No Exactly Giddy, But All Right

I have long ago learned not to doubt Danny Ainge on draft night, so I will let J.R. Giddens off lightly. J.R.'s third year projected PER is a terrible 9.16, but WoW had this kind of nice thing to say about him: "New Mexico guard J.R. Giddens destroyed weaker competition in gathering a PAWS/M of .205 in 2007, but had no games against the top 25 and posted a poor .058 in WS/M his junior year." Okay. What obviously galls us about the Giddens pick is that Chalmers and CDR were just hanging there. Both those guys are probably going to be solid pros, perhaps very good ones. It's tough to see your team bypass such obvious talent. But you can't really question Danny, he's been spot-on so many times, and we'll get to see if that's the case again.

I have no idea about Semih Erden, and it will probably stay that way for a while. But without question the highlight as a Celtics' fan last night was when the Bill Walker acquisition was announced. I mean, it's Bill Walker. On every level it makes sense with a pick so low. And yes, he may never even play in the NBA. But he could also be an All-Star some day. So I was much more enthralled by that than anything else the Celtics did last evening, and it helped make up for the potential Giddens' mishap.

Speaking of mishaps - what the fuck is up with the draft? Every year I convince myself that GMs have a slight idea what they are doing draft night - and I'm always surprised by the level of draft incompetence. Don't get me wrong - I know I sound like an ass by criticizing teams about players who haven't even played yet, but I can't help myself. I'm beginning to doubt how brilliant Sam Presti is when he uses top 5 picks on Green and Westbrook in consecutive years. Chris Wallace can be considered nothing short of a fool (as we already knew) for trading Love, Miller etc. to Minny. The Clippers are clueless as usual. Those three teams committed egregious errors in my book, but the list is much longer. Draft night is not a sound process.

I wanted to say Portland easily took away the best haul, but then Kevin Pritchard and Paul Allen did their regular thing and traded away a lot of the gold. After the Indy trade Portland momentarily had come away with Bayless, Arthur, Dorsey and Omer Asik (who is supposed to be real good in a few years). That's an incredible draft - especially saying the Blazers did not have a top ten pick. But Pritchard is like a speed freak - he trades and then trades again. So Arthur, Dorsey and Asik are all now gone. If Pritchard ever slowed down, he'd be a great GM. Because of Allen's deep coffers he doesn't have to be, though. There was plenty of other good drafting, Miami lucked out, but frankly I can't process it all right now. Too many trades, too much action. It's gonna be a hell of a Summer.