Minnesota Sports Forum

It's never too early to talk a little draft!

I gotta agree with Cam that it wouldn't hurt to focus on SG's. For some reason, this seems to be the weakest position throughout the NBA, and thus the most difficult hole to fix by trade or free agency. Combine that with our starter's age, and adding a lottery SG to the roster seems like a good idea. I'm not an expert on any of these guys, but early mock drafts have LeVert and Selden as possible targets if Ricky's injury pushes us into an attractive draft position.

Brandon BassHole wrote:Yes any player that wins the Morgan Wooten Player of the year award in high school has a good chance of being good in the NBA. Morgan Wootten National Player of the Year has been chosen from the field of McDonald's All-Americans based on activity in the community, classroom and on the court.

The past players have been

1997: Shane Battier
1998: Ronald Curry
1999: Jay Williams
2000: Chris Duhon
2001: Aaron Miles
2002: Torin Francis
2003: LeBron James
2004: Dwight Howard
2005: Josh McRoberts
2006: Greg Oden
2007: Kevin Love
2008: Greg Monroe
2009: Derrick Favors
2010: Harrison Barnes
2011: Austin Rivers
2012: Shabazz Muhammad
2013: Jabari Parker[8]
2014: Jahlil Okafor

Pretty much every bigman on the list has been very very good in the NBA so I say role the dice! It also usually means that they have a good character off of the court as well.

Maybe. No guarantee with that one. Oden has had his share of issues. And Muhammad's character? Meh. Lying about his age isn't a great testament to that.

As for who the Wolves should seek in a draft if they get a super high pick?

When you have the opportunity to take the very best... don't worry about positions. The Wolves won't be a playoff team... which means they have A LOT of holes. There's no reason for a rebuilding team to worry about plugging specific positions. It's about accumulating talent.

well he didnt know he was lying. He grew up believing he was a year younger because thats what his dad told him.

Camden wrote:I'm a Karl Towns guy myself, but Okafor is definitely a highly touted prospect at this time for good reason.

Edit: I also really like Rashad Vaughn and Emmanuel Mudiay.

I don't know anything about Towns. Whats his nba comparison?

alexftbl8181 wrote:

Camden wrote:I'm a Karl Towns guy myself, but Okafor is definitely a highly touted prospect at this time for good reason.

Edit: I also really like Rashad Vaughn and Emmanuel Mudiay.

I don't know anything about Towns. Whats his nba comparison?

To me, he has a lot of Marc Gasol in him. High IQ player, very skilled passer, decent rim protector, good jumper for a big, not overly athletic but can play above the rim. Towns is raw with his back to the basket, but post game is coachable.

I agree that Gasol is a good comparison for Towns in terms of size, rebounding, defense and passing, but he also has Nowitzki type range on his jumper. He could be a legitimate 3-point shooter in the NBA. To me he looks like the best prospect of the incoming freshmen, but I don't think he will go #1. With two seven footers ahead of him at Kentucky, he isn't likely to get as much of an opportunity to showcase himself as Okafor will. Kentucky was a really odd choice for Towns to make.

Shabazz never lied about his age he honestly thought that's how old he was, and he is a great person even after being raised by a scumbag

You take him and trade Pek for help elsewhere on the roster because Okafor has the ability to make a similar impact as Pek with higher upside in terms of his passing ability. I don't know how his defense projects, but you can't really be much worse at protecting the rim than Pek at the center position so I doubt we could actually get worse in that aspect of the game. You'd have Dieng ready to play significant minutes next year as well so having Dieng start with Okafor off the bench would be pretty solid to bring him along slowly and let him torch second unit bigs. If he shows some defense he might even be worthy of the starting job. I doubt we end up with the top pick though and I doubt we end up with a pick high enough to get him. We'd need some serious lottery luck which we have never had.

BloopOracle wrote:Shabazz never lied about his age he honestly thought that's how old he was, and he is a great person even after being raised by a scumbag

Is this Shabazz? Otherwise, how would you know what he knew. I'm not sure what Shabazz has done to be considered a great person. He broke rules at NBA rookie camp, he sulked as a teammate got the clutch basket at UCLA and he lied about his age, knowingly or unknowingly as you suggest. He's volunteered with kids so he ain't all bad.