Wouldn’t Igoudala really be a great 3rd piece (if we aren’t in the realistic market for D12, CP3)? Great defender and distributor and complimentary player to Stat and Melo. He runs the floor and pushes the ball and can act as a primary ball handler at times for SSoL.

Billups, Fields, Walker and the 17 pick for Iggy? Does Philly bite?

Turn out a lineup of:
TD
Iggy
Melo
Stat
Turiaf

The only issues are he can’t shoot the 3 (TD spreads the floor in that lineup) and we remain awfully thin upfront.

I don’t see how that list is supposed to disprove the efficacy of PAWS40 as a predictive tool. I’ll respond to the second list, primarily:

-Blair would start on several NBA teams, and has been a great player for where he was drafted. I would not have advocated for him at #17 with…

-Lawson on the table. He’s performed exceptionally well, and I anticipate him taking his game to the next level with 3000+ minutes next season.

-Blake Griffin was a sure-thing. PAWS40 only echoed the consensus.

-Ahmad Nivins was exceptionally good in college. He has not played in the NBA. Is that supposed to prove that he would have been a bad NBA player? Case in point: Nick Fazekas is still in the NBDL, and Bargnani got a contract extension despite being one of the worst starters in the NBA. So Fazekas must be worse than Bargnani, right? Let’s not forget that top-level NBA executives have given Jerome James a $30M contract. Charlie Villanueva got a huge one, too. And that big white dude on Orlando who used to be in Toronto.

-Lester Hudson has played 200 minutes in the NBA. That’s about 5-7 games of starter’s minutes. Not indicative of anything.

-Thabeet, aside from being unable to shoot the ball at any reasonable volume, averaged 9 points and 10 rebounds per 36 at a fairly good TS% his rookie year (fell off a cliff for some reason the next year). He had a strong rookie season and then was dismissed for some reason. I have no idea why. Dude averaged 4 blocks/36 as a rookie.

-Jon Brockman has a higher career WS/48 (1300 MP) than Juwan Howard. Your exclamation point does nothing to detract from his success on the court. Maybe not be carried by the ESPN hype machine, but…

-Terence Williams sucks.

-Stephen Curry would have been a good #2 pick.

Etc., etc. I don’t see how any point has been made here. Jrue Holiday’s not very good (low TS%, below-average WS/48). Jordan Hill sucks. I don’t see much of an argument here.

http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/t/thomama05.html

Super athlete that can guard a legit pf or sf. He can’t shoot well, but his TS was a respectable .560. I think he’s a better finisher than Singleton, but doesn’t have the jumper Singleton has.

latke: Thanks Z… I think. I’m cynical. I know.

You’re welcome (I loved the simile)

The Honorable Cock Jowles: DeJuan Blair was a second-round pick! Come on! Yes, he tailed off a bit, but at $700k a year, how could you lose?

You know what upside is? Something made up by scouts to sound more knowledgeable than they are. It’s the Moneyball principle, time and time again. The stats say that Faried is more likely than most to be an outstanding basketball player. The eye-test (or the measurements, what have you) says otherwise. Who do you have?

I’ve got the stats. I’d rather “gamble” on a proven rebounding machine (and the whole mid-major nonsense is ridiculous; D-1 basketball is competitive as hell; ask Davidson, George Mason, Butler, et al.) than take some guy who’s got “upside” just because he’s athletic but still hasn’t learned how to be a good basketball player yet. Faried is good at basketball, say the stats. That’s enough for me.

You never answered Frank @112 regarding the validity of PAWS40 over the past two drafts.

Re: Blair, he slipped to the 2nd round because of his knees and work ethic/attitude. As it turns out, he was a steal in the 2nd round, and would have been a solid late-first round pick, but in hindsight just OK at #17 (I would currently put at least 17 players from that draft ahead of him, including some with much lower PAWS40 scores (e.g. Harden, Taj Gibson) or no reliable stats/scores (Beaubois). If you drafted Blair at #17 based you the same “stats”, you missed out on Collison, Lawson, Teague, etc.

As far as the trade you suggested, that sounds cool. Flynn for just Walker would be nice as well. These mocks are so random. The two guys I hoped for in the late 1st early 2nd — Noguiera and Reggie Jackson — had jumped into the teens on DX and are now not even projected to go in the 1st round.

That way we could draft a 2 and a big. Then buy a 2nd rounder or two and draft a couple more flyers.

Or the easy thing would be if AMARE JUST PLAYED DEFENSE. Or if we had a coherent defensive plan EVER.