NBA Draft: And then there were 16 ...
by the chad

"As many as 13 international players in the first round?" a well respected NBA scout asked me in a phone call on Wednesday. "You've got a bad case of Euro fever, man. Do you understand that means that only 16 college players would go in round one? That's crazy man."

Perhaps. Given that the most international players ever selected in the first round is six, 13 does seem a bit excessive. That is, until you actually start breaking the draft down on paper.

That's exactly what I did with several top NBA scouts and executives last weekend in Barcelona. While most of them expressed reservations about the number of international players who actually would be selected in the first round, after humoring me with a little exercise, they struggled to come up with an alternative.

That's why Europe is literally teeming with NBA scouts and GMs right now. Thanks to increased exposure, better scouting or just a bumper crop of international studs -- some draft records will be shattered this year.

Don't believe me?

Let's take a look at this year's college crop first.

Here are the locks to go in Round 1:

LeBron James (No. 1 overall)
Carmelo Anthony (high lottery)
Chris Bosh (high lottery)
T.J. Ford (mid lottery)
Chris Kaman (mid lottery)
Mike Sweetney (lottery)
Dwyane Wade (late lottery to mid first round)
Kirk Hinrich (late lottery to mid first round)
Luke Ridnour (late lottery to mid first round)
Jarvis Hayes (mid first round)
David West (mid to late first round)
Reece Gaines (mid to late first round)

That's 12 college players who probably can rest easy on draft night. None of these players is expected to pull out of the draft.

A few more have a very good shot of landing in the first round.

Nick Collison (mid to late first round)
Mario Austin (late first round)
Mo Williams (late first round)

That brings the total up to 15 U.S. players who should make the first-round cut.

Now for the tough part. There are as many as 16 international players right now who are considered candidates for the first round. Ten of them appear to be locks if they keep their names in the draft (remember, international players under age 22 are considered "underclassmen" by the NBA and must follow the same process as college underclassmen or high-school players):

Darko Milicic (high lottery)
Mickael Pietrus (lottery)
Maciej Lampe (lottery)
Pavel Podkolzin (late lottery to mid first round)
Boris Diaw (mid first round)
Leandrinho Barbosa (mid first round)
Alexsandar Pavlovic (mid first round)
Anderson Varejao (mid to late first round)
Sofaklis Schortsianitis (mid to late first round)
Zaur Pachulia (mid to late first round)

If you're doing the math, that brings our total to 25 first-round "locks."

The one caveat here is that several international players will pull out of the draft if their agents aren't happy with their projected draft positions. Lampe, Podkolzin, Varejao, Pachulia and Schortsianitis will only stay in the draft if they're projected to go in the lottery or mid first round. Right now that seems to be a safe assumption for everyone but Sofaklis.

Three other international players stand a very good chance of landing in the first round:

Victor Khryapa (late first round)
Carlos Delfino (late first round)
Zarko Carbakapa (late first round)

Again, the caveat here is that Khryapa and Delfino are classified as underclassmen and could decide to pull out. I think it's unlikely either will.

That brings the total to 28 players in Round 1.

Several other U.S. players are currently on the first-round bubble:

Brian Cook
Marcus Banks
Josh Howard
Marcus Moore
Travis Outlaw
Travis Hansen
Rick Rickert
Kendrick Perkins
Ndudi Ebi

Three other international players are also on the first-round bubble:

Zoran Planinic
Malick Badiane
Slavko Vranes

That's 12 players for one last draft slot. For the unconverted, look at another way: If all the international underclassmen we identified (Lampe, Podkolzin, Varejao, Pachulia, Schortsianitis, Khryapa and Delfino) pull their names out of the draft, the number of international players projected to go in the first round is only down to six, tying last year's record.

That's the worst-case scenario for U.S. hopefuls, folks. More likely, a couple will pull their names and the rest will roll the dice. That leads to some interesting battles for those last few first-round spots.

On paper, players like Cook (Big 10 Player of the Year), Howard (ACC Player of the Year) or Banks seem like the logical picks. But something else is working against these kids this year.

With the luxury-tax finally ready to sink its teeth into the NBA's biggest spenders, more and more teams late in the first round are looking for international players they can stash overseas for a year or two. The team retains the kid's draft rights, the player gets more playing time than he would on a top-tier NBA team, and the player's salary does not count on the team's books.

The Nets had great success doing this last season with Nenad Kristic. The Jazz also have gone this route in the past with Andrei Kirilenko and Raul Lopez.

