Next time they show Arthur he'll be a skeleton.
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Uh-oh. Arthur may be toast. Now I wonder if the Spurs will take the chance.Comment -
Arthur has a kidney problem? No wonder.......
I doubt Lakers would draft him anyways. They drafted Turiaf and he had a fatal heart ailment which would've killed him had the Lakers not paid for his surgery.Comment -
Yeah, we should've known something was up for this guy to drop like this.Comment -
George Hill goes 26th overall to the Spurs.Comment -
The Hornets plans is to trade the 27th pick to help with free agency!!!
The talk here in Louisiana is the Hornets in eying Gilbert Arenas or Corey MagetteComment -
New Orleans is selecting 27th overall for Portland.
Darrell ArthurComment -
Memphis selects Donte' Greene 28th overallComment -
Detroit selects D.J. White 29th overall from IndianaComment -
The 30th and last pick of the first round belongs to the Boston Celtics
J.R. GiddensComment -
Rose & Beasley shift NBA odds after draft
As expected, Derrick Rose went to the Chicago Bulls Thursday night with the No. 1 pick in the 2008 NBA Draft. And after rumored deals to trade down, the Miami Heat kept their No. 2 selection and grabbed Kansas State standout Michael Beasley. Both Rose and Beasley immediately made an impact on their teams with some major shaving to their new teams' odds on the NBA futures market.
I love it when a plan comes together.
As expected, the Chicago Bulls took Derrick Rose first overall in the 2008 NBA Draft. And as expected, their betting odds for the 2008-09 NBA championship shrank, from 40-1 to 30-1 at press time. Rose will step right into the point guard position on a young Bulls team brimming with talent. But Chicago wasn’t the only team moving up the odds list on draft day.
It took some convincing, but in the end, Pat Riley listened to his people. The Miami Heat president and sometimes coach was not terribly enthusiastic about Michael Beasley, the outstanding power forward from Kansas State who was universally assumed to be available to the Heat at No. 2. Reports had Riley shopping the pick, hoping to trade down for an opportunity to grab one of the many promising point guards available in the Top 10. Instead, Beasley went to Miami and was still a member of the Heat at press time.
This may prove to be the signature moment of the 2008 NBA Draft, even bigger than the Rose selection. The Heat moved from 200-1 to 150-1 on the championship futures market; the 2-3-4 combination of Dwyane Wade, Shawn Marion and Beasley will be very difficult to handle in the Eastern Conference. And Riley eventually did get a point guard when the Heat swapped a pair of second-rounders to Minnesota for the No. 34 pick in the draft, Mario Chalmers from Kansas. Yes, that Mario Chalmers.
Thursday’s other big climber was the Toronto Raptors. Their trade with the Indiana Pacers is a go, although it cannot be made official until July 9 (or July 1, according to some reports) because of the usual contract-based shenanigans. Here’s the skinny as we understand it:
- To Toronto: Jermaine O’Neal, pick No. 41 (Nathan Jawai)
- To Indiana: T.J. Ford, Rasho Nesterovic, Maceo Baston, pick No. 17 (Roy Hibbert)
The prospect of pairing O’Neal with Chris Bosh on the Toronto frontline was enough to move the Raptors from 25-1 to 20-1 on the NBA futures market. The Pacers, on the other hand, drop from 50-1 to 75-1. They had Arizona point guard Jerryd Bayless fall into their laps with the No. 11 pick, but flipped him and Ike Diogu to Portland for the No. 13 pick (Brandon Rush), Jarrett Jack and Josh McRoberts.
The Trail Blazers made out like bandits Thursday, although not enough (yet) to move them up from 50-1 to win the NBA title. Once the merry-go-round of draft-day deals stopped turning, Portland had dealt their other three selections in the 2008 draft for future picks, plus the Blazers got small forward Nicolas Batum from France. Batum is an athletic, smart defender who slid down the draft list to No. 25 because of concerns about his heart – both literally and figuratively. He and Diogu are both undervalued and have an opportunity to thrive under coach Nate McMillan.
Portland has to be taken seriously in the West now. The Blazers went 41-41 (43-39 against the spread) last year despite losing Greg Oden for the entire season. The team he’ll join is stocked with even more talent; Bayless is a combo guard who draws comparisons to Gilbert Arenas and was projected to go as high as No. 4 in the draft. He’ll spell All-Star Brandon Roy and occasionally play alongside him in the Portland backcourt, with Oden and LaMarcus Aldridge wreaking havoc in the paint.
To be taken less seriously: the New Jersey Nets. They pulled off their own blockbuster deal at the draft, sending Richard Jefferson to the Milwaukee Bucks for Yi Jianlian and Bobby Simmons. Yi has upside at center, but this cap-conscious move appears to weaken New Jersey in the short term, with an eye on grabbing Cleveland’s LeBron James as a potential free agent when the Nets move to Brooklyn in 2010. Jersey also remains at 50-1 to win the title.
Not to be outdone at the end of the night, the Memphis Grizzlies reportedly got out from under Brian Cardinal’s contract with this eye-opener:
- To Minnesota: Mike Miller, Brian Cardinal, Jason Collins, pick No. 5 (Kevin Love)
- To Memphis: Marko Jaric, Antoine Walker, Greg Buckner, pick No. 3 (O.J. Mayo)
Mayo is the better prospect, but the Wolves (100-1) have to be thrilled to land both Love and Miller. Kevin McHale’s redemption is at hand.Comment -
Memphis screwed up again getting Mayo and trading Miller and Love
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