[kobyzParticipant]

Cousins and Johnson will be for sure gone by the GSW pick, so that left the Warriors with Monroe, Patterson, Aminu, or other swingman like Henry, Bubbit, George.
if it’s not Johnson the Warriors should not draft other swingman cause they have many players at 2-3 position and not sure it will be an upgrade, Monroe is too slow for the GSW system, he can’t play PF and they already have Biendris who they count on him for their future center, not enough minutes for Monroe to draft him here, Aminu is too much like their other young players Randolph and Wright so it’s also not good pick for Warriors, that left us with Patterson, Patterson has solid size, he can play upfront with Biedrins and also with Randolph and Wright in a fast lineup that the Warriors like to put, Patterson has great work ethic and motor so it will be smart and safe pick.

[blackflash234Participant]

LOOOL.. “Petterson”, it’s Patterson!

[kobyzParticipant]

sorry, fix it

[JNixonParticipant]

They should try and take Wes Johnson. Johnson has NBA-ready skills, is relatively young, and would be a safe pick for a team that already has enough PF & C’s. Patterson wouldn’t make them better, they need a guy like Johnson much more so they they do Patterson

[jazznationpresidentParticipant]

I can’t see GS taking Monroe or Aldrich. Like you said they don’t fit your system. If you can get cousins, you take him regardless. But other than that, perhaps Udoh is a big that might fit, you could trade down to get him though, the same is probably true for Patterson. I think Patterson would work well with you but like Mr. 6000 says, Johnson would be better. You could trade down for Patterson as well… If nothing else, take Johson and make some trades… Thats the beauty of BPA…

[sheltwon3Participant]

Udoh is too similiar to Randolph and Wright so if you do with a big It would be wise to get someone whose game is a lil different. Monroe and Patterson look to be good options. Johnson is good but GSW really dont have a strong need for him. They have Maggette and Reggie Williams and tend to get good production for that position. There only problems are in the front court but if they cant find what they want it would be wise to grab best available player and work out a deal.

[burningfloodParticipant]

Is GS looking to win now? No. They’re developing a young core, and it looks like they’re trying to get guys with good potential. Patterson = no potential. If GS was in Utah’s position, perhaps it would make sense, but unfortunately, we’re not…we’re hoping to build a contender through the draft, so we’ll go with the best player available, regardless of position. Kelenna Azubuike, Reggie Williams, and Corey Maggette are not good enough reasons why the Warriors shouldn’t draft a 3. Andris Biedrins and Ronny Turiaf aren’t good enough reasons why the Warriors shouldn’t draft a 5.

I’ll probably get minuses for saying this, but the only reason why GS should draft Patterson at the 6th pick is to make the other teams drafting behind them happy.

Oh…and Wes Johnson and DeMarcus Cousins are not ‘for sure gone’ by the 6th pick. Cousins has his attitude and weight issues, and Johnson has issues with potential given how old he is already.

[sheltwon3Participant]

buringflood just curious by what theory does Patterson does not have potential. Where did that come from. I think sometimes guys fit it so well that we forget that they have a lot of potential. Patterson can be a Boozer type player. They are both around the same height. They both are physical. Patterson is more athletic. I think if GSW does not take Monroe or Patterson they will deeply regret it unless Cousins is still on the board which i doubt. I see Patterson coming in and averaging close to 12 and 7 in his rookie season and being a inside outside forward. At worst he would be David West who is an all star and at best a more athletic Boozer. I though know what facts you are basing that he has no potential. There are Seniors that come into the NBA and have potential so why not a junior who has already shown that his basketball IQ is high and he works on his flaws.

[burningfloodParticipant]

Patterson’s age is what limits him; he, like Wes Johnson, are players where ‘what you see is what you get’. We saw him make a transition last year from being the number 1 player on his team to being the 3rd option, behind Wall and Cousins, and his stats dropped significantly…I think that a lot of those stats, like scoring, won’t translate to the NBA, but usually rebounding does, and Patterson’s rebounding dropped to a measly 7.4 per game…

Also, NBAdraft’s profile on him is troublesome…
“If there is one thing Patterson is missing, it’s a face-up part of his game… It’s difficult to remember a time where he ever tried to beat his man or take a jump shot off the dribble this past year… For his build and strength, he is not the greatest rebounder, and at the next level when going up against taller and equally strong forwards, he could be a liability on the defensive glass … Would project more solidly as a top 10 pick if he were a certain 6-foot9, but he appears to be 6-foot-8 … When guarding more athletic and quicker forwards like Josh Smith, he could have a difficult time defending on the perimeter (although it seems his footwork and agility have improved over the past year) … Lacks defensive awareness, and will need to work on his help defense and positioning off the ball …”

He lacks defensive awareness and is a liability on the defensive glass. The Warriors don’t need more scoring; they need more rebounding and more defense, especially low post defense. So he’s not an answer…especially since he plays the same position as two of their young players in Anthony Randolph and Brandan Wright.

