7 comments Here is Bill Simmons' 2010 Draft Diary

I have finally broken down and covered Bill Simmons draft diary. No one requested I do the Bill Simmons draft diary, but there isn't anything else I care to cover for today and it is just hanging out there tempting me. So fuck it, here is the Bill Simmons draft diary. I want to cover it and so I will do so.

One night before the 2010 NBA draft, I was reading mock drafts and Googling various prospects

Mind you, Bill had already participated in a mock draft with Chad Ford that afternoon. So he did research AFTER the mock draft. Probably because he felt like Chad Ford handed his ass to him in the mock draft.

Before I knew it, she was ordering Robert Pattinson's movie "Remember Me." She loves Pattinson. So does my daughter, who brings a "Twilight" lunchbox to school every day with his face on it. My house is all Pattinson all the time. When I'm away, my wife and daughter lie in bed and fall asleep to "Twilight" every night. I stay out of it. I'm in six fantasy leagues; it's not like I can make fun of someone else's obsessions.

(Sports Guy) "I am having trouble coming up with an introduction to my NBA Draft column. Do you have any ideas?"

(Sports Gal) "Yeah, just pick the latest fad and comment on it and then compare it to something else...like you always do."

(Sports Guy) "Great idea. Perhaps I will talk about our kids too. I don't know if America knows kids like 'Twilight' or Robert Pattinson. I will inform America that our daughter likes him."

I had the following exchange with my wife.

-- Me: "You realize how terrible an actor he is, right?"
-- Her: "He's young. He'll get better. He has potential. He's like one of your NBA picks."

Not a far-fetched analogy. According to her logic, Pattinson is like Derrick Favors: young, raw, all the physical tools, no polish at all. I see him more like Wesley Johnson: a fourth-year junior who can't get much better than he already is. Only one of us is right. You don't know for sure. You can't know for sure. That's the beauty of the NBA draft. If only she had said that Pattinson had tremendous upside.

So Robert Pattinson IS the NBA Draft? I am glad we wasted 300 words deciding this.

Sadly, this introduction is still better than another round of retro-diaries and live blogs about the NBA Finals from Bill.

4:30 p.m. PT: We're coming to you live from the New and Improved Man Cave. I'm joined by my pooch Rufus, a bottle of SmartWater and a bag of stale Baked Lays. My favorite moment from the pregame show with Stu Scott, Jon Barry, Jeff Van Gundy and Jay Bilas: Bilas ran down his "Best 15 Available Players" in the following order: 5, 4, 3, 2, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11.

That's probably because he wanted the numbers to have projectable length and a long wingspan. It took me two picks to become annoyed with Bilas talking.

Also confusing: ESPN using Michael Buble's romantic swing music as the theme for tonight's telecast. I can't tell if we're drafting players or trying to roofie them.

Good joke. I enjoyed that. Now when I read Simmons' columns I feel like I am coaxing a 14 year old dog to slowly do the same tricks he could easily do 4 years ago. I know it isn't the same, but I just want to encourage him so I feel like it is.

Now I am even comparing things to each other like Bill does rather than just saying what I mean.

4:37: Our No. 1 pick for Washington: John Wall. On the "Coming Into The League Can't-Miss Point Guard" Scale, I have Wall ranked behind '94 Jason Kidd and '08 Derrick Rose, but ahead of '05 Deron Williams, who's really good.

I don't know, I would probably put Wall above Derrick Rose...seriously. Wall is a lock to be a great NBA point guard and he is currently 1.4% better than Rose was coming out of college. Don't ask where I got the percentage from, but just assume it is accurate. So for me, the "can't miss" scale goes:

1. Jason Kidd
2. Chris Paul
3. John Wall
4. Derrick Rose
5. Jay Williams

11. Rajon Rondo
18. Deron Williams

It's a good thing I didn't write on this blog when Deron Williams was drafted. I was not a huge fan of his coming out of Illinois.

4:37: Bilas uses the word "tremendous" three times in a minute.

Let's get one thing out of the way really quickly. ESPN needs to quit fucking up the draft coverage. Why the hell do they have guys like Van Gundy up there commenting when he has been following the NBA all year and probably hasn't watched much college basketball? Why does Jay Bilas get to talk a lot? Shouldn't there be someone to tell him he is wrong about a player? I hate Doug Gottlieb, but I wouldn't mind hearing him tell Jay Bilas, that yes, Jordan Hill does have great athleticism and great length, but no, this doesn't mean he will be a good NBA player. The Mark Jones interview has to go too. ESPN needs to put college basketball people on the NBA Draft.

4:40: Mark Jones asks Wall what it means to be the first Kentucky player picked No. 1 overall.

