Spurs' future draft picks

[Bruno]

So we know for the moment that Spurs have/will work out :

PG :
Jared Jordan
Gabe Pruitt

SG/SF :
Aaron Afflalo
Demetris Nichols

PF/C :
Carl Landry
Kyle Visser
Nikita Shabalkin
Lamont Hamilton
Aaron Gray

I put this list in the first post.
If I've missed someone, you're welcome.

[Bruno]

Ron Lewis : http://www.daytondailynews.com/s/con...7nbanotes.html

While Cook has workouts scheduled with nearly every team, Lewis' list includes the Knicks, Nets, Rockets, Celtics and Spurs

Spurs are interested in Trey Johnson :

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pb...705260343/1073

He hasn't personally talked to many NBA teams, leaving that task to Bartelstein and JSU coach Tevester Anderson.

"It's mostly character evaluations because everyone already knows what kind of player Trey is," Anderson said. "The ones that seem to call the most are (the) Portland (Trail Blazers), Miami (Heat) and San Antonio (Spurs)."

[Darkwaters]

Who do we draft at the 58 spot? That pick is a bit of an enigma (for obvious reasons). But surely there are some interesting prospects out there. Here are some of the names I've heard thrown out:

Sun Yue
Yannick Bokolo
Ali Traore (doubtful hes still on the board at 58 though)
Mirza Begic
Mirza Teletovic
Zoran Erceg
Renaldas Seibutis
Jonas Maciulis

Heck, this class reads essentially like DraftExpress' "International Class of 85" list...but with good reason. Drafting an international player makes the most sense. Draft and stash and hope for the best. So, who do we think makes the most sense of these guys? Or do you have any other names to throw out there?

[pad300]

I can see the Spurs trying to grab the 18 using the 33 and a future first... possibly. That's actually fairly expensive. If it were the 58 and a future first, essentially buying a year early on a pick, I don't see them doing it due to roster spaces. #33+2008 first is too expensive for the #18 IMO, although certainly if they like Rudy Fernandez or somebody.

I would probably do that trade Mr. Body - let's take a look at what you're saying we loose out on - using Dx's and NBAdraft.net's current and 2K8 mocks.

Gain - #18 2007

Loss - #33 2007 and estimate 26-30 in 2008.

In player terms (from DX)

Gain One of #18 to #21 Either Splitter, Thaddeus Young, Javaris Crittendon, Rudy Fernadez (Yes Please)

Loss - #33 -37 Tucker, Mcguire, Koponen, Nichols
26-30 2008 - Chris Lofton, Eric Maynor, Kyle Weaver, Joe Dorsey, Marcus Dove.

From NBADraft.net
Gain #18 to #21 - Fernandez, Rodney Stuckey, Acie Law, Javaris Crittendon,


Loss - #33 -37 Visser, Gasol, Nichols, Hosley, Traore
26-30 2008 - Tyler Hansborough, Goran Dragic, Jamont Gordon, Jeff Pendergraph, C. Douglas-Roberts.

The 2007 draft is loaded compared to 2K8. If you really want to push hard, ask for the Warriors #46 pick back.

#18, #46 for #33, Future 1st(Unprotected).

I'd still do #18 for #33 and a future 1st. In this draft that's getting a potential long-term starter vs. in 2k8 getting a 7th to 10th man...

[Darkwaters]

I agree. I take that trade in an instant. But if we get the 18 then I draft Rudy Fernandez and run away very quickly. Fernandez is an ideal successor to Manu and should find his way to San Antonio...period. He has the proper skill set, a good mentality on defense, all the intangibles as well as a solid work ethic. Tell me thats not a Popovich type of player...

And then we still have the 28 to go screwing around with.

[picnroll]

From Chad Ford

Koponen, according to multiple team sources, stood out with his poise, shooting and ability to adapt his game to the speed of the workout. One executive went so far as to say he saw enough to rank Koponen as the fourth-best point guard in the draft. Others said that he was on par with Green, who also played well in the workout.

