The Suns

They sure like to draft brothers of great players.

Danny Green to Cavs

This could be a steal. Green is the same type of player as Terrence Williams. That "new prototype" I mentioned. The guy who comes in with the combination of 3-point shooting and great defense. This type fits in perfectly with a superstar, because his offense is effective, but not the least bit intrusive on that superstar. Vitale predicted a San Antonio-Cleveland finals in 2010 during the telecast. I see little reason to doubt that.

Blair to the Spurs

The Spurs are notorious for trading their picks, so don't put this down as a sure thing yet. If they keep Blair, they've now upgraded from Bowen to Jefferson and added a great rebounder to their bench. With Ginobili coming back at full health, the Spurs have retooled themselves into a championship favorite. Seriously, how does this happen? Why are players who will never amount to anything like Pendergraph and Cunningham get drafted so a Blair can slide to the Spurs? I guess ths is another reminder of why the Spurs are 4-time champs.

Blair

I'm not going to dwell on this too much, because I probably already have. But drafting Jeff Pendergraph ahead of Dejuan Blair is just silly.

I need a walk

The Blonde wants to take a walk down to the local market for some vitamin water. My Bulls got James Johnson and Taj Gibson. There must be something wrong with Blair's knees. My hope as a fan is these players are part of an eventual deal for Chris Bosh.

Best remaining:

Blair
Calathes
Marcus Thornton
Aaron Jackson
Wayne Ellington

Presti

If it's true that he gets out of this draft with Harden, Mullens and the Suns' #1 next year he's clearly the genius he was rumored to be. Too bad it won't happen in Seattle, but this team is going to be great.

Blazers

This is a team that has dominated the draft for the last few years. I'm a fairly recent resident of Oregon after moving there from Chicago a few years ago. The Blazers have become my second team and they're a great second team to have. I was hoping Lawson would slide to them, but they ended up taking Klaver who's obviously a future. The thing that concerns me about the Blazers is the Turkoglu rumors. This is not a player the Blazers need and he's be overpriced after his nice series against Cleveland. What the Blazers need is for Oden to get well and play like the elite center he appeared to be coming out of Ohio State.

10-20 thoughts

• Tyler Hansbrough?At #13? Are you effing kidding me? With Dejuan Blair still on the board?
  
• Chicago and Philly both get points for grabbing a player who slid. In both cases it's a great fit. Chicago needed a good combo PF. Phillie needed a PG of the future. That said, Philly should have grabbed Lawson and handed him the job.
  
• Some team is going to get a late steal in Blair.
• That veggie pizza I just made and ate was good, but with a few tweaks will be great. It was a new recipe and the mix was a little off.
  
• Terrence Williams is about as wild a wild card as I've ever seen. He doesn't project very well, but he fits the prototype of a new type of NBA player. That's a guy who can hit the trey and defend. Bruce Bowen, Raja Bell and now Mikael Pietrus. There's no player from this draft whose career I'm more anxious to watch transpire.
  
• Austin Daye could remake Joe Dumars' rep. He's a high upside/high risk type. There are some hints at greatness, but there are strength, toughness and focus issues that he needs to get right.
• Ty Lawson to Denver. Minnesota probably dealt him so he wouldn't embarass Flynn. Good for Denver. They got the best PG in the draft. He and Anthony should set the Nuggets up as a contender for years to come.
• Henderson and Teague were reaches.
  

Brandon Jennings

The Bucks seem to be in love with the combine process and this pick is no exception to that. They drafted workout wonder Alexander last year and Jennings this year.
Jennings is a tough call. Since his stats were made in Europe, they're hard to compare to NCAA stats. His Euro stats weren't good. The problem is, Ty Lawson was there on the board and the Bucks took a pass on him for a project.
That's 10 picks in and I'm going to take a little break. The news so far is so many guards have gone. That's a rare thing and a testament to the strength of the perimeter players and the weakness of the inside players. Best 5 remaining:

Lawson
Blair
Mullens
James Johnson
Terrence Williams

Demar Derozan

Watching how things have been in Toronto since Colangelo took over, I can't help but wonder if his rep was made by Mike D'Antoni. I was never much impressed by him until that Phoenix team took off. After watching him draft an obvious role player in Bargnini #1 and rule a Toronto team that's stuck in mediocrity, I have doubts about him again.
This is a reach. Derozan isn't ready and may never be.

