See Video of Brook Lopez Getting His Shot Blocked By the Ivory Tower
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The way Lopez runs the court...
Could a sequel to “Night at the Roxbury” be in the making?
by Peter W on Jun 9, 2008 10:52 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs
Boy...
...he’s not all that swift, is he? I just can’t see them taking him at this point.
by Stop-n-Pop on Jun 10, 2008 6:15 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs
If the Wolves pick Love or Lopez
with no deal or other players wrapped around it, it will be a significant buzz kill. Love at this point-much to my disappointment-almost seems the better choice. Both would be playing predominately high post, but neither of them can run the court very well, so between those two and Big Al, expect a ton of transition baskets for the opposition.
by Peter W on Jun 10, 2008 6:32 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs
But...
...you forgot about Love’s awesome outlet passes!!! He’ll negate any oppo transition baskets by his 3/4 court heaves :)
(You know that will be a J-Pete talking point if he gets drafted by the Wolves.)
by Stop-n-Pop on Jun 10, 2008 8:48 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs
I think you've nailed it...
The elephant in the room is that this just might not be a great draft for the Wolves, simply because, at least at this point, it looks like the deepest position of talent might be, by far, the 4’s. Beasley, Love, Speights, Hendrix, and even guys like Thompson and Dorsey all dominate Win Score/40, Efficiency/40, PER, etc. And Beasley, Love, and Speights are all extremely young, to boot, and even Hendrix is still an underclassman. And moreover, it’s questionable whether or not there’s a big guy out there who could really provide the Wolves the athletic, defensive-anchor type presence they really need up front. Even if the Wolves decided to “settle”** for that type of player, the guys who are supposed to do that (Robin Lopez, Devon Hardin) don’t exactly have out-of-this-world defensive/rebounding track records.
- (I think McHale has a bias against big men who lack requisite post moves/offensive mindset-nevermind that the best season in Wolves history featured Ervin “Stone Hands” Johnson at the 5-which is why this franchise has continued to roll the dice with guys like Rasho Nestorovich, Mark Blount, and Olowakandi while passing on guys like Joakim Noah in the draft. Even in his brief time with the Wolves, 87-year-old Theo Ratliff seemed like a revelation compared to Mark Blount, but I have little doubt that if McHale had the choice of two young players with similar skillsets to Blount and Ratliff, he’d still take the young Blount.)
Personally, I like Love a lot and think he’s going to surprise a lot of people, but as you said, he’s really not what you’d ideally like to run out there with Big Al. You’d have a front court that would really need to exert itself to keep up with a lot of the quicker and/or bigger frontcourts in the league, as well as worry about help defense and rotation on the screens and dribble drives due to the Wolves atrocious perimeter D. Offensively they’d probably be productive and actually could compliment each other quite well, but then again, you’d like to have a little more shooting from the outside to help them out, not to mention guards/wings who will consistently feed them the ball.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see. I think at this point they’re fine waiting to see if Miami passes on Beasley. If not, they’ll move.
by jianfu on Jun 10, 2008 10:24 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs
Good thing I have the day after the draft off from work...
I might need it to recooperate from what happens to me after we draft Lopez or Love at #3.
by College Wolf on Jun 10, 2008 8:33 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs
Al least...
...you’re preparing yourself for the inevitible. :)
by Stop-n-Pop on Jun 10, 2008 8:49 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs
You know...
...I can’t believe I didn’t put this together before, but perhaps the reason why Riley is tipping his hand with Mayo is because if the Heat, coming off a season where they were the worst team in the league, simply drafted a guy who had been in the news associated with some sort of recruiting scandal instead of the best player in college ball, they would have had a PR crisis. This guy is simply setting the field before the pick is made. D-Wade likes him, it’s really a 3-man race…all of these things just make it easy for the Heat to get the guy they wanted in the first place from a PR standpoint.
by Stop-n-Pop on Jun 10, 2008 11:47 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs
By the way...
Is it really that difficult to find a guy Lopez’s age to work out against him? Typically, in a single-player workout, NBA teams find a non-prospect to bring in against a player. It’s good for the player because chances are he won’t get shown up by his opponent, it’s good for the scrub to show what he’s got, and it’s good for the team, because you get to see the guy against someone a little more formidable than your close-to-50-years-old TV analyst.
I mean, was Spencer Tollackson taking a final or something? Can’t you just offer him $50 to take a break from the Wii and come on over?
Then again, McHale’s made a couple of questionable decisions based entirely on what he thought was good defense (in a spectacularly small sample size) against a top prospect (Ebi v. LeBron in 2003; Richard v. Oden in 2007). Since I’d like to keep the chances of the Wolves picking Tollackson with one of their 2nd rounders to 0%, maybe it’s for the best.
by jianfu on Jun 10, 2008 1:10 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs
Maybe...
...they can take Tollackson and bring back Rickert. Maybe he’s filled out by now.
by Stop-n-Pop on Jun 10, 2008 1:51 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

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