Koponen will skip the Reebok Eurocamp to continue individual workouts, and it looks like he may have a good shot at sneaking into the late first round. All of which makes it hard to understand why the Orlando pre-draft camp selection committee excluded him from the camp.

[yavozerb]

from draft express:

Seeking a First Round Spot

It went wrong from the very beginning for Marco Belinelli. Being probably the most expected player from the bunch that finally made it to the camp, he was the only one arriving late for the morning drills. And he's certainly not looking like the most enthusiastic guy out there, as if he doesn't really want to be here.

It's always surprising when a guy projected in the first round, or even on the bubble, shows up for a pre-draft camp. Not being a lock after a pretty disappointing season in Bologna (regardless of his scoring averages in the domestic compe ion), Belinelli still had very serious first round consideration. Actually his presence could be a nice indicator that he wasn't that much confident about his options of getting into the privileged round.

Yesterday's show couldn't have helped his cause, though. He had a horrible shooting day, reproducing his struggles during the season.

You can feel he's a special guy out there, like if he had a different status, a star status, from most of the players here (a bit like happens with Ponkrashov or Mbemba), and of course he doesn't shy away when it comes to shooting the ball regardless of his situation on the court. That was the biggest problem in yesterday's performance, his shot selection.

We already know Belinelli, he's capable of knocking down the wildest shots, but he's not consistent doing it, hasn't been all season long, and stubbornly continues trying off-the-dribble, unbalanced, one-legged impulsed fade-away attempts with little chances of success. Yesterday he only hit a couple of perimeter jumpers, not by coincidence two orthodox, balanced, and open shots.

Marco looked a lot better when he decided to put the ball on the floor to penetrate. He went a few times all the way to the basket, showing nice quickness and general athleticism, but also good ball-handling, footwork and ability to finish around the rim. Still, more often he settled for off-the-dribble passes, easily finding the open man, several times in the corner on the three-point line, greatly helping the offensive flow of his team.

You can see the great talent Belinelli enjoys, his excellent feel for the game, every time he attacks the basket. Actually he should be much more active in this area, even building his game from his slashing abilities and letting the perimeter shooting options come to him. Instead, he keeps shooting and shooting, regardless of his position, hurting his effectiveness on court.

Unless he dramatically improves in the remaining days of the camp, chances are he will opt to pull out and wait another year to increase his options of hitting the first round. If he decides to stay in, we were told that he has a $600,000 buyout in his contract.

[Mr. Body]

Bad enought to opt out for Belinelli isn't good for the Spurs, but if he for some reason decides to stick, he has enough talent to be a sure bet in the late part of the round.

Looks like he's out, though.

[ChumpDumper]

We're going to try to trade up.

When that doesn't happen, we'll draft foreign or trade out in the first round.

Second round, we'll get one foreigner and one American.

[Darkwaters]

We need to trade up to get Rudy. Period. The guy is going to be a winner.

[JUUOT]

Who do we draft at the 58 spot? That pick is a bit of an enigma (for obvious reasons). But surely there are some interesting prospects out there.

Atnumber 58, for the spurs, Rodrigue Beaubois from France

Point guard at the eurocamp. 186 cm with a 6-10 wingspan and 75 cm when jumping without steps. he played pro in france last year for cholet. he played early but was discovered during a pietrus camp in guadeloupe.

He is fast and Athletic, a lot of upside just what you need at 58 and stays in europe

[Mr. Body]

I could see us trade out the 58 to some desperate team having to get 'their guy' who has dropped, just like Milwaukee last year.

[yavozerb]

I still like a sg with #28 such as almond or williams (would like rudy more but probably already taken) esp after watching barry this playoffs

[yavozerb]

from nbadraft.net

2007 Reebok Eurocamp: Day Two



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


By Aran Smith
NBADraft.net
6/11/07

The second day started much like the first with morning drills. Mickael Pietrus spoke to the campers after the morning session. He mentioned to me that he would have loved to have played here but never had the chance.

