Not Too Many Good NBA Draft Picks in This Year's NCAA

Pete Thamel is always worth reading.

Don't know why the article mentions North Carolina as having NBA-type players overall, but does not discuss the two on the roster who will go to the NBA. Hansborough and the guy who was injured but who will now play again in the second round.

By PETE THAMEL and THAYER EVANS
Published: March 16, 2009
There is an old Jerry Seinfeld line about how cheering for sports teams is like rooting for laundry. The players change and the coaches get fired. But in the end, following a team is really nothing more than hoping the guys wearing the familiar shirts win.

Donna McWilliam/Associated Press
Blake Griffin has benefited from the talent drain and is projected as the first pick in the draft.

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In essence, this year’s N.C.A.A. tournament follows the same line. The names among the top seeds are familiar — including North Carolina, Connecticut and Louisville — but the caliber of the talent wearing the uniforms is different.

Interviews with N.B.A. personnel, college coaches and various draft experts show that this year’s N.C.A.A. tournament offers a drastic drop-off in elite talent. The tournament could be awash in buzzer beaters and competitive games, but it is also likely to feature a lower caliber of basketball than last season.

The N.B.A. is bracing for one of the worst drafts this decade, which is especially glaring when compared with last year’s star-studded class led by Derrick Rose, O. J. Mayo and Kevin Love.

“Last year, anybody in the top 10 was guaranteed they were going to get a player that could contribute,” Mike Dunleavy, the Los Angeles Clippers’ coach and general manager, said of teams in the draft. “This year, the way I’m hearing it, that’s not necessarily the case.”

Last year’s Final Four, which featured all four No. 1 seeds for the first time in tournament history, was a showcase for N.B.A. talent. The eventual No. 1 draft pick, Rose, was a point guard who led Memphis to the cusp of the championship. Five players from Kansas, which beat Memphis in the final, were drafted.

After the first few picks in this year’s draft in June, which will almost surely be led by the Oklahoma sophomore Blake Griffin, there are a lot of question marks.

“There’s not a lot of what I would call superstar-type talent in this draft,” said Chad Ford, a draft analyst for ESPN.com. “I think there will be a lot of decent players that will come out of this draft, but I don’t think it’ll be like the last couple of years, where you’ve seen so many talented guys who you could imagine being on All-Star teams someday.”

An N.B.A. rule that essentially requires players to go to college for a year has invigorated the talent in the college game since it came into effect in 2006. But the current freshman class has been particularly weak, hurting the overall talent level in the game. Last year’s top three picks were freshmen — Rose, Michael Beasley from Kansas State and Mayo from Southern California. This year’s crop of freshmen is not nearly as appetizing.

“I agree with that 1,000 percent, but last year we were spoiled,” Kansas Coach Bill Self said of the draft’s being weaker this year. “How many times are you going to have five 18-, 19-year-olds that dominate college basketball like they did? This year, the impact of the freshmen I don’t think has been near as great as last year, which leads you to believe that maybe the talent level’s not quite as great.”

No one exploited the differential in talent between this year and last year more than Griffin, a 6-foot-10 forward who was projected as a late lottery pick last year. Now he is nearly the consensus best player available, and he is expected to forgo his final two years of eligibility.

“I’m glad I came back,” Griffin said in a telephone interview. “I didn’t come back to be the No. 1 pick. I came back to get better and have a chance to mature a little bit more. Being the No. 1 pick wasn’t the reason I came back. This draft might be down, but it’s not something that I’m worried about.”
This year’s tournament will also be missing some of the best players in college basketball. A year defined by instability at the top of the rankings and mediocrity among the teams on the N.C.A.A’s so-called bubble also had a surprising lack of star power.

Perhaps the most recognizable player, Stephen Curry, will be playing in the National Invitation Tournament. Three other players considered probable first-round picks — Georgetown’s Greg Monroe and DaJuan Summers and Kentucky’s Patrick Patterson — will also be in the N.I.T.

Also hurting the college game is that Brandon Jennings, considered perhaps the top point guard in this season’s freshman class, decided to play professionally in Italy instead of going to Arizona.

There is a distinct lack of clarity after the draft’s top five players, Ford said. He projects Griffin, Connecticut center Hasheem Thabeet, the flamboyant Spanish teenager Ricky Rubio, Monroe and Arizona State guard James Harden as the top five players expected to be available in the draft. From there, it becomes muddled. That could lead to a glut of borderline players trying to enter the draft thinking they can sneak into the first round.

“It’s going to cause even more problems, and you’re going to have even more guys go out that aren’t ready because they see, hey, there’s not a lot of names they’re talking about,” Texas Tech Coach Pat Knight said.
Who benefits most from the lack of elite talent in the college game?

Seemingly, the glut of teams that were on the bubble and lacked top-flight talent. The Big Ten is the most glaring example of this, with seven teams making the N.C.A.A. tournament despite a distinct lack of N.B.A. talent. Only the Ohio State freshman center B. J. Mullens, who has been inconsistent at best, projects as a first-round pick this year.

The elite teams — Oklahoma, North Carolina and Connecticut — are the ones with frontline N.B.A. talent. After the top few teams, however, the rest could trade places.

“What I see is any less than four to eight elite teams, and then beyond that, I see a lot of mixing and matching between 10 and 40,” Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany said.

That means a lot of teams with middling talent. And although the uniforms may look familiar, the talent level in this N.C.A.A. tournament will not be.
Greg Bishop and Jonathan Abrams contributed reporting.
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