Dairy Queen and drunken howls at sports bars.

Is going to stand out on that list in a couple years. Maybe not as much as Karl Malone, but the kid is going to be good.

There are great players available at this point in the draft—but nobody knows who they are yet! Plus, they’re more likely to be guards and foreign players; less likely to be centers and power forwards. The best centers seem to get recognized early and grabbed with the first few picks.

(Now, if the Blazers could only get a top pick and get themselves a quality center … oh yeah, I almost forgot.)

It doesn’t follow that all the top picks are stars. If you look at the past history, many, many so-so players have been picked with the top few picks. (Sometimes just because they’re tall.)

Conversely, looking back at players taken between 11 and 16, wouldn’t you take any of these players in about the top 3 if you knew what they would become?

16th – John Stockton (1984)
13th – Karl Malone (1985)
11th – Reggie Miller (1987)
14th – Dan Majerle (1988)
14th – Tim Hardaway (1989)
13th – Kobe Bryant (1996)
15th – Steve Nash (1996)

Obviously, people didn’t know. And while we’re at it, don’t forget these bargain basement pickups:

46th – Jerome Kersey (1984)
24th – Terry Porter (1985)
26th – Vlade Divac (1989)
28th – Tony Parker (2001)
57th – Manu Ginobili (1999)

So, 13 isn’t bad at all - it’s just a question of spotting the talent and/or getting really lucky. The odds aren’t great but the players are there - somewhere.

Definitely the place to pick up shooting guards with NBA size, but unknown potential:
Kobe
Corey Maggette
Richard Jefferson
Derek Anderson
Jalen Rose
Sleepy Floyd (scoring PG)

Future potential:
Thabo Sefolosha (has a lot of developing to do, but has shown potential)
Marcus Banks (too small, but a valuable reserve)

Other than 2 very notable PF exceptions, the picks at other positions haven’t worked out nearly as well.

from #13 to the end of the draft I count 101 players in the years 1998-2003. These years are the years with 5 years possible and I wanted to see how many players drafted after 12 in the first round stay in the league. 52 players played in some part of 2007-2008 or 51%. The years are remarkable similar with 7-11 players of 16 or 17 possible in each year. The picks in the top 12 averaged 78% playing in 2007-2008 with at least a couple of busts every year.

My point is there are plenty of good players that are available at 13 but plenty of busts as well. KP gets us lots of picks and I still have confidence that he will somehow sort out enough to weave around through all these other GM’s and score. I will be surprised if we don’t end up with at least 2 1st round picks.