The Team Reebok squad is on hand and their team of 8 can be seen walking around. The big name on their team is Bill Walker who appears to have put on a good 25-30 pounds.

The games began at 4 PM, with 2 games. The camp consists of five teams so one team sat out.

Team 3 (Orange) 48 - Team 1 (Carolina Blue) 43

French point guard Rodrigue Beaubois suffered a hamstring injury early in the game and was unable to return which meant he didn't play in the all star game against the junior team. His team is off tomorrow, so it remains to be seen if he will be back for the final day. He was impressive once again in practice out-jumping a number of bigger players in the vertical test the campers were put through after the morning practice. Beaubois finished with 2 pts.

Georgos Printezis had another impressive game and is establishing himself as one of the more "draftable" players here. He's a little hunched with regard to his posture and his feet seem to be a step behind his head but he plays with a lot of spirit and makes things happen. He shared the game high in points with Team 1's center Antoly Kashirov.

Printezis had shown some solid athletic ability, but really raised some eyebrows with his hammer dunk over a defender. He rose way up and flushed the ball, the best dunk of the camp so far. He is making a statement here and very possibly could be a player a team will take in the second round with the idea of watching him develop in Greece for a few years before bringing him over.

Antoly Kashirov is one of the better bigmen in camp. He lacks any real leaping ability. But at 7-feet, the CSKA Moscow player has solid scoring ability and fluidity. He scored on a variety of dunks and inside baskets.

After leading the camp in scoring on day one, Rudy Mbemba came back to earth with 6 points on 2/4 shooting.

Luka Bogdanovic had 8 points but shot just 2/8 and hasn't done anything to warrant NBA attention.

Spaniard Javier Rey had 10 points for the victors. He lacks huge leaping ability but he has a big frame, long arms and plays hard. The 6-10 PF looks like a solid European power forward prospect.

Team 2 (Cardinal) 55 - Team 5 (Royal Blue) 28

In an absolute snorer of a game, the only intrigue left by the early second half was whether the Cardinal squad would be able to double up their opponents. They weren't, but it was close.

A number of scouts have questioned why Marco Belinelli is here. He is obviously well known and playing against mostly younger players and doing well doesn't really prove much. But he did just that scoring 17 points with relative ease on 4-8 shooting and 8-8 from the line. He had a dunk on the break as well as a steal in the back court for a lay in. Scouts would have liked to have seen Belinelli play in Orlando, and he likely would have played very well as he's an excellent athlete and polished scorer. Belinelli is off to the states to workout for teams so he will miss the rest of the camp.

Ali Traore has not been as sensational as he was in Orlando so far, but a lot of that can probably be attributed to his teammates. He has a very outgoing personality and hasn't seemed to let the lack of quality teammates affect him. He scored 10 of his team's 28 points and likely would have doubled that if the team had someone that could get him the ball. The Royal team's backcourt is painfully bad as their 3 assists to 18 turnovers in this game shows.

Portugal's Joao Gomes also had 10 points for the losing squad. He has solid athletic ability and an imposing set of tatted arms. He would surely go undrafted if he were in the States as there are tons of NCAA guys with his athletic ability with more skills. However, the intrigue of taking a player with the chance to develop elsewhere while owning his rights gives a number of these players an advantage. Gomes still appears to be a long shot to get drafted. His feel for the game is very limited, and his athletic ability, while impressive, isn't enough alone.

Mantas Kalnietis finally played after missing the first day and a half and looked solid. He had one steal and breakaway dunk in which he showed excellent aggressiveness and body balance. He finished with 11 points on 5/6 shooting. He is a very heady player, as he showed in Japan last summer starting for the Lithuanian team in place of injured Jasikevicius. The Royal squad surely could have used Kalnietis services.

Reebok All Star Game




Rudy Mbemba
The Reebok All Stars were led by Bill Walker who looked like a reincarnation of John "Hot Plate" Williams coming back to training camp after a summer of Dairy Queen binging. When they told Walker to stay off the knee apparently they forgot to tell him to work on his push away move, as he has apparently has not been pushing away from any dinner tables.