All you need to know about John Calipari is that he said this was the greatest day in the history of Kentucky basketball. Congratulations Kentucky, you wanted a coach who recruited good players and you got one. I know the priorities for coaches should be to get guy's drafted high, but John Wall was barely at Kentucky and it means so very little to the program when he is drafted in regards to the team's success. I don't see Ashley Judd in the crowd in her UK apparel excited that Wall went #1...probably because the alumni want a championship, not a #1 draft pick.

4:49: Our first draft for Mutant Russian Mark Cuban and the Nyets! They grab Derrick Favors, the Georgia Tech freshman who might be the best 2010 rookie when everything's said and done. (Think Antonio McDyess pre-ACL surgery.)

This comparison has been used a lot recently. I remember Antonio McDyess pre-ACL surgery and I guess the similarities are there, but Favors will not be this year nor will he ever be the best 2010 rookie. That's my bold prediction for today.

He played for a poorly coached team with bad guards, he's ambidextrous (or, as Mike Tyson would say, "amphibious")

Actually, Charles Shackleford would be the one who said that. Not that Bill would know who Charles Shackleford is.

My big concern: Does anyone else worry that Avery Johnson could single-handedly turn Favors into Kwame Brown 2.0 just by screaming at him in a squeaky voice for eight straight months?

Or Favors could turn himself into Kwame Brown simply because it doesn't seem like he gives a shit...of course would I give a shit if I was coached by Paul Hewitt and didn't have a point guard on my college team? No team is worse coached than a Paul Hewitt team. He makes John Calipari look like Red Auerbach. It's really hard to criticize Favors when there are so many excuses to use for him just based on the fact he went to Georgia Tech and was coached by Paul Hewitt. I have seen college rec-league games more organized than the Georgia Tech offense and defense has seemed to be at times.

4:50: Mark Jones asks Favors about his "mentorship/pupil" relationship with Chris Bosh. This could be a long night.

Please end Mark Jones asking questions of the players. Was there no sideline reporter available for this? What the hell does the interview bring to the table during the draft coverage?

5:00: The case for Cousins dropping to No. 5: He's so immature that (A) he's been most compared to Rasheed Wallace and Derrick Coleman;

I think Derrick Favors is a really good comparison to Derrick Coleman. I can see that. Even though Bill just compared Cousins to Coleman, I think Coleman is a better comparison to Favors. As far as Cousins goes, there has always been that rumor that he is heavily medicated for whatever mental illness ails him, so maybe the Kings will bump up the meds to make sure he doesn't go off the deep end at any point.

5:02: ESPN's graphics guy gives Cousins "MUST IMPROVE: MATURITY." Knew that was coming and it still made me laugh.

Another complaint about ESPN. The "Must Improve" graphic has to go. There was a "Must Improve: Ball Handling" graphic for two power forwards drafted. They were freaking power forwards, do you want them handling the ball a lot? That's like putting a "Must Improve: Rebounding" graphic up for a point guard.

5:04: John Calipari tries to claim with a straight face that, since Kentucky might have five first-round picks, it's the biggest day in the history of Kentucky basketball. Yeah, I'm sure it beats winning the title in 1996 or 1998. Go away.

I told everyone I agreed with Bill on some issues. Calipari needs to go away like every other college coach (except Tom Izzo) has done. Go violate some NCAA rule or something.

5:07: Golden State grabs Baylor shot-blocker Ekpe Udoh. It's going to be fun when Don Nelson plays him for three weeks, Udoh puts up huge rebounding/blocks stats, there's a fantasy hoops stampede for him and then Nellie inexplicably benches him for the next three months.

I know I am not criticizing Bill enough and I am sorry, but he is exactly right about this. First off, Udoh was a terrible pick for the Warriors and I would rather see nearly any other NBA assistant coach the Warriors rather than Don Nelson at this point. Somebody needs to start a ReleaseAnthonyRandolph.com blog. The guy deserves another shot somewhere else.

The same thing for Brandan Wright. I even miss making donkey noises when he gets the basketball, because he has huge ears and looks like a donkey. He needs more playing time so I can continue making donkey noises. I say the best part about this draft is that Don Nelson is paying lip service to the idea of his team playing defense and then he will bench Udoh all year. That'll show those meddling owners of the Warriors who don't like Nellie-Ball and want the team to be more "conventional."

That's followed by a Flip Saunders interview that almost made me flatline. We're on pace for the most boring draft I can remember. Can you give me a drunk dad, a bad suit, a pithy Stern comment … anything???

Combining the fact most teams are looking to get free agents on July 1 and don't care about draft picks this year, the players have been put on so many tranquilizers by their handlers they couldn't say or do anything controversial if they tried, and how there were really no crazy picks, it was one of the most boring drafts ever.

