2008 Draft Diary (part 2)

[CelticsGM]

Welcome back to the 2008 SSBA Draft in Madison Square Palace to find out which are the next teams trying to ged rid of their 2008 picks in 2 seasons for future considerations ...

Next on the board is Seattle, which aquired the pick from the Suns in the Magloire deal.
The Sonics select C Jim Finley (and in related news McDonalds immediately opens 5 news restaurants in the vincinity of Key Arena). Finley will replace the departed Mag and back up Hoiberg at C with size, aah size, and hmm, well, lets see, more size I suspect. Was this Suns deal a good one? We will find out if Finley can replace Magloire only after Jim develops for some seasons, but McDyess will be retired by then, so the first guess is hardly.

In his first interview, Jim says all the right things about his future activities, planning to get his own nutrition coach, getting in better shape, but you somehow dont want to be near the San Andreas fault if he jumps for the first rebound in Staples ...

Pick #7 goes to the Knicks who need anything but guards and - in the tradition of New York GMs - select ... PG Andy Miles. He'll back up Starbury for now and won't be thrown into cold water right away. With somewhat suspect shooting and being not the quickest guy he'll make a nice pass-first guard with lots of potential. He can really become a good one but probably never more ...

The Spurs traded for the #8 pick (and not only moved up from #15 but got two higher 1sts in 2009 as well) and choose SF Chase Russell, a solid pick and exact clone of a young SF they already have in Hayden Strickland. Well at least they know what production they can expect at starter AND backup now. With some nice talent still on the board a somewhat suspect pick ...

The CPU gets ready for the next pick as the Lakers are on the board and selects SF Quincy Peters, a small man's Chase Russell at #9. Apparently the CPU forgot to approve the Pistons deal first as he picked the exact clone of Stephen Jackson - eight years younger though - who was supposed to leave, so this smells trade all over once the LakersGM returns from wherever he currently ...

Btw, this selection sets a new world record for consecutive choosen clones. If the Pistons now select Litwack clone SF Desmond Daniels next this record might not be broken again forEVER ...

The last pick today is a human pick again. The Pistons choose PF Shane Nesterovich who will get the chance to back up Gasol and Ferry for years. A perfect selection to set the frontcourt rotation and probably the first pick really making sense this year. With the highest potential of all draft picks this year only the missing (albeit scouted) potential allowed him to fall that far as most mocks had him going #5. He could easily be the best player from this draft in 3 seasons but wont get a chance to start this year, so hold the ROY trophy for now ...

Now that all starters and backup material has been choosen, the project phase of the draft officially will begin tomorrow, early as never before at #11. The Cavs will kick it off before our other finalist this year gets a chance to build on his success. Don't miss the chance to read all about it here, so feel free to come back tomorrow ...


{plse remember, this is partly comedy so dont feel offended   }

[LakersGM-old]

MY pick wasnt a computer pick. I sent in a list.

[CelticsGM]

MY pick wasnt a computer pick. I sent in a list.

of course, I know ... call it "freedom of fun"

[LakersGM-old]

whats that supposed to mean?

[CavsGM]

He is just kidding around.

[NetsGM]

I think that means something along the lines of:
He took a guess, he was wrong, so he's saving face.

Of course, I could be wrong.

[CelticsGM]

I think that means something along the lines of:
He took a guess, he was wrong, so he's saving face.

Of course, I could be wrong.

You are right on the money here.

After last year the CPU apparently selected the Lakers #2 pick which was wildly criticized throughout this community I started to speculate on whether LakersGM is a human being or some form of AI (not as in Allan Iverson but as in Artificial Intelligence) and we all were part of a secret field experiment. The matrix for that AI would have taken some precoded (and not completely developped) decision factors into account that summed up to the Mercer pick.

Now since an advanced AI is some form of super computer able to learn from mistakes it would be interesting to see how much the algorythmus had advanced up to this draft. The slight mistake with the "Stephen-Jackson-incident" only would have happened because the AI was busy pre-calculating draft scenarios ahead until the season 2035 (for the laymen: this is what chess computers like Deep Blue do).

So taken this into account, the Quincy Peters pick would have been quite an improvement of the AI for sure. I guess the "LakersGM" (lets continue to refer to the AI that way here) could be seen a step ahead of last year and if the learning aptitude develops even further we all would soon be looking at a situation where the Lake Show could dominate for years (as all possible trade scenarios are calculated 30 seasons ahead). Sure, "he" would have to get something more out of Dwyane than every 5th game, something which didn't happen in any of these future scenarios forecasted.

Of course, the "Sonics incident" (aka breaking up a finalist, picking 21 rookies, trading to become the team with the most dominant big guy in history and immediately doing it all over again) would have nearly caused a fatal collapse of the AI as THIS too was not forseeable in any of the 23.987.343.009 future scenarios processed ...


But now that I know that LakersGM indeed is human - and a fine GM no less - this whole story is demoted to pure speculation without evidence.