Walker actually played well, it's amazing he can move even half as well as he is with the knee brace and extra 30-40 pounds. But compared to the old Walker, this wasn;t pretty. On the positive side, Walker showed a polishing skill level with a number of steals and solid shots off the dribble. He attempted one monster dunk over a defender, apparently forgetting he is just weeks off of surgery to repair his knee. The dunk came up short as he sort of got stuffed by the defender and rim at the same time. Sort of like a scrambling quarterback with a leg injury force to stay in the pocked, the injury is giving Walker a chance to work on the other areas of his game, as right now he cant rely solely on his athletic ability.

It's too early to say how he will recover from the knee injury, as his physical conditioning seemed to be slowing him down as much as his knee.

For the Reebok Eurocamp All stars it was the Rudy Mbemba show as he toyed with the talented but younger and undermanned (8 players) American team. Mbemba ran the show passing the ball very well, guiding his teammates on backdoor cuts and hitting them for perfect ally oops. At one point he drove and attempted a dunk over the American squads bigman. He missed but the play brought Baron Davis, who is here with Pietrus, off his feet. Davis seemed to enjoy watching the young Swedish point guard play.

Also impressive for the Eurocamp squad was Victor Claver who used his size and athleticism well against the smaller opponents. He has a good two inches on rising senior Darius Miller and used it well scoring on dunks and mid range jumpers.

The American team held tough for the first quarter but wer blown out in the second half ultimately losing by around 30.

Early Entry Notes

Georgetown's Jeff Green is still considering going back to school. He'd like to get some guarantee in the top 10 and would really like to know where he is going before signing with an agent (likely David Falk). Green would tip the scales in Georgetown's favor as the #1 college team in the nation if he decided to return.

Green recently worked out for Philadelphia who drafts 12th and impressed. There's almost no chance he would fall past Philadelphia at 12, but knowing the specific team that he will go to might be more important for Green. A team such as Minnesota at 7 or Milwaukee at 6 might want to consider promising Green who is one of the most NBA ready players in the draft. The problem is should a player like Brandan Wright or Yi Jianlian fall, those teams want the flexibility to take someone that slips.

We're hearing both Ramon Sessions and Dominic James will keep their names in the draft. Sessions had a strong workout against Gabe Pruitt in Phoenix and may get some looks in the late first round area. Phoenix, with two late first rounders, is said to be high on Pruitt.

Croatian bigman Ante Tomic pulled out of the draft reportedly due to disagreements with his team.

Sean Singletary is still 50/50 on staying in the draft.

Stanko Barac will likely keep his name in the draft. He is scheduled to workout in NYC on the 16th.

[TDMVPDPOY]

i think we should draft all the high prospects....








then trade for lebron ahhaahhaha

[Darkwaters]

Atnumber 58, for the spurs, Rodrigue Beaubois from France

Point guard at the eurocamp. 186 cm with a 6-10 wingspan and 75 cm when jumping without steps. he played pro in france last year for cholet. he played early but was discovered during a pietrus camp in guadeloupe.

He is fast and Athletic, a lot of upside just what you need at 58 and stays in europe

I've read a fair amount on him in draftexpress recently and I'm very impressed. I'd draft him in a heartbeat at 58...but is he even in the draft?

Also, regarding Nocioni...this was posted on Chicagosports.com today:

The key for Phoenix probably would be Ben Gordon. He's in an uneasy position with the Bulls with a contract extension on the horizon and questions about whether he should start. Imagine the openings he would have playing with Nash and Stoudemire. And Phoenix has always liked Andres Nocioni, who could play the forward positions Marion played, make a shot and provide toughness

The site is discussing trading Nocioni and Gordon to Phoenix for Marion. Hmmm...that puts a hurt in Mr. Body's hope for bringing Chappu to SA.

[Mr. Body]

The site is discussing trading Nocioni and Gordon to Phoenix for Marion. Hmmm...that puts a hurt in Mr. Body's hope for bringing Chappu to SA.

