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diderotn
Posts: 25657
Alba Posts: 0
Joined: 4/15/2004
Member: #650
USA
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What is the deal with this Simien kid? He has the body of Amare from what I saw in that picture...Can anyone who knows something about him inform me of how tall and position that this young cat plays?
Petro and Fernandez are on their way
Both Johan Petro and Rudy Fernandez’s teams have been eliminated from their domestic leagues playoff series, which means that the NBA draft is now theirs to pursue and conquer.
Fernandez put in his best effort in quite some time in possibly the last game of his career in Spain, scoring 16 points on 4/5 shooting from the field and 8/9 from the line in 28 minutes of action. Those were the most minutes he has played since injuring himself almost four months ago. This was also only the second double digit scoring game he’s had in eleven games he’s played in since coming back.
Petro on the other hand went out on somewhat of a sour note, languishing on the bench once again in what has become almost too familiar of a site for him as his team was pounded by Strasbourg to finish off their season. Petro played only 6 minutes in his final game in France, and scored 3 points on one shot in the process. The assumption here on Pau Orthez’s part appeared to be that it’s better to hide their NBA prospect from the scouts in the stands rather than advance another stage in the playoffs.
Regardless, Petro will be coming over during the second week of June for private workouts, and has every intention on staying in the draft according to his agent Sam Goldfeder. His buyout is extremely reasonable and will not be a factor in his draft stock.
Wayne Simien flying up draft boards
For a few weeks now we’ve been hearing about the excellent workouts that Wayne Simien has been having in every city he’s worked out in. That really didn’t come as a huge surprise, as Simien is clearly one of the most skilled players to be found in this draft, at any position. What did surprise, though, were the rumblings coming out regarding his measurements. Apparently he is indeed measuring out at at least a legit 6-9, and according to one team even taller than that. We’ve had a hard time believing it ourselves, but this is coming from a number of reliable places so apparently there must be something to it. Perhaps NBA teams want to see it with their own eyes as well, because Simien was one of the first players invited for the physicals only portion of Chicago, meaning he will not be attending the draft camp itself. He is ranked amongst the top 20 prospects, sometimes with plenty of room to spare, on basically every NBA team’s draft board we’ve spoken to. The key here will be the red flags (or hopefully, lack thereof) that will be put on him during the physicals in Chicago. He is not testing out as the greatest athlete ever in private workouts so far, so this is something that is going to be huge for him. Another shocker from the alleged measurements department is Ike Diogu’s wingspan, which has been sized up from anywhere from 7-3 to 7-5 depending on who you talk to (somehow every team manages to measure them differently, and this really does happen). David Lee at 6-9 3/4 is another surprising measurement that has popped up in many conversations as well, as the buzz on him has been quite strong as of late.
Chris Taft continues to drop like a rock
After reportedly stinking up the entire city of New York with the workouts he held over the past two weeks, Chris Taft has decided to take his show on the road. The latest stop was at Golden State yesterday, for an intimate meeting with Ike Diogu. The results, according to a person that was in the gym, were not pretty to watch. Basically Diogu scored on Taft repeatedly...again and again and again, until things started to get embarrassing. On the opposite side of the ball, Diogu stopped Taft in his tracks repeatedly and just thoroughly handed it to him. Things got so bad and Taft got so down on himself (again, in the opinion of this eye witness) that people thought he would just quit the workout. That never happened, but it was supposedly close.
Toronto’s general manager Rob Babcock, who got an up close and personal look at Taft, suggested earlier in the week that he “would certainly be better served by going back to school.” Unfortunately that’s just not really an option for Taft at this point, as he’s already hired an agent, New York City based Billy Ceisler, and forfeited any college eligibility he had remaining. If he had another season playing the way he did this past year, he probably would have zero shot at going in the first round anyway, so as sad as it sounds he appears to have made the right choice.
Bynum conducting NBA workouts
by Rodger Bohn
Larry Marshall, Andrew Bynum’s AAU coach and draft advisor, filled DraftCity in on the latest with the 7 foot high school senior who no one quite knows how to swallow just yet. Bynum has been training in New Jersey with a personal trainer for approximately five hours a day in preparation for the draft and still does not plan on hiring an agent. The plan for Bynum is still the same in that he will stay in the draft only if they are comfortable that he will be a lottery pick. If the Bynum camp does not have that necessary comfort in regards to his draft stock, they made it clear that he will go to Connecticut and play for arguably the best team in the country.
Marshall confirmed that Bynum will still be having his scheduled June 4th workout at Barouch College in New York City along with 6’9 Wake Forest junior Eric Williams (who has also has not signed with an agent), 6’10 Illinois senior Jack Ingram, and 6’8 Louisville senior Otis George. There has been no shortage of NBA interest in this workout, with Marshall stating that approximately 23 teams have confirmed their attendance at this event.
Following his private workout on the 4th, Andrew will be heading to Chicago, but only to partake in the physical examination and combine testing. “We will be going to Chicago, but Andrew will not be playing or conducting any workouts there”, Marshall told DraftCity. He then went on to tell us that Bynum is still planning on doing his scheduled workout on June 18th, and also has private workouts lined up with Atlanta, Portland, New Orleans, and New York.
Missing in action
There are a couple of names who have been conspicuously absent from reports we have received so far from participating players and NBA teams in private workouts. Channing Frye, Martell Webster and Sean May are three players who NBA teams still haven’t been able to track down for private workouts. All are clients with the same SFX sports agency.
According to reports, Frye was working out in Chicago at Tim Grover’s gym and would not play in the many 5 on 5 pickup games that are organized there a couple of times a week either. While I still haven’t managed to track down one person who doesn’t believe that he has a guarantee in the top or right around that area, I would still be absolutely shocked if that actually ended up happening on draft night. Ignoring the obvious fact that these rumors are thrown out every single year (Kirk Snyder to Utah at 14, Sergei Monya to Utah at 14, Martynas Andriuskevicius to Phoenix at 7, half the draft with their mothers included to Boston… just to name a few from last year) and almost never turn out to be true, promises like that are rarely handed out this early on (this has been out there even before the lottery was conducted), especially not to NCAA seniors. It is a great way to draw attention to yourself, though. Just ask Robert Swift and Rafael Araujo about that.
Just to make sure that I am not missing the boat on anything here, I went back to watch four tapes I have here of Channing Frye from the regular season. Those games were: against Utah, @ Washington, @ Arizona State, and against Washington in the Pac-10 finals. There were many others on television this year as well. Nothing in those games indicated to me that Frye even deserves consideration in the top 20. He looked to be extremely frail and narrow, and without too much potential to add weight. Not even one player I’ve spoken with who has gone up against him in the past (he was amongst many potential first rounders at the Nike Camp last summer) will question the fact that is incredibly soft, too prone to drift outside of the paint in key stretches of the game and often looks as if he is allergic to any rebound that won’t fall directly into his hands. The biggest problem with Frye is that he is nowhere close to being a difference maker for his team at the college level, despite his size. Too often he gets caught into 8-10 minutes where he just goes through the motions and appears to be in the game in spirit only, only being recognizable because of the fact that he is basically three inches taller than anyone else in his conference.
Someone could probably draft him high enough because he is almost 7 feet tall, but to waste such a high pick on a player who has shown the potential throughout his college career to be nothing more than a nice backup tweener big man to add to your rotation seems like a huge reach. Probably even more of a reach than Araujo last year. The fact remains that the only thing that has changed between him being a borderline first rounder two months ago and a supposed top ten pick right now is him hiring Kobe Bryant’s agent, Rob Pelinka, to represent him.
The true Knickabocker..........
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6/2/2005 11:11 AM