BTW, both Boozer and West are flawed players in that they are poor defenders…Boozer is better than West because he rebounds better. But Patterson rebounds poorly for his size, so he’s more like a West than a Boozer. And West, in my opinion, made the All-Star Game twice through sheer luck. He’s not a great player, and if you took CP3 away from him, he would decline also.

Seniors usually are viewed as having almost no potential when they come into the league. Look at Wes Johnson; besides the fact that he can’t create for himself, his age (22) is his biggest flaw. I’m sure you can look statistically at how much players improve in the NBA on a year by year basis, and calculate whether or not younger players have a higher rate of growth than relatively older players (19 vs. 21, for example). I suspect that you’ll find that younger players have a much higher statistical rate of growth…which is why GMs, when they draft for potential, draft younger players.

Besides, what would happen to Randolph and Wright if you drafted Patterson?

[morgatilParticipant]

What have Randolph or Wright even done yet to say they are for sure keepers?

And really, you put Wes Johnson and upside in the same sentence?

Patterson would actually give GSW a physical presence down low. He weighs more than Wright and Randolph combined. They guy is a player and a TEAM player. He can fit in with whatever roll he is given. Unlike alot of these lottery guys, Patterson doesn’t need the ball in his hands to contribute. Plus, he moves well without it and positions himself well for many rebounds. He will be a bigger and more offensively polished Chuck Hayes who can stretch the defense out 19 ft.

[burningfloodParticipant]

If you read the post, Wes Johnson is an example of how seniors/older players are viewed as having NO upside.

He’s a poor rebounder for his size, according to this website…and this year, he shot jump shots far more often than he actually bulled his way to the basket. He doesn’t get many assists…0.9 this year to 1.1 turnovers, and 1.9 assists to 1.9 turnovers in his best year, so I’m guessing he develops tunnel vision when he gets the ball.

Randolph and Wright are, at the very least, young guys with a lot of potential. Randolph is extremely athletic; he’s also a monster on the glass, something that Patterson is not. Wright’s been injured over the past year, but rumor has it that he’s bulked up, and that he actually outplayed Randolph in training camp last year.

This is like the choice between Emeka Okafor and Dwight Howard; what had Dwight done to deserve a number 1 pick, as opposed to a polished player like Okafor? I think we can all agree which choice was correct.

If the best he can become is a bigger Chuck Hayes, then he’s not worth the 6th pick. I might be pessimistic here, but when I hear that he “can fit in with whatever role he is given” I’m assuming that that’s because he doesn’t do any one thing well enough to specialize in that area.

[Mavs41Participant]

Any player that plays for the Warriors will have a nice stat line:)

[Mavs41Participant]

I still think an athletic center in the future would be real helpful like:

Size-7’0″
Rebounding
Defense
Athletic
Quick

Add new pieces and try to make it to the playoffs

[Mavs41Participant]

I still think an athletic center in the future would be real helpful like:

Size-7’0″
Rebounding
Defense
Athletic
Quick

Add new pieces and try to make it to the playoffs

[morgatilParticipant]

Burningflood, I was responding to that all knowing mr. 6000. He loves Johnson and I cannot figure out why.

As for your Patterson comments, I guess you never watched UK before Wall and Cousins. The Patterson show before them was pretty solid. He was the #1 option and did very well with very little help around him.

Freshman year he played hurt and still managed to gather almost all of Joe Crawfords and Ramel Bradley’s bricks while still being the only viable option down low.

Sophmore year he was the only viable option down low and was second fiddle to Jodie Meeks.

Just saying, he can be what he needs to be.

[HotSnotParticipant]

Wow, so many posters who`ve never actually played real basketball. Half the junk you spew is unfounded. You can tell you get all your “facts“ from reading the sport, not playing it.

I`ll relate this post to something most of you guys can understand. Playing Xbox or PS3. The longer you play, the more skilled you get. After awhile you learn enough to truely understand the makeup of most games and how they are built. Button function and strategy are similar from game to game… but within those parameters there is so much more that can make you a better player. Online, you really get to test your skills. Within all of this there are just some guys who don`t get it. They may have a 150 IQ but they don`t have the manual dexterity. They may have the manual dexterity but they are dumb as a rock or lack the basic fundamentals of strategy. Why the heck would anyone be capped out on potential because of their age…

Understanding and evolving in basketball is the exact same thing. You can continue to refine and improve all the way up untill your athletic ability begins to really fade to the point that no amount of diet, exercise or detication will sufficiently stop the decline. Thats when your capped out on potential. If you work every dam season, you will get better. ALOT better.

