A look at the coverage around the net:
Dwight Jaynes is slightly less enthused than your average fan about the Bayless selection and draft night in general. I think he's correct to urge a little caution. There's no guarantee that Bayless will fit in, nor that he has an NBA game if you expect him to play point guard. But as I've said a couple times already, this draft was great not because the players taken are guaranteed to be great, but because the risk is miniscule compared to the potential reward. If we are getting excited because Bayless' ceiling is so high we're missing the point. This is not the Greg Oden draft. We don't know if this guy is going to be all-world. But he could be and he appears to fit our needs as we find out, and we paid almost nothing for the privilege of conducting this experiment. It's ironic that Kevin Pritchard's legacy is likely to be defined as much by the 2007 Oden draft as anything. Not to downplay the homework the team did in making that pick, but Kevin's participation at the most crucial point in that process was sitting in a room saying, "One...more...number...YESSSSS!!!!!!!" It's more subtle moves like these that should truly define his prowess as a GM.
Both Jaynes and Kerry Eggers lambast the league for the eye-gougingly poor draft night coverage. The most prominent objection is the rule against announcing trades (or talking about them if you're a team employee) until they're official. Hear, hear! You make all kinds of changes in the game, sometimes even bending the rules for star players, supposedly "for the fans". Yet on a night when there's no contest at stake, when the whole presentation is set up specifically for the benefit of onlookers (otherwise why not just do it in a dark room and post the results online afterwards), you enforce this annoying, stifling policy that leads to a spectacle of absurdity. Worst of all, it makes the evening far less exciting. On THIS night that's a cardinal sin. Let the star players get fouls and travels called on them like everybody else. We'll all live with Kobe and LeBron fouling out every once in a while. It might make the game seem more realistic even. But for Pete's sake, stop muffling the most interesting aspect of what otherwise becomes a graduation-like (yawn!) recitation of names. If you want to put on a show, PUT ON A SHOW.
Joe Freeman has an excellent post summarizing draft day.
John Canzano celebrates not being bored.
Jason Quick gives us the rundown on James Jones. The bottom line? He wants a contract that's "fair" and to be on a team where he's valued. He's really not going to get either here, on a team that isn't yet looking to take on sizable new contracts and doesn't have enough room for him to play.
Sean Meager at OLive gives you the national perspective.
And Casey Holdahl does some homework on the least-mentioned acquisition in the draft (so far), Monsieur Nicolas Batum.
--Dave (blazersub@yahoo.com)