Jeff: The Potential Potential of Having Potential

Well the Spurs are officially up 2-0, and are on their way to a 3rd title in 8 years. Tim Duncan's the best power forward of all-time, Manu Ginobili combines talent, grit, and determination with bad hair and flopping (gee you think he's an import?), and Tony Parker's got a hot girlfriend. Congratulaions San Antonio- I DONT CARE!!! If this series says anything about the NBA, it's that The Don David Stern has lost all his godfather powers. In his prime, like in the Bulls hey-day or even the Lakers last couple of titles, this series would have never happened. In his prime, Stern would have had us watching a Phoenix/Miami finals, and would have made it happen at any cost. Instead we get two teams who are racing to 80 points. Now that's excitement!

So I'm looking ahead to the NBA draft, the last event before the league drops off the face of the earth with another ridiulous lock-out. One of the sticking points in the next collective bargaining agreement is an age limit for the draft. I am very much in favor of a 20-year-old limit. I hate kids coming into the league out of high school and thinks it's ruining the game (along with horrible refereeing, players running the league and too many WNBA commercials), but if I was a high school senior who either a) had a great vertical leap or b) was over 6'9, I'm coming out no matter what. The Sports Guy and others have made this point, but after reading some draftniks previews for both the NFL and now the NBA on draftees, why go to college? Why wouldn't you go overseas and sit on some team's bench and look good in practice? To paraphrase Bill Simmons "if you're tall and have any athletic ability, just change your name to something unpronounceable with a bunch of consonants, and say you're from some far off country and NBA scouts will love you."

It seems a scouts' job isn't to find what you do well, it's to find what you DON'T do. And why bother going to college when your resume in the NCAA doesn't count? The top prospects in this year's draft are Marin Williams, a freshman from North Carolina who didn't even start for the National Champs. He's 6'8 with great all around skills and athleticism. His numbers for his first year? 11.6 pts and 6 rebounds. Ladies and gentlemen, the top pick in the draft! Andrew Bogut, who everybody but Bogut himself thinks is vastly overrated, could also go #1. I'll tell you right now, the only list Bogut will be on top of in the pros next year is "tall white stiff guys most want to dunk on". He makes Vince Carter look tough, isn't great at anything, but is white and tall and oooooh I almost forgot--he can pass from the high post!! Great because that's what I want out of my center. Ok at scoring, gets pushed around under the glass, and can't play much defense, but my can he pass! The third guy is Gerald Green, a lazy high school kid with a crazy vertical leap and he's tall. His resume includes dunking on high school kids, preening after those dunks, and already being very adept at talking about himself in the third person (a necessary skill in today's NBA).

So these are your top 3 picks. Potential, potential, and potential. Guys that have proven nothing, or next to nothing at college or anything even close to it, but will get picked before much more deserving players because they COULD be the next Kobe or KG. And that's really the point here. These guys haven't shown anything: both what they can, and more importantly what they CAN'T do yet. Whereas guys with great work ethic, good skills and a serviceable college resume slide out of the lottery. Sean May, for example, only dominated for a 3 week stretch when it mattered most. Averaged over 20 and 10 in the NCAA tournament, dominating the tourney like nobody since...well...when was the last time anybody carried his team to a title like that? Yes, he's "only" 6'9, yes he's not exactly fleet of foot, and yes he has difficulty jumping over the foul line, let alone from it. Potential? Not much more than he's shown you in 3 years at UNC. He'll only give you a consistent double-double every night in the NBA, work his tail off in practice, and be a good scoring option in the paint. He's NOT going to be the next KG or Amare, but he will be a very good NBA player.

But according to scouts he's a mid-first round pick at best. Fine, take the other guys. I'll go for guys like May, or these:

• Deron Williams, PG, Illinois: One of the 5 best defensive PG's in the league the moment he's drafted and oh by the way has a good jumper and rarely makes a bad decison.
• Danny Granger, F, New Mexico: Like Marvin Williams is 6'8 with great all-around skills--AND proved it playing all 4 years at New Mexico.
• Ike Diogu, PF, Arizona State: Dominated the Pac-10 for 3 years, AVERAGING almost 20 pts and 10 rebounds. Granted, the Pac-10 is not what it used to be, but the kid is 6'9 with a 7'4 wingspan and about 930 low-post moves. And of course he's probably not a lottery pick.

There's more but I think you get the point. Here's 3 kids with good attitudes who have proven what they can do in college. Not a one will probably go down as an all-time NBA great, but they could step in and start in the league now, and be productive players for a decade. And none, besides maybe Williams, are projected any higher than 5th. Billy Beane is overhyped for his "Moneyball" approach in baseball taking college kids with proven track records, but I'd certainly be willing to try that over taking some 18 year old who's looked good in high school allstar games or in the Uzbekastan Wednesday Night Men's League. Granted with the looming work stoppage, we won't get to see any of this come to fruition, but I'm still hoping when draft night rolls around and the Wolves pick, if May or Diogu's on the board, the Big Ugly Sweater will do the smart thing and take one of them. But coming from a guy who hasn't had a decent draft pick since Garnett, I'm not very hopefull. But hey maybe whichever highschool or Euro-league wonder he takes will have as much "potential" as Endi Ibi, Paul Grant, Will Avery or Rick Rickert. Wait, how does McHale still have a job?