Originally posted by slice me nice
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First of all the teams needs are a big questionmark, some are obvious, some are misleading and others change even during the draft night, which for most organisation is a complete adrenaline rush mad-house day. You just can't predict Suns for example are that worried about re-signing Bledsoe that they're actualy going to draft a PG because of it.
Than there the team's philosophy differs from one front office to another, some want players that can contribute, some prefer athletes, another gamble on potential
Even if guys running those sites are incredibly well informed as it's every managers interest to get facts straight with them on daily basis, as ussual there are lots of smoke screens, bluffing...
And at the end of the day it's also very human to be wrong from time to time Potential afterall is a matter of a personal taste.
One thing you can rely on with draft sites is definately players worth when compared by groups and getting sorted out through "talent", "contributor", "half of everythin", "good at one thing" etc tags. They're actually really good at it. The ammount of basketball games Jonathan Givony (Draftexpress) watched at some point is probably unmatched, must be among worldwide top10 record, i'm dead serious. And that shows. But it's impossible to be 100% accurate and with various teams doing mistakes, there is no need to explain draft sites will fail as well at some points. To be honest, at those times when I really paid attention to the draft, I got a feeling some of the NBA teams are actualy the ones with amateur moves. Hard to imagine or explain, but nevertheless.
There is a thing with european guards and the NBA draft. First of all not many guards succed and almost half of those that did were San Antonio's domain (Parker, Ginobili, Dragič, Udrih) at the draft day anyway. An average college athlete is more physicaly developed entering the draft, physicaly peaking a bit later hurts the draft stock, but whichever euro will have Hezonja's athleticism, there is no fear about being treated on equal terms with the college prospects - in case a player from college doesn't excell with athleticism, he drops significatly in the draft as well. With the euro bball developing more into the athletic way, that'll change with time. I'm sometimes frustrated by some of the euro players missed, by my opinion, but than again, we are all witnessing just how well some of those 2nd rounders or undrafted americans are when they come to europe later. At one point I believed that the gap is closing, while in fact it's at least staying at the same level if not actualy increasing. I don't think NBA teams are all that anti-euro biased actualy, even if some of that bias remains due to stupidity of some NBA teams in their search for the next Dirk, Gasol, Kirilenko that were supposedly growing on trees at that time.
However as far as Osman goes, yeah... they'll be conservative in their judgement untill they see him at the predraft workouts, got his measurements first hand, talk straight with the man about his plans, situation in europe, get a psycho profile on him etc.
The thing with these draft predictions is that they're getting more accurate with the every week leading towards the draft.
I'm not too much of a fan of Chad Ford though, as far as college prospects he is okay, but back in the days not only he never had an idea of some european prospects untill he has seen them accidentaly at some pre-draft workouts, but he never actualy had an interest in them to begin with. Not paying attention costed him overhyping some hilarious names, Tskitishvilli if I remember correctly was one of them where he failed miserably and as an authority on the draft contributed significantly to the hype, without knowing what exactly he is talking about, repeating what the others have said instead of finding out stuff on his own. As a result instead of trying to pay some attention and move out of his college-hoops comfort zone, he turned to a bitter anti-euro campaign as if he resented european prospects for failing so bad on them. I still resent him a bit for that as his writings had an immense impact on the fans becoming increasingly pissed on front offices drafting european players and consequently that had an impact on NBA draft. Players as Osman receive a conservative evaluation due to it, not an unfair one, but some teams when in doubt might prefer passing on an euro, partialy Ford had contributed to it.
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