Draft thoughts

I don't usually get too involved in prospective NBA players, just like I don't usually care about college football or basketball recruits. Drafting and recruiting are crapshoots for the most part. How many top-5 picks in the NBA draft have turned out to be giant busts? Kwame Brown, Joe Smith, Michael Olowokandi, Shawn Bradley... the list is pretty long.

It's hard to predict who will succeed in the NBA. Some players don't do much in college and turn out to have 10-year careers in the league. Others dominate in college and are out of the NBA within two seasons.

So with that in mind, I'm not going submit a mock draft, but here are some thoughts:

1. I'm not that high on Rose. He's freakishly quick and a decent shooter, but that puts him at the level of Devin Harris, in my book. Maybe he's a better distributor than he showed in college (4.7 apg), but if he's not, Chicago had better not be expecting him to come in and turn that team around.

2. I'm also not sold on Beasley. Recent reports put him at 6'8", which is small forward range. I was more excited when I thought he was 6'10", fair or not. I doubt he'll be able to post up power forwards in the NBA, which means he'll have to rely on his jumper, which is admittedly pretty sweet. Don't see him being a major impact player in the NBA, either.

3. How weird is it that seven years after Stanford produced twin centers who were drafted into the NBA, they do it again? I doubt they'll perform much better than their predecessors.

4. Apparently Roy Hibbert has been working his tail off and getting in shape. Thus, his stock has improved, and he should be gone by the time the Jazz's pick comes around. In that case, TRADE YOUR PICKS, UTAH. Develop Fesenko and Almond and Brewer. Don't bring in two new guys to muddle things up.

5. Mock drafts around the internet say that Plaisted has a face-up game. He never, ever, ever, EVER showed this in three years at BYU. Not once. Trent had exactly one move: back the defender down, then flip a pseuso-hook shot over his left shoulder from the key. If he has somehow developed the ability to face the basket and hit a jumper since March, I will be highly astounded.

That's about all that interests me about this year's draft. I think it's fairly weak. We'll see.