There were several teams that scored big at the 2014 NBA Draft on Thursday night, but a few teams didn’t do themselves any favors. On some questions, a lot of basketball fans will probably be divided in their opinions. It’s time to make sense of what happened in this much-discussed event.
Winners: Chicago Bulls And Denver Nuggets
In a development that doesn’t always happen on draft night, two teams that engineered a high-profile trade both appeared to come out ahead of the game. The Chicago Bulls traded the No. 16 and No. 19 picks in the draft to the Denver Nuggets for the No. 11 pick. With the No. 11 pick, the Bulls took forward Doug McDermott out of Creighton. McDermott is a player who can hit the 30-foot jump shot and do the kinds of things that former NBA player Dan Majerle used to do with the Phoenix Suns about 20 years ago, when that team made the 1993 NBA Finals and lost to the Chicago Bulls in six games. However, while having the range of Majerle, McDermott also posts up and plays with his back to the basket, something that is more along the lines of what a power forward would do. Majerle, by contrast, was a shooting guard or a small forward. McDermott is a wonderfully diverse player, and since he looks to score at every chance he gets, he’s what the Bulls need. Chicago is a team that died on offense last season. The Bulls had to become more potent, and McDermott will do just that for them.
The Nuggets won’t have McDermott, but they’ll have some compatible parts on their roster, and it’s worth being specific about the word parts, as in more than one. The Nuggets got two picks in exchange for allowing Chicago to move up to number 11, and Denver chose to be balanced in grabbing those two picks. With one pick, at 16, the Nuggets snapped up Jusuf Nurkic, a center whom international basketball analysts are high on. With the other pick at 19, Denver took Gary Harris, a player that American scouts and experts recognize as a very solid prospect out of Michigan State, where he was coached by Tom Izzo. Chicago and Denver both helped themselves a lot.
Losers: Philadelphia 76ers And Charlotte Hornets
This is hard to figure out, but the selections in the draft don’t tell lies. First, the Philadelphia 76ers took Kansas center Joel Embiid even while knowing that the young man would likely be out at least four months, if not seven or eight, due to an injury that was revealed in pre-draft medical screenings and examinations. Embiid endured back injuries during his time at Kansas, but the injury discovered much closer to the draft was an ankle injury, one that might easily have happened as a result of Embiid’s attempts to protect his back injury. Players will move differently if they feel they need to take care of their bodies and guard against further exacerbation of a painful or restrictive condition. Yet, those attempts at self-preservation often have the opposite effect. They only make things worse. Embiid is probably going to deal with a career in which injuries and related concerns are always going to be talked about. Why Philadelphia took Embiid with its third selection is something that won’t be answered easily.
The other team that blew it on draft night was the Charlotte Hornets. Taking Noah Vonleh, who did not impress scouts and talent evaluators over the past few months, was a dubious move with the ninth pick of the draft. The Hornets then took P.J. Hairston, a player who could not escape controversy at the University of North Carolina, which is not too far away from Charlotte. Hairston probably won’t be able to relax and play freely with the Hornets. Picking him did not add up. The Hornets don’t figure to get a lot better as a result of their moves.
