2008 NBA Draft Analysis

We like the Cavs pick. J.J. Hickson, 6’9, 242 pound, 19 year old freshman power forward from NC State. Why not? The Cavs wanted youth on the front line, and they got it. With upside. NC State is a solid program, and Hickson is young. Real young. Theoretically, the sky’s the limit for him, so we’ll remain optimistic until we have reason not to. Free Darko’s Shoals provided the following analysis of the pick last night on Deadspin:

"My thinking, as of right now—which is how LeBron thinks about this team, which is what matters—is that Hickson < Gooden < Boozer."

Shoals probably didn’t put much thought into this, and it’s a simple way to play into everybody’s favorite NBA storyline, “LeBron’s leaving Cleveland.” But it’s not as though Boozer was traded for Gooden who was then traded for Hickson. We’re also not sure why Hickson can’t soon develop into at least a 10 and 10 guy like Gooden was. And Hickson looks to us to be more athletic than Gooden (watch the video here). He should be able to learn a lot from LeBron, as well as the Cavs' frontline vets, and develop more quickly as a result. We’ll write more about him as more info becomes available. Welcome to Cleveland, J.J. We’re glad to have you.

Update: 12:05 P.M. -- We wrote this before checking out two fantastic posts on Hickson at Waiting for Next Year. Love the quotes here. And agree that "if you don’t believe you can get a player who will make an immediate impact, then it makes sense to pick a guy with a world of talent like Hickson." We're so on board with this Hickson pick.

Thoughts on a few more picks:

We’ve never seen him play, but we like Danilo Gallinari. Of course, Knicks fans are apoplectic that the sixth pick was used on an allegedly slow-footed European. But Danny G. is only 19, and apparently still growing. He’s also known to have impressive offensive skills -- a greeeat outside shot and a nose for the basket. His feet couldn’t be that slow, could they? And can’t this be learned? How fast are Nowitzki’s feet? How good is his “lateral movement”? How much does this matter? Additionally, it’s apparent from the many photos of him on the internet that Gallinari plays with a certain intensity, and he strikes us as having a certain star quality that seems like something different from the braggadocio that we see from American 19-year old basketball stars. And his nickname is Big Cock (he even has his own logo). There’s a fine line between a healthy confidence/cockiness and something worse. Gallinari seems to live close to this line, but how many NBA rookie lottery picks don’t? We’re going to root for him to overcome the slow-footed Euro stereotype because it would be fun to have this guy become a star in New York. Also, we’re just not sure why everyone is so quick to assume that this guy will be a bust. We expect that the draft night boos will provide substantial motivational fuel, and hope that the good people of Italy will get behind their countryman, and provide a moral/social support network for the youngster to help him along the way to stardom stateside.

Finally, bringing Derrick Rose back home to Chicago had to be the right decision. Michael Beasley reminds us of Carmelo Anthony. And why do the Bucks always draft the guy who gets the most pre-draft hype? Andrew Bogut, Yi Jianlian (since traded), and now Joe Alexander. We wouldn’t be surprised if everyone in the Bucks front office paid $900 for iPhones when they were first released.

Now that the draft is over, we’ll tune back into the NBA sometime next May -- unless the Cavs make any trades in the meantime.