2013 Draft: Hilarious at the top, value at the bottom

The NBA Draft kicks off tonight at 7:30 on ESPN. The Draft is always one of my favorite days of the year. I love the immediate speculation for the season although maybe three players from the class will have a significant impact the next year (that's not just this class, that's almost every class). I love the ridiculous suits, the one player who sits in the Green Room for an uncomfortably long time, Stephen A. Smith's vast misunderstanding of the college basketball season and how each fan base talks themselves into a pick they know was shitty in their heart.

UNLV's Anthony Bennett has great potential, but the true value in this year's draft class lies in the late first round.

This draft will be especially great because all the top-10 picks will be legitimately funny. As I hinted at last night, when I wrote that Alex Len would be the worst top-five pick of the past decade, this draft class is hilariously weak at the top. This was corroborated by respected Charlotte writer Rick Bonnell, who called Len, the 19th best player in a historically weak ACC, the best long-term prospect in the class. (Side note: How sad is it for Adam Sandler that the commercials for Grown Ups 2 will actually be less funny than the draft they're airing during?). There's not one franchise player in this draft. Nerlens Noel, Otto Porter, Trey Burke and Anthony Bennett have the most potential of them all, and their haphazard comparisons would be Tyson Chandler, Tayshaun Prince, Mike Conley and Kenyon Martin. Good enough to be a starter/top-three player for a Finals team? Sure. Franchise player? Not for any franchise worth a damn.
However, the rich will get richer with this draft, in a sense. There's major value in role players in the back half of this first round and second round. Teams like the Clippers, Pacers, Thunder, Nuggets, Spurs and Bulls are all well-positioned to add critical pieces to their on-the-cusp puzzles. The following are all guys who will likely be post-lottery selections that I can see being the fifth starter/sixth man/rotation player on a championship team in the next 5-7 years:
Shane Larkin
C.J. McCollum
Reggie Bullock
Tim Hardaway, Jr.
Jamaal Franklin
Gorgui Dieng
Jeff Withey
Ray McCallum
Ricky Ledo
Allen Crabbe
Lorenzo Brown
Richard Howell
Deshaun Thomas
Ryan Kelly

Future rotation players like Lehigh's C.J. McCollum have value as post-lottery selections.

Recent years in the NBA have illustrated that teams cannot win the Finals without an excellent supporting cast. Big 3/Heat jokes aside, LeBron couldn't win until he had Shane Battier and Udonis Haslem filling the 4th/5th starter positions on his team. The 2011 Mavericks and Dirk Nowitzki won because Tyson Chandler emerged as an elite defensive center, Shawn Marion did Shawn Marion things, and Jason Terry/JJ Barrea added sparks off the bench. The Spurs have built a dynasty by having a superstar, a couple great guys and several fantastic role players filling out the roster.
When we give grades/evaluations on this draft, we can't measure picks as if they're the next star for their teams. We need to take an extended look at their fit and value as rotation players. A pick like Reggie Bullock, who brings 3-point marksmanship, solid rebounding and defending to a playoff team, has more immediate value than, say, Victor Oladipo, who will be pegged as the young superstar for a team when his true fit is being an exceptional role player.
This is the same reason Harrison Barnes was considered to have a better rookie season than Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. Barnes had real value as a fourth-option wing scorer on a team with established stars. MKG, a second-fiddle by nature, wasn't in a position to succeed as the most talented player on the Bobcats.
So, yes, we can all laugh at the fact Alex Len will stroll onto the draft stage early Thursday night, and that team's fans will convince themselves he's their big man of the future. We'll get a lot of good laughs at some of the guys who go in the top 10, and we'll get a lot of good laughs when all 10 of those teams are back in the lottery next year. But, pay special attention as the night grows older. The NBA is getting more competitive and more balanced, and somebody picked by a playoff team in the back half of the first round could be the one guy who swings a championship to his city. This draft is light on stars but heavy on solid contributors. That's not glamorous, but it's interesting to real basketball fans at the very least.
And please, to any GM who wants to compete, use a second-round flyer on N.C. State's Richard Howell. His floor is Reggie Evans, who just started for the 4th-seeded Nets and pulled down 11+ rebounds a game.

Don't draft Alex Len

Alex Len attempts to guard Nerlens Noel, a legitimate NBA lottery pick. Source: sportsnola.com

The Bobcats have made more mistakes than GOB since their inception in 2004. Should we list them? We should list them. They named their team after an owner who jumped ship five years later, started their first season with Primoz Brezec's face on season tickets, drafted a fat point guard and a fat forward from UNC in the same year, allowed the Man Who Still Swears By Kwame Brown to run basketball operations, gave a green light to Adam Morrison's mustache, decided DJ Augustin was better than Raymond Felton, immediately blew up the only team to sniff the playoffs, let future Olympic gold medalist Tyson Chandler walk for nothing and still haven't edited their own Wikipedia page to not have a major section titled The Gerald Wallace Era (!!!!).
That said, drafting Maryland center Alex Len would be the biggest mistake the idiots in Charlotte have ever made. Sadly, as more and more mock drafts settle on the eve of the NBA Draft, it looks like the Cavs, Magic and Wizards have finally stopped joking that they may use their selections on Len. Which will leave the Bobcats with the obvious choice of taking the available one of Anthony Bennett, Ben McLemore or Otto Porter. Or, sigh, Len.
For people who think basketball is played on a computer screen, Len looks OK enough. He's 7-1, 255 and is long enough to alter shots, solid enough to bang on the blocks and European enough to make people think he possesses skill. Why, then, would drafting Len be such a colossal mistake for the Bobcats, or any team in the Association for that matter?
Because he averaged 12-8 his sophomore season in an incredibly weak ACC. Because when people started saying he was considering going pro — not even that he might be a lottery pick, just that he was considering going pro — everybody's reaction was, "Really?" or "Him?" Because he had exactly two good games his entire college career. Because he never once showed the consistent ability to shoot, dribble or pass. Because he was injured during the pre-draft circuit and execs never got to see just how disappointing he is in person. Because he never once made an All-ACC team, not even the third team that included Akil Mitchell and C.J. Harris.

"Him?" Source: Jason Szenes/Getty

Basically, we're five years away from this Stephen A. Smith rant 2.0. (Click the link, it couldn't be more perfect).
The only person who has anything to gain by Len being drafted in the top five is Hasheem Thabeet, who can now point to Len and say it's his turn to be the butt of all the good NBA jokes.
No, it's not a novel opinion, but Len will be an NBA bust. Bobcats, you have good mojo going by changing your name to the Hornets. You did the right thing by taking MKG last year. Don't do this to yourself.