Each weekday for the next two weeks, we’ll be counting down the NBA Draft lottery teams leading up to the June 26th draft. It would be a fool’s errand to project what each team will do; tryouts vary by day and if anything, that’s an exercise in futility we’ll post at 5 p.m. on draft day. Instead, what you’ll be reading is what we would do if we were running each team.
Going to zag when we probably should be zigging here. The consensus seems to be that Memphis needs a big man. They traded away Pau Gasol and entering next season, their leading returning scorer is Hakim Warrick (11 ppg). Also, the Grizzlies defense was terrible last season, and let opponents shoot 48 percent from the field, which was tied for first in the league. Trolling the net for mock drafts, we’ve seen names ranging from LSU’s Anthony Randolph to UCLA’s Kevin Love to Stanford’s Brook Lopez.
We’ll disagree on all fronts, and cast our ballot for Arizona shooting guard Jerryd Bayless. The logic: The loss of Juan Carlos Navarro is a damaging one. He’s decided to return to Spain, which hurts because we thought he had a solid season and contained perhaps more upside than anyone on the squad save SF Rudy Gay. This is good news for Kyle Lowry, a scrappy point guard whom we love as a backup to last year’s lottery pick, PG Mike Conley. But Bayless, we think, has more potential than Navarro as a pure scorer, even though he’s only 19. Mike Miller’s got two years left on his bloated contract, and is probably going to be shipped out to somebody who is looking for a shooter in the postseason (San Antonio?). So Bayless could start early.
The other reason we don’t think you go big here is Marc Gasol (Pau’s brother), whose rights they scored in the deal with the Lakers last season. It seems as if he’s going to be ready for next season, and when you pair him with Darko and Warrick, you’ve at least got a long frontline (though not much else). Call us crazy, but we think if they can swing some kind of multi-team deal where Memphis ends up with a PF like Chris Wilcox (always loved his game) and all the Grizz have to give away is Miller, they should jump at it. If we were Memphis, we’d lock up our backcourt for at least the next few years by taking Bayless.
5. Memphis - Jerryd Bayless, Arizona
6. New York Knicks - Eric Gordon, Indiana
7. Los Angeles Clippers - Russell Westbrook, UCLA
8. Milwaukee - DeAndre Jordan, Texas A&M
9. Charlotte - Kevin Love, UCLA
10. New Jersey - Anthony Randolph, LSU
11. Indiana - Roy Hibbert, Georgetown
12. Sacramento - JaVale McGee, Nevada
13. Portland - Joe Alexander, West Virginia
14. Golden State - Darrell Arthur, Kansas