The difference between a 18 and 23 year old rookie is about 5 years of experience and 2-3 years of length on a potential NBA career. NBA miles are much harder. Careers last a long time, but how many guys continue to work every offseason. How many with potential show up out of shape after that first contract. How many never pick up a basketball all summer untill the first day of training camp. How many never pickup the nuiances of team play no matter how much film they watch or how often their coach yells instructions. Most NBA careers just aren`t that long and the players who truely lack potential are the players who make it to the league and don`t continue to work. Their is an absolute ton of them. Close to 60 or 70% of draftee`s are drafted on potential or natural talent but when it comes time to getting their body in the greatest possible condition they could imagine.. and holding it there, aswell as picking up new moves, new techniques and new idea`s in basketball… they think… dam this is really hard.

Ever try to lose weight… you have all the motivation in the world for the first week or 2. By week 3-4 your starting to get tired of it and not seeing the results you wanted and by week 5 your like, screw this, wheres the pizza. Everyone quits. The funny thing is that its at week 5 where you start making progress. Keeping that drive to be great season after season is extremely hard.

Potential drives me banana`s and all you guys thinking potential is capped because your a junior or a senior are ridiculous. Collison was a Senior last year. Seems pretty dam good for New Orleans doesn`t he. He`s learning from Paul and getting even better, Its too bad he was capped out in college. Get a clue on life. Start living it and stop reading it.

I`ve explained this the best way I know how and I`m sure there some of you reading it who still don`t get what I`m saying. You think you know best and you have your blinders on. Develop a real understanding and your own opinions and stop regurgitating the junk your reading on all these sports websites. They are almost always wrong on prospects. Watch the film and you can see for yourself. Steph Curry last season was too small and weak and won`t be able to defend or be productive at the NBA level. Sound familiar…

Get a clue.

[burningfloodParticipant]

Hotsnot, there’s no reason to be so rude. What you say makes sense on a basic, common sense level, but I’m wondering if you have any statistics to back it up with…for example, if you compared statistical rates of growth between years 1 and 2 in the NBA for a senior (on average) vs. rate of growth between years 1 and 2 for one-and-done or two year players.

If you’re 18, you still have a chance to gain height, to put on weight, to develop physically. I’m fairly certain that biologically speaking, growth stops at a certain point, and at that point, your athletic potential is maxed out. You can change the way you look at and play the game, but you’re not going to get significantly stronger or faster or taller.

Another thing you could look at is the rate of growth for big men; players like Steph Curry or Darren Collison depend more on IQ than on athleticism, and for point guards, who have to make decisions, having a high IQ is better. But a big man, who needs to bang down low and defend against other extremely physical players, is far more dependent on athleticism. At the very least, come up with an example of a recent junior/senior big man who noticeably improved the few years after the initial jump to the NBA.

Lastly, this argument may be rather unintelligent…but there must be some reason why players like Collison or Curry aren’t chosen earlier. GMs, especially those with more experience, tend to know which players to draft and which to avoid; I assume, because they’re paid to do these jobs, that they know far more about potential than we do. How many GMs draft older players as opposed to younger ones who seem to have more upside?

[HotSnotParticipant]

I don`t have the stats to back it up… I do know that every year teams draft on potential and every year these guys go no where the majority of the time.

I can`t argue about physical growth or height. Your right about that. There is this saying you can`t teach height. Thats a misleading statement. It supposed to mean you can`t teach a 6ft5 guy to be what a 7 footer is. Most 7 footers only develop moderate skill even if they play their whole lives. They are so used to going up against shorter guys that they aren`t forced to evolve like a bunch of 6ft1 guys who play against eachother all the time. In the little guy scenario, if you want to survive and be better then your peers you have to have increased technical ability or dramtically better athleticism. These 7 footers who lack skill get to the NBA and they are floored at how bad they really are. Most of them learn quickly that they have no game and they are faced with a huge uphill battle to become one of the better Centers or PF`s. Faced with this realization they often quit progressing by sticking to whats familiar and easy to them in hopes of becoming competant immediately. Even if they learn a new move they rarely have the confidence to use it in a game and when they do they panic and the viewer is left thinking…wtf was that. The only way to over come these issues is to put in the work. All summer, every offseason every chance you get.

Strength and speed is a completely different animal. You can increase either of those 2 attributes at any point of your career if you have the drive to do it. The longer you can keep improving (without injury) the better you become. You can teach yourself to play faster and move faster. Improve physical and mental reaction times. Improve your vertical leap or lateral quickness. Improve your conditioning and overall strength. You can learn to be a machine… If you have the drive to do it. It is a never ending journey. There have been times when I got injured and had to take time off for months, I would start playing after I healed up and realize I had forgotten a ton about the game. I might encounter a possession or situation and make a mistake. I`d then remember, I used to do this or make this play, but i forgot about it untill that moment. There is so much to learn about basketball it is incredible. You can learn so much you forget about other things. The complexity of high level basketball is truely astonishing when you understand what to look for.