Jordan Hill

Does the NBA realize that the NY focus that they have always had kind of annoys the rest of the country? Especially since the local franchise has had such a mediocre history.
I don't like this pick. They should have taken Lawson. Hill just isn't all that good. I read a rumor that D'Antoni sees Hill as another Amare. I'll give a sarcastic, "Good luck with that." before adding that Donnie Walsh is a guy with a pretty strong history and "Good luck with that." was how most people including myself felt when Phoenix signed Steve Nash 5 years ago. That down, I see Hill as nothing more than a journeyman.
This seemingly takes the Knicks out of any Rubio/Flynn trade scenarios.

Stephen Curry

Great place for Curry. He'll fit well next to Ellis. This is a team of mad bombers, so adding another isn't a bad thing. The Warriors are like the Clippers. This is a talented bunch and if they get an offseason free of injuries, contract troubles and motorbike accidents they'll be a player in the west, at least as far as getting into the playoffs.
Jordan is the slider.

Ricky Rubio and Jonny Flynn

I like the deal the Timberwolves made. Miller wasn't working with them and Foye just isn't that good. They don't need a reminder that Brandon Roy was once one of them. They also did it in a draft where they can pretty add a potentially great backcourt.
I get the feeling that in 5 years at least one of the top four teams is going to look very silly for having passed on Rubio. Jonny Flynn? Sheesh! Sounds to me like someone is going to be traded. Stay tuned here.
Flynn might be the most overrated player in the draft. No Jay Bilas, he wasn't an improved perimeter shooter. As for the trade, perhaps they'll toss Flynn or Rubio and another draft pick to Sacto for Evans. That would make sense for both teams at this point. I can't believe Minnesota will go at it with 2 pure PGs.

James Harden and Tyreke Evans

I think the Thunder settled on Harden a while back. The Rubio talk was probably angling for a swap of picks and picking up a few more assets. This is a great place for Harden. His diverse game will be a great complement to Kevin Durant. Another great thing is he's going into a place as a member of the supporting cast. Just makes for an easier transition.
The Thunder got another boost when Phoenix gave away Shaq. Since they own the Suns' #1 pick in 2010, likely improvement next year won't keep them from being players in the lottery.
Evans to Sacto is interesting. Tells me that Geoff Petrie might be getting it back. I'm not sure about the immediate fit though. They're talking about Evans as a PG, but I see him as more of a SG. I guess we'll see how this plays out. I will say this, if I had to take one player from this draft to build around it probably would have been Evans. He's not going to the great situation like Harden though. I'm just glad he didn't slide. He's way too good a player for that.

Hasheem Thabeet

I endorse this pick also. I think Evans is the BA(best available) here, but the Grizz have a couple of promising guards in place. Adding another might create a mess. Better to add a big guy who can step in and give this young, erratic team some defense.

Blake Griffin

This is the right choice. I don't feel Griffin is definitely the best player in the draft. A case could be made for Rubio, Evans or Thabeet. But the Clipps could use a solid citizen like Griffin as a building block. A couple of things to add. First, there is no logjam in the Clipper frontcourt. Just a log named Zach. Second is this team isn't that far from the playoffs. The way the West is now, the addition of a Griffin and a return to form by Baron Davis could make this group pretty formidable with the supproting cast they have in place. Now the fun starts.

Blogging the draft

I'm going to try this. I'm not exactly hard-wired for this type of thing though. I'm a little slow-witted and I always need 10-20 rewrites before I get something I like. That said, the idea of live-blogging something like this has always intrigued me. The strange thing is I'm likely going to be blogging to myself. That gives it an edge of comedy, tragedy and is really kind of pathetic. But David Stern is at the podium and we're ready to go.