The Lynx too? Plus, we continue the Community Draft Board
by Stop-n-Pop on Jun 20, 2009 8:12 AM CDT
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Good lord, as if watching one team have its best player go down with a devastating season-ending knee injury wasn't enough, yesterday delivered news that the Lynx's Seimone Augustus (Olympian Seimone Augustus) has a torn ACL in her left knee and will be out for the year. I cannot explain to you just how much this is going to impact the Lynx's season. Keep in mind that the team is already dealing with a situation where their coach bolted on them a few days before the beginning of the season to take a job in the NBA. This situation is every bit as turbulent, if not more, than what happened to the Wolves with Randy Wittman and Al Jefferson. Relatively speaking, Augustus is the better player and the Lynx have better all-around talent than the Wolves. In other words, this loss, combined with the already-tough coaching change, is going to make it hard for the Lynx to win a lot of games...which is extremely unfortunate because this squad has a phenomenal young core (Wiggins, Augustus, Montgomery, Anosike) that was poised to take a big step this year with a healthy leader on the court and a new leader on the bench.
Exhibit A is last night's 28-point loss to the Seattle Storm. The Lynx, a team that scored a boat load of points over its first few games, never scored more than 20 points in a quarter while shooting less than 30% from the floor. Ball movement was stagnant, the offense was stifled, and transition opportunities were almost non-existent. Moving back to the bigger picture, let's take a quick look back to former Hoopus contributor Peter W's 2008 Lynx preview:
Why they won't make the playoffs comes down to three factors: coaching, defense, and point guard play. Zierden is not head coaching material, period. In the games I saw last year, he had no strategy on how to break presses or half court traps, and his offense centered around Augustus using her athleticism to try and make something happen. The fact she was second in the league in scoring and attempted 241 more shots than any other Lynx player last year speaks volumes for the way Zierden used her.
This issue was being addressed this season but it a) wasn't completely fixed, and b) is still hard to overstate just how important Augustus is/was/will be to the offense of this ball club. Until Renee Montgomery can start displaying her college form at the point, this team will be much too dependent on one player for ball movement, offense, transition play...you name it. If there is any silver lining to this situation (and there really isn't; their best player went down with a knee injury), it is that Montgomery should be thrown into the fire and forced into a bit higher learning curve than she was before. Hopefully, she will respond well. Here's hoping for a speedy and full recovery for Augustus. Here's hoping that the Lynx can find a way to adjust to their new reality and get back to playing some entertaining and competitive games. It will be a tall order on a team that is trying to rid itself of the 1-player dominant style it exhibited last season.
Moving on to the Community Draft Board, here is where we currently stand:
- Blake Griffin
- Ricky Rubio
- James Harden
- Stephen Curry
- Hasheem Thabeet
- Tyreke Evans
- Demar DeRozan
- Brandon Jennings
- Jrue Holiday
- Jonny Flynn
- Jordan Hill
- Ty Lawson
- ???
Just to give you an idea of how this stacks up to our very own Hoopus Score Draft Board, here's a link to the list. We'll put up our final draft board (with 1 or 2 changes from that link) on Monday or Tuesday.
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Eric Maynor is in there twice; subliminal messaging? :p
Beater of the early Thabeet drum ... but not so much of the late one
Yet only 4 votes?
I think he is a much better prospect than he is getting credit for here. I don’t dislike Calathes or Clark, but I think he will be the best pro on this list.
30 states to pick from … 30 states I could have been a fan of .. I pick the jinxed state… ;)
Beater of the early Thabeet drum ... but not so much of the late one
Actually,
your selections of teams/states wasn’t quite that large, as Texas has three teams, California has four (well, three, and then the Clippers), etc:
But yes, you could have done better.
nice ^^; guess it's not only americans that don't know euro geography but the other way around too :d
Beater of the early Thabeet drum ... but not so much of the late one
by Wim (Belgium) on Jun 20, 2009 11:10 AM CDT up reply actions
eheh
by the way…
I struck me that at nr 13 there really is such a wide variety of players I would really be content with at #18. It might be a poor draft for star quality but it sure is very “deep”.
Beater of the early Thabeet drum ... but not so much of the late one
That fact might actually help the Wolves
use the pick to move up, as a wise team would say, “Hey, the player we get at 18 could be just as good as one we could get at, say, 8.” Zgoda mentioned recently the prospect of trying to get Washington’s pick, and then packaging the 5 and the 18 to get Memphis’s choice. Then draft Rubio at 2, BPA at 6, and still keep Kevin Love. If Kahn does that, he should get GM of the year even before training camp opens.
The next best and more likely scenario is getting the Washington pick, and packaging it with the 6th choice to trade for Memphis’s 2nd pick. I’m fine with that as well.
Also, people laugh at the notion of Flip’s relationship with the Wolves having any affect on the likelihood of trading with the Wiz (i.e., he’s just a coach, etc.). But I still think he will have major input on the Wiz’s personnel moves. And if there was any animosity left over toward McHale, maybe Kahn’s Kanning of KMack will tilt Flip’s feelings toward favoring the Wolves.
I think that 5th pick is key
If they can get a hold of it, they have a ton of flexibility. Miller, Foye, Gomes, Brewer, Pekovic, 18…all of it should be on the table to get that 5th pick. Hell, take back a bad salary if need be. If they get the 5th without giving up the 6th, they can talk to Memphis about trading down for Evans as well as just standing pat and taking something like Evans + Curry, Curry + Thabeet…whatever.
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I highly endorse using cap space to land the #5. I think it gives you a shot at a much better player on a relatively tiny contract than what we’re looking at in either free agency or via a trade. Of course, the risk is that it’s just a shot at a good player because draft picks are just gambles, but I think that’s how you gotta play it in this league of stars.
If he pulls of that first thing I will send him a personal e-mail asking for his forgeviness for ever doubting him.
That second; I’d rather keep the picks. Curry+Harden is our back-court of the future; if either doesn’t drop there I feel a lot more comfortable taking an upside guy (as SnP nodes below) … I love Rubio but we can use some more talent than just one player.
Beater of the early Thabeet drum ... but not so much of the late one
by Wim (Belgium) on Jun 20, 2009 4:31 PM CDT up reply actions
SnP notes above ... never know where your post might end up ^^
Beater of the early Thabeet drum ... but not so much of the late one
by Wim (Belgium) on Jun 20, 2009 4:31 PM CDT up reply actions
Zgoda mentioned recently the prospect of trying to get Washington’s pick, and then packaging the 5 and the 18 to get Memphis’s choice. Then draft Rubio at 2, BPA at 6, and still keep Kevin Love. If Kahn does that, he should get GM of the year even before training camp opens.
If they can get a hold of it, they have a ton of flexibility. Miller, Foye, Gomes, Brewer, Pekovic, 18…all of it should be on the table to get that 5th pick. Hell, take back a bad salary if need be. If they get the 5th without giving up the 6th, they can talk to Memphis about trading down for Evans as well as just standing pat and taking something like Evans + Curry, Curry + Thabeet…whatever.
That’s it. My hopes are now too raised.
Right on Wim
In fact, it might be a good deal for us to move down, depending on how things go. We take Curry at 6 for the Knicks, take their pick at 8 and get Flynn or Lawson or Evans, or Holiday, plus considerations like a pick next year, or they take one of our excess bench guys, or?
I'd still pick Calathes from this list
but there’s a Terrence Williams love fest going on over at DraftExpress’ review of shooting guards.
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