5:18: Here come the Clippers at No. 8! Whose ACL is getting blown out this year??? And it's … Al-Farouq Aminu, the Wake Forest forward who kinda looks like Urkel. He sure seems happy for someone who's about to end up in a full-body cast. Nice pick for the Clips; they could use energy legs off the bench. As long as they're not dangling in the air over a hospital bed. And yes, if you're talking about the No. 7 pick in a draft being "a good energy guy off the bench," it's a pretty good bet that the draft sucks.

This year's draft sucks sort of like how Bill thought last year's draft sucked...except it didn't end up sucking?

Bill Simmons is the one determining from his vast knowledge from watching Aminu in college that he is "a good energy guy off the bench" and then Bill is the one determining the draft sucks based on his own comments in order to prove himself correct in saying the draft sucks. Bill made the evaluation of Aminu and then proved himself right about the draft based on his own evaluation of Aminu. So Bill agrees with Bill, which is always good to know.

Also, Aminu was the #8 pick in the draft not the #7 and he isn't just a good energy guy off the bench. He is a small forward that can be play power forward in a small lineup and is a great rebounder for a small forward. I like the pick as long as the Clippers don't have their bad luck rub off on him.

5:24: Utah picks NCAA near-legend Gordon Hayward ninth. He was two inches away from being the real Jimmy Chitwood.

That shot going in would have been the end of me. Seriously, I may have had a heart attack and died. At some point, karma is going to pay Duke basketball back for the Christian Laettner era, but right now it is just waiting for the perfect time (unless the 1999 NCAA Championship game was the payback). Karma doesn't like it when a player hits two game winning shots in the tournament in a span of three years, steps on another player's chest with no repercussions and just generally acts like a dick to his teammates though they still love him.

(That's an under-reported part of Laettner's college career. Sure he was a decorated player, but he verbally abused his teammates in practice and still did until the day he graduated. He is like a white, non-athletic version of Michael Jordan/Kobe Bryant in that way. Grant Hill called him an ass, "but in a good way," meaning he hit game-winning shots and played for Hill's team...otherwise he was an asshole and nobody should ever like him as a person.)

5:31: I present two athletic perimeter guys for you, both freshmen:

• Xavier Henry (born March 1991), 2-guard: a top-3 college recruit in 2009, started on the No. 1 college team (regular season), averaged 13.4 ppg (27.5 mpg), shot 45.5 percent and 41.8 percent on 3s, didn't get a ton of touches on a veteran team, did everything he could to fit in.

• Paul George (born May 1990), small forward: not a top-100 college recruit, best player on a 15-18 team in the WAC, averaged 16.8 ppg (33.2 mpg), shot 42 percent and 35 percent on 3s, played inferior competition.

Whom did the Pacers take? Naturally, George. Did I mention that their best player (Danny Granger) is a small forward? I love the NBA.

Let's do a little fact checking here:

-Paul George is not a freshman. He was a sophomore. Bill is wrong about this.

-Xavier Henry got a fair amount of touches at Kansas. He was second on the team in points and second in shot attempts. I think that counts as getting a lot of touches, especially on a veteran team. Bill is wrong about this.

-That ESPNU 100 is a fucking joke. Any list of players from the 2009 class that has Avery Bradley #1 and John Wall #5 and has the Wear twins in the mid-30's is a mockery. Every other search I did had John Wall #1 or #2 in the class. Avery Bradley is not the #1 player in the 2009 class. I don't give a shit what ESPN says. Bill is wrong that Bradley was the #1 recruit. I don't see how that could be true, no matter what ESPN says.

-Also, it doesn't really matter whether Paul George was a top recruit or not, it shouldn't have too much of a bearing on where he should have been drafted compared to another player. I will say, as I made clear on Monday, I hated the pick of George. The NBA scouts have become infatuated with how good of a player he projects to be and I think Henry should have been the pick for Indiana.

5:36: New Orleans picks Kansas center Cole Aldrich at No. 11, then deals him to Oklahoma City (our first trade!) with Mo Peterson's expiring contract for the No. 21 and No. 26 picks. I would have loved that move for OKC if Aldrich didn't measure 6-9 in street clothes during the combines; that triples the potential that he's just a shorter Joel Przybilla.

Bill is already trying to back away from his comment on Twitter that he would rather have Aldrich over Ed Davis. All it took was scouts telling Bill he was wrong that Aldrich projects to be a backup center in the NBA and now because Aldrich has lost two inches off his height, Bill compares him to Joel Przybilla. Let's please remember that Bill wasn't wrong about Cole Aldrich, he just didn't have all the information. Bill has never been wrong, there's always a reason he was wrong and it should not reflect on his ability to be trusted when evaluating a college player after seeing him play one time.

5:48: Our "draft capologist" Tom Penn (the former assistant Blazers GM) explains how New Orleans got under the cap by dumping Peterson's body. Er, contract. I'm pretty sure I could have been our draft capologist while doing this diary and wearing jogging pants in my house. Why wasn't this job posted by HR? I would have applied!