Gm`s don`t have a clue. It is a theory based issue with the draft. You are looking for basic truths. If you are faced with option A or B and you eliminate one of them under a faulty premise… ie `Player A is too short but player B has overwhelming length then you have put a premium on size despite player A`s better basketball abilities. GM`s always get caught in this game and its why every year there are a few dynamtie prospects who get drafted in the second round. Its why there are many lottery picks who don`t pan out. If your premise or logic is faulty then you make a bad choice. Do you go for the best player at your pick or the best athlete. The best “positional fit“ at your draft spot or any number of other criteria. Your basic truths must be correct for you to make a good and safe pick for your franchise.

[sheltwon3Participant]

@ burningflood. Actually big men tend to last longer in the NBA then guard who rely mostly on quickness and speed they lose due to aging. Most big men dont have to be that fast. They need to be strong and you actually can build more muscle mass as you age. You are more likely to see big men playing until they are 37 38 then a guard unless he has a back role shooter off the bench. The older you get defending the younger quicker guys is tough. Boozer and West are flawed but there are a lot of team trying to get these flawed guys. Also going off potential is why GSW is where they are. They drafted the same position in back to back year because that potential was not realized. Randolph may pan up but to be honest he need to be on a team that will better take advantage of what he can do. Patterson to me fits perfectly to what they need. Also GSW has a history of finding guys at the 2 and 3 undrafted or late picks that are really good so why take a small forward with a top pick. GSW need to be front court in the draft of take best available and trade him for front court help.

[burningfloodParticipant]

You bring up some interesting points, hotsnot, but I can’t find myself to agree with all of them. Yes, the 7 footers are always hard to project…people like Demarcus Cousins have been playing against weaker and smaller players their whole lives. It’s the whole “man among boys” thing, which makes it a crapshoot to see how well they play in the NBA, where the centers are just as tall and just as strong (relatively speaking).

But I feel like you place too much emphasis on work ethic. Take Steve Nash, for example. Nash is by reputation a very hard worker who does a lot of offseason work to improve. But he’s still a bad defender, because he doesn’t really have the lateral quickness or the strength to keep his man in front of him. You can probably improve your speed, your jump, and your strength…but only to a point. And that’s why GMs love players who are great athletes…because that ceiling is so much higher. That’s when work ethic becomes more important…but in a case of a player without outrageous athleticism, that player will only have a mediocre ceiling. And such is the case with Patterson…we know he’s not going to get taller or more athletic, because of his age, so his ceiling is set at a certain point, even if he works extremely hard to reach it.

I’m sure that there are also some players who were drafted as NBA ready, and contributed as role players, but never got beyond that also.

Now, to Sheltwon, I didn’t mean length that a player lasts in the NBA; what I meant was how much they improve per year. A big man obviously needs strength and explosive jumping ability, to box out, get rebounds, block shots, and finish well. If you get a big who seems to have already reached his ceiling for strength and jumping ability, (take Biedrins for example; he’s been in the league for a while, does offseason work, but his frame can only support so much muscle. It’s why he gets outmuscled by other bigger centers consistently) then I think that chances are that that big will not improve much.

There are, of course, the quick, speedy players like Ellis or Brooks, that rely on athleticism. But a guard in the mold of Curry, Nash, and maybe even Collison (I didn’t watch any NO games this year) that relies more on high Bball IQ to make the smart plays, however, could continue to improve because their IQ enables them to avoid making the dumb plays more often.

Another thing…the Warriors aren’t a playoff team by any stretch, but they were only as horrible as they were last year because they had so many injured players…there’s a reason why they had 3 d-leaguers on the roster, and they played quite a few games with the minimum 8 dressed players. There was even a game where Steph Curry fouled out, but there was no one left to sub for him, and so they had to play with some obscure rules…yeah, they’d still be in the lottery, but they’d probably be somewhere between 10 and 11.

[mamadouParticipant]

Agree burninglood on the “what u see i what u get” with Papat’…Jason thompson, courtney lee and others recently.
So lotto pick no doubt but 6th is really high for him, last year that was OK, a great”what u see is what u get” PG wit’ Curry, not every year or a at every position …
Let him be a taller Carl Landry type, so he could crush the warriors like every PF did.
Like u said, he won’t teach size, length, rebounding or shot blocking to wright(who was supposed to have a breakout year, huge in camp), plus Anthony Randolph is so skilled, still younger than Patt’ too, sky is the limit for him, oops….nellie is the limit for him.

[Author]

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