No easy answers

Sporting News, The, June 25, 2001 by Stan McNeal

Teams looking for immediate help in this year's draft might be disappointed

There are certainties about the June 27 draft: There are no franchise players, four high school seniors will be among the top 10 picks and next year will be better. (Isn't it always?) What's not so certain: Is it a good draft?

There's more depth this year than there was last year. In fact, the 40th player taken might be as good as last year's 20th pick. Next year, however, will be much better if, as expected, 7-6 Yao Ming of China and Duke's Jason Williams come out. They would have been the top two picks this year.

This year depends a lot on your perspective. If you have a first-round pick, you view the prospects a little more optimistically than if you're sitting it out.

Mavericks assistant coach Donn Nelson, whose team doesn't have a pick in the first round, says: "There isn't one guy in this draft who's going to help much next year. Shane Battier is the most complete player. Is he a rotation player? Yeah, maybe. Is he going to help me win one more game? Probably not. Maybe. There's a whole lot of maybes.

"We'd hate to be faced with the prospect of having a high lottery pick. Those are teams that are losing anyway and now you've got a project that you're going to have to tell your fans is going to take three or four years."

Celtics coach Jim O'Brien, who has three first-round picks, sees it differently: "If we decide to draft all three people, this is a deep enough draft that there are three players who can come in and do something in the first year and from there can really build into a hell of a group in a couple of years."

Good draft or not, there are many questions to be answered. Here are a few:

Because so many young players are available, is the draft changing?

"It is getting similar to baseball, where you are taking chances on high school and college players that you don't know how they are going to pan out," says Dennis Lindsey, Rockets director of player personnel. "This guy has a good arm, this guy can mn, this guy hits for power, but you don't know how they will be as baseball players. That's what our draft is becoming. This guy can shoot, this guy might get bigger, this guy can jump. But there is not enough information to tell how they will be as complete basketball players."

In this draft, having three first-round picks is not necessarily a good thing. Why is that?

Because of the collective-bargaining agreement, first-round picks are guaranteed seven-figure contracts that count against the salary cap for three years, even if you end up cutting the players.

"In baseball, you have a farm system, you have your people teaching your way," Lindsey says. "Here, you take a guy, and he is using up a roster spot for you, and those are very limited. You have 12 to work with, not counting the injured list. You have to find room on your roster for the guy, and you might be taking away from someone else who can help you at some point."

What about the first pick? If the Wizards don't make a trade, who will they take?

With or without the return of Michael Jordan, the Wizards want the best of both worlds: someone with a superstar upside who can contribute immediately. Seton Hall freshman Eddie Griffin is likely to be their man.

He's 6-9 and very talented, though he comes with some baggage--as would anyone who slugged a teammate for not passing him the ball. If Griffin had come out last year, however, he likely would have been drafted ahead of Darius Miles, who was taken third by the Clippers.

Why won't Shane Battier go first? He has all the credentials of a No. 1 pick: player of the year, NCAA champion, four-year starter at Duke.

Not enough upside. The top younger players--all of whom are taller than Bather, by the way--could (emphasis on could) become Kevin Garnetts. Battier is projected to be a solid pro but not necessarily a star.

Battier has his own articulate way of disagreeing: "I think the younger guys are like the IPOs," Battier says. "The potential for greatness is obviously there, but there's a chance they may dissolve. That's opposed to a blue-chip stock that you know is going to improve steadily every year. Just call me Proctor & Gamble."

From David Stern on down, NBA executives say they wish high school players were not eligible. Will anything be done to change the rules?

Nothing can be done, except for some finger-pointing. Billy Hunter, the head of the players' union, says there's an easy solution: Don't draft them. The teams, however, are afraid to take that chance. If you were one of the 12 teams to pass on Kobe Bryant five years ago, you probably still kick yourself from time to time.

One of this year's high schoolers, Kwame Brown, makes another point: "You don't see any high school players getting in trouble, getting in fights in bars, going to jail. If you're old enough to go to the military, to die for your country, why aren't you old enough to play basketball for money?"

Who is Kwame Brown?

You might be wondering who this Brown is. Eddy Curry and Tyson Chandler have been on the NBA short list for at least a year, but Brown appeared headed to Florida as recently as early May. Now he's projected to be the first high schooler taken.