Has anyone ever noticed Bill wants every job available that isn't the one he currently has?

By the way, you know this draft sucks because I'm now irrationally excited that the Celtics (picking 19th) might get either Eric Bledsoe (my favorite remaining prospect) or Avery Bradley (ESPNU's No. 1 college recruit just 12 months ago) as Rondo insurance.

We all know recruiting rankings can never be wrong, so that has to mean Avery Bradley will eventually be a great player. ESPN's 100 recruits had Tasmin Mitchell as the #1 recruit for the 2005 class in the summer of 2004, so it is not like recruiting lists are gospel.

I thought we'd have dreck left in this spot.

Really? Nearly every single mock draft had Eric Bledsoe going in the 20's of this draft, which means he would be available for the Celtics. The only one I saw that didn't have it this way was the WalterFootball NBA mock draft and it took balls to put Bledsoe on the team that should have taken him, the Pacers. The consensus seemed to be that Bledsoe would be available at #19.

6:19: Come on Celtics … Avery Bradley … Avery Bradley … Avery Bradley.

You know Bill added this in here after the draft to make it look like he knew who the Celtics would pick and to make him look smarter. I won't accept the idea that he didn't do this, because I know he did.

6:20: YES! Good value. And by the way, if you're betting on a No. 1 overall high school prospect whose stock dropped a little after one college year, you want it to be for a reason like, "Yeah, he played at Texas for Rick Barnes, OF COURSE his stock dropped!"

Great point, but it doesn't explain why T.J. Ford's draft stock didn't drop and neither did Kevin Durant's. So it is not like all of Rick Barnes' players have their stock drop prior to the draft. Part of the reason Bradley's stock dropped was due to his performance during his freshman year.

6:33: Weird one for me: I've learned never to doubt San Antonio's picks, but it just took someone I had penciled in as a bust (Oklahoma State's James Anderson). This is awkward.

I agree with Bill Simmons on a college player. This must mean I am wrong. Ignore everything I have ever written about James Anderson...actually don't. This is awkward.

6:45: Atlanta takes Damion James, the Texas scorer who has a hygiene fetish and showers four times a day. (Not making that up.) He's the Bizarro Pau Gasol. In other news, I went 6-for-24 in my mock draft. Where's my Finals MVP trophy?

Bitter Bill still has to take shots at Kobe. The Celtics lost and complaining about how Kobe didn't play well isn't the way to prove the Lakers didn't deserve to win.

Crawford was my last "I think that guy could be in a nine-man rotation on a good team" pick. Really like him.

No way. Vasquez, Lance Stephenson, Terrico White, Devin Ebanks, and Caracter could be a nine-man rotation player on a good team too.

7:11: The Vasquez interview cheered me up. Unlike just about everyone we've seen, he was delighted/giddy/candid and basically reminded us that, yeah, it's a big freaking deal to get drafted in the first round of the NBA draft. Highlight of a fairly tedious night.

It comes off as delighted/giddy/candid and then it turns into annoying/eye-rolling/frustrating after four years. Trust me on this. I am not sad to see him leave Maryland.

My four suggestions to spruce it up:

Suggestion No. 1: Have real NBA players conduct the interviews with the rookies after they get picked. I'd pick three of the league's most gregarious stars (I'm thinking Dwight Howard, Kevin Durant and Grant Hill) and have them do it for every pick, almost like an NBA version of "The View." Wouldn't that loosen up the rookies a little?

Kevin Durant and Grant Hill are gregarious? I think these guys would be uncomfortable interviewing the NBA draftees and would somehow manage to do a worse job than Mark Jones did. I don't like this idea.

Suggestion No. 4: We don't need a real sideline reporter for the draft. We're not breaking real news here. So what about Ron Artest? You're telling me he wouldn't want to prowl the crowd and interview parents, fans and coaches? Who's a bigger attention hog than him? More importantly, didn't we learn from the 2010 Finals that you can never have enough of this formula: "Ron Artest + live microphone"?

I would enjoy this. Bill has a good idea here.

All the things that used to make the draft so entertaining (uncertainty of picks, bad wardrobes, lack of hard information, embarrassing interviews) have been slowly beaten out of the draft by wily agents, enterprising Internet reporting, 24/7 news coverage and an acquired sophistication among prospects who watched the previous generation of prospects shatter the unintentional-comedy scale every June.

And yet there was Wes Johnson on stage wearing plaid pants. Apparently his agent didn't know to keep the dress conservative.

We need to create the comedy. We need to make this a fun night again. I'll keep my fingers crossed. Until next year.

I guess I look forward to Bill's draft diary next year. Well, I guess it is back to writing retro-diaries and live blogging for Bill for the next few months.