Moses Malone clone?
Thompson- good size at C/PF, good potential, should fit in well with BH & ET
Koufos- offense will compliment lack of from BH and ET
Ajinca- good size and those long arms, intriguing
Lopez- rebounds and blocked shots
Arthur- tweener with health issues
Greene- we will live and die by his jump shot

Also, thoughts on Jermaine O’Neal to the Raptors?

But I think stats can only tell you so much, I think your method is obviously much different than most gm’s with yours being much more new school vs their old school and to some extent both ways are correct.

I havent seen McGee play, but I do know that if Ernie Grunfeld sees something out of him I take his word over your stats method. And if he thinks that guy is the right guy for this team who am I to tell him that McGee is a bust without ever having seen him play.

Last I looked, you got no points in the NBA for head-butting the rim. If he is worthy of a #8 pick in the draft, how come he didn’t particularly produce in college? If he is going to be great in the NBA, where the competition level is *much* higher, why wasn’t he dominant 6 months ago? He may turn out to be a good NBA player — again, it’s *not* personal — but he may also be a marginal player.

You could do the same analysis for Mayo and Gordon — esp. the latter.

But I don’t think that’s the point. At issue here is *methodology* in the draft. I believe in drafting *assets,* drafting for the expected value of the asset you pick. I don’t believe in drafting a guy because his *upside* might make him a super-star and transform your team.

Since there’s some emotion around Javale, lets take a guy we definitely aren’t drafting — DeAndre Jordan. He is a freakish athlete, everyone will admit. But, there is *no way* to know whether he’ll be great or he’ll be out of the league in 3 years or he’ll turn into a marginal big. Why is there no way? Because there is very little *data* to work with, and what data there is you can easily ignore by saying “well we all know he’s raw.”

If you compare him to Hibbert, there *is* data for Hibbert. If you look at Speights, again there’s data — and the data is incredibly positive. He is still a risk, nearly every pick is a risk, and he is a bigger risk than say Hibbert. But, if you pick the guy you can at least drive the choice by his production so far.

So… not personal, methodological.