Being worse than Toney Douglas is not that bad a thing. Douglas is a good scorer, a good defender, and low turnover. That’s three more things than some NBA players are good at.

Playing on a bad team might hurt your stats, but does not doom them. Flynn was only a rookie and his stats suggest he’ll be an NBA player for a while, but they don’t justify where he was picked. By analyzing his college stats you could have known this would likely be the case before he was even drafted.

Flynn is not god-awful, he was a first rounder. I just thought he was a huge reach at #6 and his rookie year didn’t do anything to change my mind. I would have said that in any draft, but this was the deepest PG draft in NBA history. Flynn was picked ahead of Curry, Jennings, Holiday, Lawson…

“There’s no way Flynn’s performance in the tourney could have boosted his stock that much. If that was so, Gordon Hayward and Kyle Singler should be lottery”

He was in the 20s in mock drafts before the conference tourney. It was his performance late in the season along with his personality and workouts. He was drafted on intangibles and measurables, not production.

There’s a good chance Hayward will be a lottery pick and Singler was in the top 20 of ever mock I saw before he pulled out.

“Its not like the NBA where a good playoff performance can get you a large contract”

Often it is. Of course other things are considered. Other things are considered in free agency too. Players who play in the Final Four are routinely reached on and drafted higher than they should be. Think of all the Duke and UNC guys who are drafted higher than they should be. There is some logic to seeing how well a guy does against tough competition, but the sample size has to be large enough… not a few games.

“he’s better than the opinion amongst my fellow KnickerBloggers.”

Here is how good he was his rookie season:
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/f/flynnjo01.html
http://www.82games.com/0910/0910MIN.HTM
How good do you think he is?

“Kurt Rambis, who was in his 1st year being a head coach.”

Minor point of contention, but Kurt Kambis also coached the Lakers into the playoffs for 1/2 a season in 98-99. Again, though, plenty of players have good seasons playing for bad or mediocre coaches. Plenty of players have bad seasons playing for great coaches.

“Also, a lot more goes into a draft than how you perform in college, such as athleticism, and pre-draft workouts.”

And still, every year there are busts taken. Every year there are steals who drop in the draft. Teams do their best in the draft, but they make plenty of mistakes.

“Other things are taken into consideration, its more of a science than a leap of faith.”

I would say the exact opposite. If it were anything resembling a science then the draft order every year would match up with the players’ careers.

Even the re-sign David Lee part? Man, it wasn’t long ago you didn’t want to trade him straight up for Kobe Bryant!

The guy played in Minnesota, and they didn’t have much talent. At one point people were saying New Jersey, despite the record, was the better team between. Maybe this is Flynn’s fault, but he was playing under Kurt Rambis, who was in his 1st year being a head coach. Also, I’m not sure that the triangle offense is suited for Flynn, or a rookie for that matter. To me, a good amount of a rookie’s success is based on the system he comes into, and the coach. Look at the rookie guards who did well; Tyreke Evans, Brandon Jennings, Stephen Curry, and Ty Lawson to name a few. The guys coaching these teams are Paul Westphal, Scott Skiles, Don Nelson, and George Karl. I’m sure we’re unanimous here that the aforementioned are better than Rambis. Also, Earl Watson? I think that’s a little harsh, that’s a worst case scenario in my opinion. His best case scenario could be, I’m not sure, an explosive, score first PG with good court vision? Sounds contradictory, but he’s better than the opinion amongst my fellow KnickerBloggers. At least I hope so.

Flynn posted a .511 TS% and a 13 PER. According to Dave Berri’s metric, he produced -0.68 wins this season in 2300 minutes. The odds are that he’s never going to be good (barring some kind of freak ascent a la Kevin Durant, made even less likely by his position and height). And with so many young players that are already good, why risk the future on another project?

Man, I feel like Jon Abbey….

I would add that I would put Danny Granger in the same category as Rudy Gay and Joe Johnson as overrated free agents who won’t lead the Knicks to greatness…

Something tells me we’re getting lucky tonight, and a team will get a pick that will make one of their best players expendable. I’m crossing my fingers for Indy to get the 4th/5th pick and takes Wesley Johnson, making Danny Granger expendable, at least in theory. But I’m almost certain San Antonio would be in on any Danny Granger action.

ESPN doesn’t have JCN listed under Memphis’ 2010 restricted free agents, so they must have renounced him (if they hadn’t I believe his cap hold would stay on their books every offseason, as I guess Childress’ is in Atlanta… maybe they had to renounce him for the Randolph trade?). La Bomba signed a really fat contract when he returned to Barca, I think the fattest in Spanish basketball history… So, I don’t think he’s coming stateside again.