Draymond Green expects to be late 1st Round Pick

 He’s going to have to get into great shape if he wants to be in the first round, but it’s not that far fetched. I think with his passing ability and handles he can be a shorter Boris Diaw type and play the 3 and 4, but defensivley he can be a liabilty at the 4.  I want to see how tall her really is, if he’s under 6’6 w/out shoes then he’s going to have to play the 3 and most likely go 2nd round.  

 I do like Draymod Green as a player and I think he can bring solid production off the bench for a team. One place I can see him fitting in nicely if drafted in the first round would be the OKC Thunder. He would be like a poor mans Jeff Green for them. He won’t be terrific at one particular thing but he will get boards, could stretch out and hit jumpers, and even score down low. They have Nick Collison who will be entering his 9th season I believe and Collison is a great bench player to begin with. However, if he goes down, then this team becomes very short handed in the front court. Draymond could be an insurance policy for OKC in my opinion. 

I wouldnt mind giving up a late round pick on Draymond…The guy has a extremly high basketball IQ…can score on the block and on the perimter more of a point forward. Hes a OK perimter defender….remind me alot of Ron Artest not defensively.

"The one thing is, as much as I want to think that his fear of flying and anxiety is a non-issue, it has to be at the forefront of teams thinking of drafting him. His upside is far and beyond that of Draymond’s, but can you count on him just playing through these issues? I honestly hope you can, but hoping and doing are two different things."

When Royce White hung a triple-double in College Station, TX (a mere 950 mile drive from Ames, IA) earlier this year, how do think he got there? Or the 15-15-5 in Austin? Or the 14-5-4 in Waco. Iowa State may (and probably does) bus it to Lawrence, Manhattan, and Columbia, but they get on a plane to play in Texas. He has gotten on a plane before and done well.

"As a late first round pick, I think Draymond’s track record is going to be huge. He seems like he can play a role, he is willing to rebound and has fantastic court vision. He is a decent shooter, not blown away by his long range game, but it is not horrible. Of course he had high TO numbers, but he will not have to have the ball in his hands nearly as much. The big issue will be, who does he guard? That is a question worth asking, but I think his measuring 6’6 or 6’7 will have little to do with answering it any better than just seeing how he works out."

He won’t have any problem finding someone to guard in a second unit. Nobody is going to draft him hoping to have him start and finish every game. If he is, then the team won’t be that good.

I’m just glad he’s finally done at Michigan State. I swear he was there for 7+ years.

"The thing is, would this not be something you would discuss? Would it not worry you as a NBA franchise?"

If this draft was better than it is, I would be somewhat concerned. It isn’t a particularly good draft. There are bigger and far more substantive questions regarding the talent of much of the rest of the draft class. If a team was legitimately concerned, I am quite certain a business generating in excess of $100 million per year can hire a top notch psychiatrist and patient flight staff at a cost far less than they would pay a 6’9" 260 lbs forward who can play inside and out as well as dominate a game. Maybe Terrence Jones loves to fly, but it didn’t help him when asked to try to guard White.

"Guys have been passed over for a variety of reasons, could this not be one of them?"

Maybe, but the tradeoff between potential and concern makes no sense in this case. There really seems to be no issues with Royce White operating as a normal human being since he left Minnesota. A person expressing his dislike of flying does not really matter when there is a track record for him getting on a plane and heading to Texas multiple times in a month. I understood, and by the way predicted, Jereme Richmond would go undrafted. I think it is understandable for teams to not want to draft Renardo Sidney or Yancy Gates despite the fact that on talent they are big and by this draft’s standards pretty good. Heck, I would understand if a team says they don’t even want to bring Reeves Nelson in for a workout. The reward for bringing those guys in is not there. If you bring in Renardo Sidney, the best you can hope for is a year of dieting and NBDL assignments before even having the hope of reaping rewards. If you don’t draft him, he will have to do the same thing, just not on your team’s dime, and without the embarassment if he does something stupid. If a team passes on Royce White, they are passing on someone who is ready to step into the rotation of every team in the league. And for the bad teams, they would be passing on one of the very few players in this draft who can help make them discernibly better. If the anxiety or fear of flying does inhibit White’s career, a team will miss while pursuing something great. There are a lot of guys for whom a team will be taking risks on a players character and/or talent where the potential return is just for a guy.

"I agree that he is a great prospect, but is he going to buy into a system? Is he going to be alright playing without the ball?"

Thomas Robinson pulled in 2.7 offensive rebounds per game in the Big XII, Royce White pulled in 2.4 while often running the point. Why should I believe that if a team was to make Royce White a 4 and have him off the ball that he would not be effective crashing the offensive glass in the same way people largely expect Thomas Robinson. White showed that he is a better finisher in traffic than Robinson this past year too.