Tuesday, June 25, 2019

Some random draft-y thoughts

Some of them stupid. Some of them ... less stupid.

First, the stupid.

Saw that Bol Bol wound up with the Nuggets, and that inspired this idiocy. If Bol Bol were 20 years older ... and Fort Wayne TinCaps pitcher Henry Henry were 20 years older, a few inches taller and a basketball player instead of a baseball player ... they could have formed the most repetitive frontcourt of all time: Bol Bol, Henry Henry, and Duany Duany.

Told you it was stupid.

And the less stupid?

Put aside for a moment why the Pacers would use the 18th pick on another post player (Goga Bitadze) when they already have two pretty good ones on their roster. Especially when it turns out the Pacers knew so little about him that head coach Nate McMillan admitted he'd never seen the guy except briefly on tape.

In which case, the suspicion is that "Goga Bitadze" is pronounced "bargaining chip."

In any case, let's leave Bankers Life Fieldhouse for now and -- through the magic of Blobbian physics -- teleport ourselves to Boston, where among the newest Celtics this morning are Romeo Langford and Carsen Edwards. An Indiana guy and a Purdue guy, joining a team coached by a Zionsville guy (Brad Stevens). All the Celtics need now is for Larry Bird to return in triumph bearing a platter of giant breaded tenderloins, and the Hoosier-fication of Beantown will be complete.

The Celts took Langford with the 13th pick, on the high end of all the draftnik projections. This suggests the Celtics are taking a bit of a flyer on Romeo; it also suggests they were influenced by the fact he comes in a package deal with Extenuating Circumstances. Extenuating Circumstances always skew the dynamic -- and usually toward favorable side.

In this case, the Extenuating Circumstance is the torn thumb ligament on his shooting hand Langford managed to  keep quiet through his only season at Indiana. It explained a lot, most notably the uneven shooting that was never evident in his high school days at New Albany. Despite that, Langford still led Indiana and all Big Ten freshmen in scoring -- and with the thumb now surgically repaired, all the qualities that once made him a projected top-five pick should be in full flower again.

Still, he's much more a roll of the dice than Edwards, if only because Edwards was the third pick of the second round. If his lack of size does make him too much a liability to succeed in the NBA, the Celtics therefore won't be out a whole lot. If, however, his size is outweighed by the fact he's exactly the sort of perimeter threat that's become invaluable in a perimeter-driven league, he'll be the bargain of all bargains.

All 6 feet of him.

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