It's like Christmas in March! As is typical right around conference tournament week in the NCAA, we have our first NBA draft entrant. It's Charles Garcia, yeoman power forward for the Seattle University Redhawks. Garcia, a junior college transfer who spent just one season at Seattle after being denied eligibility at the University of Washington across town, announced his intention to hire an agent and go pro Monday.
Garcia began the season like gangbusters, lighting up the chatter by coming out of nowhere to leap into the national top-10 in scoring and rebounding. A rangy forward compared to Lamar Odom by some, Garcia wowed by taking full control of the Seattle U. offense and leading the team to some solid wins. Scouts were (anonymously) quoted placing Garcia in the first round. DraftExpress.com's Jonathan Givony echoed the sentiment.
But things didn't stay especially buoyant all season. As Kevin Pelton noted last week on Basketball Prospectus, Garcia's play slipped substantially right around the New Year, and the Redhawks suffered for it. Things turned back around -- Pelton credits the growth of Garcia's teammates, which allowed Garcia to better fit in. But the consensus seems to be that the recent uptick for the team hasn't launched Garcia back into the orbit he found himself in early in the season.
The idea that NBA teams tank to win better draft position is a bit overblown. The actual act of tanking, or losing on purpose, happens rarely. Mark Madsen hoisting threes or Doc Rivers benching a hot Ryan Gomes tend to be involved.
But something I'd call "slow-burn tanking" certainly exists. This happens when teams give up a portion of a season -- or in some cases an entire season -- for rebuilding purposes. You don't do this by playing the worst players on your team, or making unsavory in-game decisions. You do it by trading or waiving just about everyone who can play and who doesn't figure figure into your future.
The Kings did it last season, under the guise of saving salary. Trading John Salmons and Brad Miller (two of the team's three most productive players in 2008-09) certainly helped the bottom line, but it didn't free up free agent dollars (Sean May's $800,000 was the biggest offseason expense for the team) and in fact hurt long-term financial flexibility. But it made the '08-09 Kings worse, and the team easily clinched the NBA's worst record, which came with a nice prize: the best chance at Blake Griffin.
So what if the Knicks win the lottery and are forced to surrender John Wall to Utah? That would be side-splitting, though it likely won't happen now that Mike D'Antoni has his team playing with something resembling a sense of purpose.
That leaves the Nets, possibly the worst team ever, picking out baby clothes and painting the locker room UK colors. Except that -- cue that funny trombone -- Devin Harris, the team's lone All-Star and de facto franchise player, also plays point guard. What's a team to do?
If you're one of those people who loves hot new trends, you'd suggest the Nets play them together, since two-point guard (or PG-ish) backcourts are in vogue this season. Even Chris Paul has had to suffer this indignity; it's also the number one question that would've arose had the Jazz ended up with this hypothetical pick.
On Wednesday, Spurs second-rounder DeJuan Blair went for an ungodly 28 points and 21 boards against the Thunder. Blair, a rebounding machine who came out of some unknown school called "Pitt," hit the OKC with exactly what that team needs to make its cipher complete. Though for the record, some of us yet believe that Serge Ibaka will grow into that duty.
Regardless, OKC could've easily had Blair on their roster, as could every other team in the NBA. For once, the Spurs didn't pull off a move that required genius; they just picked up a player whom some had projected to go mid-first.
These are the days of miracles and wonders, which is why things are jumping the eff off over at Darnell Mayberry's Thunder Rumblings. Perhaps drunk off the novelty of Sam Presti having made a mistake, a whole city wonders why they have B.J. Mullens, not Blair, on their roster.
LeBron James is such a singular player that it's strange to speak of him as a test case. But in a sense, he was. James was a player who frequently made us question all we knew about the universe, or at least basketball; his role as "savior" was both more literal and more high-flown than any draft pick -- especially one so young -- in recent memory. That his game regularly blew our collective mind only added to this mystique. You don't get called a "messiah" without offering up a regular dose of revelation.
But enough slobbering. The LeBron James story did work out, and in John Wall, we have the first player since then who has really captured the draftnoscenti's imagination like James. I am not discounting Greg Oden and Kevin Durant; however, there were questions about each of them, and their informal competition for the number one spot became the real story. Like James, or the cheese, Wall stands alone. And if you think teams aren't clamoring for a chance to nab a player who, symbolically, is James redux, you're absent your temporal lobe.
That's how you end up with column like the latest Mike Wells offering in The Indianapolis Post. It's called "John Wall: The Ultimate Consolation Prize," but the title's misleading. In fact, it kicks off with a fiery paean to the Kentucky supra-talent, then reminds readers that when the lowly Nets come to town, their permanent midnight in the standings means they're also on the verge of a Wall-ian epiphany. Totally gnostic, I know.
It's like Christmas in March! As is typical right around conference tournament week in the NCAA, we have our first 
The idea that 
So what if the 
On Wednesday, Spurs second-rounder 
LeBron James is such a singular player that it's strange to speak of him as a test case. But in a sense, he was. James was a player who frequently made us question all we knew about the universe, or at least basketball; his role as "savior" was both more literal and more high-flown than any draft pick -- especially one so young -- in recent memory. That his game regularly blew our collective mind only added to this mystique. You don't get called a "messiah" without offering up a regular dose of revelation.