This year, teams with multiple first-round picks (Celtics, Magic, Pistons) and teams whose rosters already are stacked (Blazers and Mavs) are leaning in this direction. Several players like Khryapa, Delfino, Pachulia, Schortsianitis and Varejao are open to staying overseas next year if it gets them drafted in Round 1 this year. That gives them a major advantage over most of the U.S. kids.

No matter how you slice it, some underclassmen, high school seniors and even college seniors are going to be crying their eyes out on draft night.

Among the who's-who of college and high school basketball who look like they'll be potential draft night losers? As many as eight of the bubble players (Cook, Banks, Howard, Moore, Outlaw, Hansen, Rickert, Perkins and Ebi) we just projected, plus:

Chris Thomas
Jameer Nelson
Charlie Villanueva
Josh Powell
Dahntay Jones
Luke Walton
Jason Kapono
Ron Slay
Troy Bell
Marquis Estill

That has to be a sobering thought among the hard-core college hoops fans who still cling to the antiquated "Made in the USA" notion.

wow... and the Knicks have 2 early second rounders. Nice.

this is interesting, the knicks have 3 good picks, I mean we could end up realistically with a lottery pick player, and a player picked later, like a Travis Outlaw and a Brian cook or Nick Collison, that would make for a Hella draft for the knicks...

Posted by Pike:

... don't forget who's making the calls.

Scott may be bad with trades and free agents, but his draft picks have been pretty good.

"And with the 9th pick in the 2003 NBA Draft, the New York Knickerbockers select Chris Kaman ... who they are trading to Toronto for Eric Montross!" Woo-hoo! Yeah, baby! MONTROSS!

No compassionate jury would convict the one who puts Layden's head on a stick. It's just a dream, but it's all I have.

Milos hasn't played one minute in the NBA... and Laydumb brilliantly let him sign a two year deal in Europe... no biggie, afterall, we currently have Jason Kidd at the point... oh wait, that's the other team across the river... make that Howard Eisley and Charleee Ward (two of the WORST point guards in the NBA.

[Edited by - Pike on 05/15/2003 12:40:55]

Posted by Pike:

Milos hasn't played one minute in the NBA... and Laydumb brilliantly let him sign a two year deal in Europe... no biggie, afterall, we currently have Jason Kidd at the point... oh wait, that's the other team across the river... make that Howard Eisley and Charleee Ward (two of the WORST point guards in the NBA.

[Edited by - Pike on 05/15/2003 12:40:55]

so what you are saying is that Milos was a bad mid-second round pick? I'll have to ask Chad Ford and the rest of the Euro scouts, they seem to think differently.

I think what Pike is saying is that it's hard to say whether or not the guy was a good pickup because he doesn't actually play for the Knicks, nor will he for at least two seasons, if at all.

Layden continues to overload the team with undersized swing men with unmovable contracts, a tradition he started by picking up Glenn Rice, when we already had Houston and Spree, which was already a problem for the team. You simply cannot have a team with two starters at the same position. Once a guy is a starter, he doesn't want to come off the bench, and if the guy complains, it will adversly affect the team's play. So you put the guy out of position, usually undersized, and the team suffers.

By having two average point guards (not the worst in the league, Ward is better at PG than Delk or Alvin Williams or Travis Best, to name a few) and a project 3rd stringer, there is no room for Milos. Two of those guys have to go before Milos would come play over here. And Eisley's contract is hard to move, so Ward would have to go before before Milos would even consider playing here. And if Layden isn't making that kind of promise to Milos, then Milos has no reason to hurry into the NBA.

Froggy Weis was not Layden's doing. That was Ed Tapscott, one of Grunfeld's people, who is now working for the Charlotte expansion team. Everything after Weis (and JR Koch) was Layden: A. Lang, J. Wallace (return), Rice, Longley, Knight, E. Strickland, Spencer, Bogues, Eisley, Anderson, M. Wright, Chenowith, McD, F. Williams - those are the players Layden brought to this team.

The perception that there's no room for Milo is hard for me to take... Ward's contract expires after next year which makes him marketable... finally. Yet the Knicks let Milo sign elsewhere because inexplicably, they didn't see the need to change their point guard position (which is disastrous). Yet another reason why Scott Layden is the worst GM in the NBA.

[Edited by - Pike on 05/15/2003 13:49:26]

Posted by tkf:

the fact that we didn't develop williams more last year and let eisley play more because of this futilte attempt at the playoffs shows me that management has no plan whatsoever, and no clue of how to run a team!!

Even more disappointing is that Williams didn't even get more playing time after the Knicks were eliminated from the playoff race. He should have been getting 20+ minutes a game.

Hasn't Chaney figured out... the worse the record, the longer his contract extention. lol