I'd be surprised to see it happen. Marion is tremendously expensive and doesn't do what the Bulls actually need - score inside. He rebounds, plays defense, and hits outside shots. They don't need a rebounder, the defense is extra, and he's very expensive for a guy who hits a three now and then. I don't see it in any way happening.

[JUUOT]

I've read a fair amount on him in draftexpress recently and I'm very impressed. I'd draft him in a heartbeat at 58...but is he even in the draft?

It seems he is an early entry candidate and could still withdraw. However i thought i remembered he was older and therefor automatically in but he is not. He is born in 88. It seems he has an agent. I will look for news on him but he sounds intriguing, what a wing span...

http://nbadraft.net/2007earlyentry.asp
http://www.court-side.com/p/P3D3C9BD...2572E500430610

And it seems i am not the only one interested in him:
"The top stories where French playmaker Rodrigue Beaubois impressing enough to get six NBA promises in the second round, Marco Belinelli in a somewhat disappointing performance, and the point guard duo Anton Ponkrashov and Rudy Mbemba showing some of the stuff that draw some buzz around them last year."
http://www.draftexpress.com/viewarticle.php?a=2107

Spurs one of them?

[mathbzh]

I've read a fair amount on him in draftexpress recently and I'm very impressed. I'd draft him in a heartbeat at 58...but is he even in the draft?

He is on the early entry list but I would be surprise if he stays in the draft.

This kid is really unproven (the last season he played a total of 17 minutes in 5 games 0pts 3rbds 2ast (he played most games with Cholet young team).

I hope he will play more next season so we can see what he can do.

If he is available at 58, I would rather pick Yannick Bokolo.
Bokolo is a 6'2 and very athletic combo guard borned in 1985. He moved to PG 2 years ago and is still learning how to run offense and set up the tempo of the game. His offense is still raw but he was improving by the end of this season with Le Mans. Bokolo is already very good defender (One of the best guard in Europe). Despite being only 6'2 (maybe 6'3) he can guard bigger player (thanks to his athletic body).
Bokolo did have a disappointing season with Le Mans but I still believe he could turn into a very good defensive PG.

[Darkwaters]

He is on the early entry list but I would be surprise if he stays in the draft.

This kid is really unproven (the last season he played a total of 17 minutes in 5 games 0pts 3rbds 2ast (he played most games with Cholet young team).

I hope he will play more next season so we can see what he can do.

If he is available at 58, I would rather pick Yannick Bokolo.
Bokolo is a 6'2 and very athletic combo guard borned in 1985. He moved to PG 2 years ago and is still learning how to run offense and set up the tempo of the game. His offense is still raw but he was improving by the end of this season with Le Mans. Bokolo is already very good defender (One of the best guard in Europe). Despite being only 6'2 (maybe 6'3) he can guard bigger player (thanks to his athletic body).
Bokolo did have a disappointing season with Le Mans but I still believe he could turn into a very good defensive PG.

The only way that Bokolo gets drafted is if we take him. He would be a good pick as well.

[mathbzh]

The only way that Bokolo gets drafted is if we take him. He would be a good pick as well.

I don't know. Does anyone knows why we don't ear about Bokolo doing some workouts? I think it is really weird.
Does it means he give up on the NBA for the moment?

[Bruno]

I don't know. Does anyone knows why we don't ear about Bokolo doing some workouts? I think it is really weird.
Does it means he give up on the NBA for the moment?

Bergeaud (French NT coach) has said that Bokolo will spend his summer in the USA doing some workouts and playing in summer leagues.
I really like this player. I'm all for drafting him at 58 and letting him one more year in europe where he will be a starting PG for an euroleague team.

[Mr.Bottomtooth]

What are y'alls thoughts on Ramon Sessions?

[Darkwaters]

What are y'alls thoughts on Ramon Sessions?

I think I'd rather just take Aaron Miles rather than waste a draft pick.

[Mr. Body]

What are y'alls thoughts on Ramon Sessions?

I believe his intention was always to return to school.