Sports Wrap... TAKE ONE

Alright so I was pretty busy this whole weekend otherwise I would have posted this sooner. I was a big fan of watching the NBA draft this year because A) there were so many good players in the draft and B) the Sixers had three first round picks so there was a possibility they were going to be creating some fireworks via a trade.


"With the 12th pick, the Philadelphia 76ers select Thaddeus Young from the University of Georgia Tech..."

Alright so the Sixers surprised everyone by selecting Young, a freshman out of GA Tech who seemed off of the Sixers' draft radar towards the end there. I really thought they were going to select Al Thorton who seemed more NBA ready but apparently Young has a major upside. Of course I also remember a number of years ago when the Sixers randomly selected another underclassmen with major upside, Larry Hughes and we all know how that turned out. So I'm a little sceptical about how he is going to turn out and I'm also a little curious about the pick because he seems to be a clone of Andre Igoudala. Could they possibly be looking at not resigning Igoudala after this year with one year left on his rookie contract?

I was driving home from work listening to draft coverage of SportsRadio 950 when I heard the Sixers next pick, Daequen Cook and I started flipping out because at that point they had drafted two guys that were going to need a lot of work before they were NBA-ready. However shortly after that pick, it was announced that they had traded Cook to Miami for 7'0 center Jason Smith out of Colorado State. I thought this was a great pick because he's athletic, he can shoot the ball, and he can rebound, but I'm a little wary of it because he went to a small school and the competition might not have been that great. So what I play favorites with the big name schools.

After what seemed like twenty trades, with their final two picks, Sixers ended up with 6'7 swingman Derrick Byars out of Vanderbilt and 6'10 forward Herbert Hill. Byars was a scorer at Vanderbilt so I think he could possibly pan out as a shoot guard and Hill seems to be a prototypical big man project, who can rebound and block shots, but who also may not even make the team. I think the Sixers should have used one of their second round picks on a foreign player that they could keep overseas for a couple of years and let develop. They originally drafted two different foreign players but traded both of them for Byars and Hill.

So overall it seems that the Sixers have drafted a lot of players with upside. So who knows how it will pan out. All we do know is that Billy King was drafting for the future and not for this upcoming season. So it could be another long season.