On Tuesday night the Cleveland Cavaliers won the NBA Draft Lottery, and thus will have the No. 1 overall pick in this year's NBA Draft. Most of the talk has centered around the Cavs making Duke point guard Kyrie Irving the No. 1 overall pick in this year's draft. Kyrie Irving reminds me a lot of Chris Paul. He is a great player to build a franchise around, he can score, but most importantly he can put his teammates into positions where they will succeed. This sounds like the perfect fit for the Cleveland Cavaliers. After going through the departure of LeBron James the Cavs can use this No. 1 overall pick to find a new franchise player and thus start over and rebuild their team. Kyrie Irving is the perfect player to do this, but the Cavaliers were also awarded the No. 4 overall pick in this year's draft, and therefore there is a better option for Cleveland.
Derrick Williams is arguably the second best player coming out of college this season. The Arizona forward really came to light in the NCAA tournament when he helped his Wildcats rout Kyrie Irving and the Duke Blue Devils in the Sweet Sixteen. Williams took charge in the game scoring 32 points, while pulling down 13 boards, and adding on two assists. Williams, a sophomore, finished the season averaging 19.5 points, 8.3 rebounds, and 1.1 assists per game. One of the major problems with Derrick Williams is the assist totals. Sure he is known for is scoring, but 1.1 assists per game is troubling, especially when you look at the stats from his entire season and see that the most assists he had in a single game was three, which he managed to do on only three separate occasions. Williams is definitely known mainly for his scoring and rebounding and he reminds me of Kevin Durant. Durant is also known as a big time scorer, and was a player who really emerged as a star in the NCAA Tournament. It has taken some time, but Durant has now become one of the best players in the game.
Ok, so if the Cavaliers had just one pick in the draft this year I think it would be and easy choice, boom, Kyrie Irving. Like I said earlier though, the Cavaliers also hold the No. 4 pick in the draft as well. Some of the players who could fall to the Cavs at the No. 4 spot are players like Enes Kanter, Jan Vesely, Jonas Valanciunas, Brandon Knight, and Kemba Walker. Kanter, Vesley, and Valanciunas are all forwards and would be the likely choices for the Cavaliers if they take Irving with the No. 1 pick. Here is the thing that I do not like about this decision. These three players all come from overseas and did not play college basketball in the United States, there have been five big name players who have done this since the year 2005, Andrew Bogut, Andrea Bargnani, Yi Jianlian, Danilo Gallinari, and Ricky Rubio. Sure with the exception of Ricky Rubio, who by the way plays for Barcelona now and never actually played in the NBA, all of these players have had solid careers. The only problem with this is that these are not players who are supposed to be having solid careers. These are the players that teams are trying to build their franchises around, these are players that need to be superstars. Bogut and Bargnani were both No. 1 picks in their respective drafts and for their careers have averaged 12.7 and 15.1 points per game respectively. And of course they have both definitely showed up in the playoffs averaging 8.6 and 8.9 points per game respectively (I hope you noted sarcasm in that last sentence). As for Jianlian had Gallinari they both do not even play for the teams that drafted them anymore and that's because they both have averaged 8.5 and 13.8 points per game respectively. Even though these two guys were not No. 1 overall picks, they were still No. 6 overall picks, still franchise players.
The last player to come overseas who was actually really good was Darko Milicic (more sarcasm). You know Darko Milicic the guy who the Pistons took in the 2003 NBA Draft after LeBron James and before Carmelo Anthony, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh. Oh yeah, you probably do not remember because he averaged less than two points a game when playing for the Pistons and has averaged an impressive 6.1 points per game throughout his career. Ok, but to be serious now. The best player who has come overseas in recent years has definitely been Yao Ming (not being sarcastic anymore, I think Yao Ming is a beast). Sure Ming has suffered numerous injuries throughout his career, but when healthy Ming has been able to average as high as 25 points per game in his career. Ming was drafted in the 2002 NBA Draft, meaning that throughout all of these years there have really only been two successful overseas NBA players, with Pau Gasol being drafted in 2001. Now, if we go back to the present day, and you look at Kanter, Vesley, and Valanciunas, no matter how good the scouts say they are, because they said Rubio was great too, are you really willing to take a chance on them. If you still are willing to take a chance on them you probably need to reread the last paragraph starting with the part where I show the stats to prove what a bad decision this would be. The best thing for the Cavaliers to do is to stay away from these overseas players.
So let us now find out what the best option for the Cleveland Cavaliers is. Right now the Cavs need help everywhere. The best option for them is to fill two needs by drafting a guard and a forward. So if we take out the overseas players and narrow down our options we come down to the guards being Kyrie Irving, Brandon Knight, and Kemba Walker, and the forward being Derrick Williams. Once again I will state that Kyrie Irving is the best player in this year's draft, but Derrick Williams is not far below him. The Cavaliers best scenario is to take Derrick Williams with the No. 1 overall pick and then to use their No. 4 overall pick on either Kemba Walker or Brandon Knight. The debate between which one of these players is better we will save for another day (by the way Kemba's the man, but I love Brandon too), but the fact is the Cavaliers will be in better shape if they take Derrick Williams first and then find a guard to complement him with their No. 4 pick. We can only hope that Dan Gilbert also sees things this way, or else he will be unable to fulfill his promise to the Cleveland people and win a ring before King James.
Ryan Bothmann
P.S.- Mr. Gilbert, tune in to ABC anytime in early June if you are interested in seeing King James win that ring.
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