Reply With Quotelol @ article
By David DuPree, USA TODAY
It's been a long time since the first three picks in an NBA draft were as clearly defined as they are this year. And what a threesome it will be — a high school kid (LeBron James) who is about to sign what could be a $50 million sneaker contract maybe before he even gets drafted, a Serbian teenager (Darko Milicic) who has been to the USA only once, last summer, and a Syracuse freshman (Carmelo Anthony) who plays with a sense of refreshing joy.
Syracuse F Carmelo Anthony is all smiles as he leads the Orangemen to a national le in New Orleans.
By Ray Stubblebine, Reuters
Too bad they had to come along in the same draft, because in any other year each probably would be the first pick. Anthony, assuming he will jump to the NBA now that he has won a national championship, could be the best No. 3 pick since Michael Jordan.
Anthony is going to fall into somebody's lap, too, but it won't be because anyone underestimated him — there is nothing he can do to move ahead of James or Milicic. He could have scored 60 points and had a quadruple-double in Monday's NCAA championship game and it wouldn't have mattered. He isn't moving up. He's the No. 3 pick.
Sure, some teams will think about picking him first or second, not only because of his skill but because of his personality, leadership and the maturity he gained from that one year in college. But if you have one of the first two picks in the upcoming draft, the way the NBA game is played today, the way it's set up financially and the way it's promoted, you have to take James with the first and Milicic with the second.
You have to take James partly because of the hype. Every game his team plays next season, even if it's Cleveland, will be a sellout, both home and away, and all of a sudden his team will be television darlings, as well. No franchise can pass that up, even if he is a flop. Everyone will forgive you if you take him and he flops, but no one will forgive you if you don't take him and he follows in the footsteps of Kobe Bryant and Tracy McGrady, as he very well might, given time.
Forget the skeptics who say they won't take a high school kid No. 1 when there is a player as good as Milicic or Anthony out there, too. They say look at how the only high school player picked first in the draft, Kwame Brown, is still dazed and confused after two years in the league in Washington. Others say look at Amare Stoudemire, who has adjusted well right out of high school and has had an immediate impact this season in Phoenix.
The difference alluded to by most is that Brown came in with the hype and pressure of being No. 1, and Stoudemire came in with no pressure and no hype. Well guess what? No player has ever come into the league — not Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, any of them — with the pressure and the hype that James is coming in with. But he has lived with the hype for the last three years and hasn't wilted yet. He thrives on it.
Milicic is a basic unknown to most basketball fans in this country, but the NBA game is making a must out of having a 7-footer who can handle the ball, shoot the three-pointer, run the floor and play defense. Milicic, only 17 but already playing professionally in Europe, fits the bill. When you watch him play, you think Kevin Garnett, Dirk Nowitzki or Tim Duncan. Everybody wants a Shaquille O'Neal, but there are no more like him. The game of the future will be dominated by big players who can work the perimeter as well as they work the lane.
That brings us back to Anthony, who is the subject of silent prayers of many NBA teams hoping they get the third pick and not one of the first two. They want Anthony, but they know they can't take him if they get one of the first two picks. The system won't allow it.
lol @ article
Milicic is compared to Garnett, Dirk and Duncan?
lol
He should have been compared to Cheeroke Parks
Old post is oooooooooold.
"Bring out your dead"
why bump this?
LOL at Mr Guest Poster.
The part about Carmello's maturity was classic.
Darko is comparable to dirk to a certain degree. They are both European punks.
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