Bobcats Link Pile Draft Edition

For the last 4 days I’ve had about 30 tabs open on my browser, waiting to write some epic post about how great this draft was for the Bobcats.  So without further ado, Link Pile, Draft Edition:

The Trade:

ESPN’s John Hollinger points out that Sacramento was the big loser, and if there is a big loser in a trade and it’s not you, then you’re a big winner.  He also tends to claim the Bobcats gifted Tyson Chandler to the Mavericks and he was the key to their Championship.  No bother, his part that starts

"it’s pretty obvious that the Bobcats are going to be considerably more shrewd with new hire Rich Cho in the front office than they were in the past. I give the Bobcats kudos for their belated recognition that this thing is a full-on tear-down;"

Just gets me excited.  And by the way, it might not be DJ Augustin and Tyrus Thomas that the Bobcats build around.

Kelly Dwyer at Yahoo’s Ball Don’t Lie blog, sort of kicks the door in on his glowing review of the trade:

"That Rich Cho. He made not have the schmoozing skills necessary to win over his former employer Paul Allen up in Portland, but he certainly has the on-phone gravitas to talk other teams into making great trades for his teams."

Zach Lowe at SI.com breaks the trade down from mostly the Sacramento/Milwaukee side of things, but he saves the Bobcats for last:

"As for Charlotte, this works just fine, even if it’s not hugely exciting. The Bobcats now have two lottery picks, which is exactly what a moribund franchise needs; they’ll reportedly spend that No. 7 pick on Bismack Biyombo, coveted by Detroit at No. 8, and that’s the kind of high-risk/high-reward move you can make with the security of a second lottery pick close by."

Mark Deeks at Sham Sports breaks down the whole draft and by whole draft I mean everything from top to bottom, including the trade and every pick.  He warns in the beginning “If you don’t have 90 minutes to read the whole thing,” this is the kind of thing I was trying to avoid myself, but good for Mark:

"Charlotte moves up big by giving up two decent but excess guards, and accelerates a long moribund rebuilding process."

I’m going to have to look up this moribund word…

K L Chouinard from our Fansided sister-site We’re Bucked breaks down the deal.  His insistence that while the Bobcats and Bucks traded Jackson for Maggette, Milwaukee is really replacing Salmons with Jackson.  Interesting.

The Picks:

Various ways of grading and rating and calling for winners and losers in the days following the trade have the Bobcats mostly on the upper side of most scales.  I count an A+, B+, B, two winners and a loser.  I think that sounds like when Michael was picking his replacement in the Survivor-esque episode of The Office where he gave out gold stars, thumbs up and all assortment of metrics.  Let’s look at the negative ONE first.

Chris Mannix of SI.com rains on the parade listing the Bobcats as the first on his list of losers.

"Bismack Biyombo, at No. 7, was a stretch. Lots of potential (have you not heard the Ben Wallace comparisons?) but an offensive game that makes Alexis Ajinca look like Hakeem Olajuwon. If he doesn’t become a great — and I mean great defender — he’s going to struggle to stay in the NBA. Kemba Walker is a skilled playmaker, but ‘Cats coach Paul Silas and his staff spent most of last season (successfully) rehabilitating D.J. Augustin. Can the two coexist? They made a great value pick at No. 39 with former high school phenom Jeremy Tyler … and promptly traded him to Golden State."

Nice of him to throw ol’ Lexy A-jinx-ah in our face there but whatever.  All he’s really saying is, it might not work out and that Kemba and DJ Augustin are similar.

Matt Moore and Ben Golliver at CBS’s Eye On Basketball, both guys I really like, Matt from Basketball Prospectus and Ben from BlazersEdge, both full time at CBS while working with other blogs at the same time, give the Bobcats an A+.  I couldn’t sum it up better:

"A savvy GM knows his team’s lot in life. Rich Cho, just weeks on the job, launched a full-scale rebuild by shuttling out Stephen Jackson and adding an extra lottery pick, securing the draft’s best defensive prospect and a fan-friendly, dynamic point guard who has a definite shot of making it big at the NBA level. There are plenty more moves in Charlotte’s future, but this was a great start."

Matt Moore went on in a separate post of just winners and losers, of course calling the Bobcats winners.  The best quote of his Bobcats portion:

"the balance between an athletic super-freak who is unrefined and an established winner with limited upside, the Bobcats managed to grab two of the most hyped players in the draft."

Tom Ziller of SB Nation gives the Bobcats a B+, again just because Biyombo is such an unknown and Kemba is Augustin 2.0.

Kurt Helin of ProBasketballTalk gives the Bobcats a B:

"this was a tough draft in which to find really good rebuilding pieces. Biyombo is a gamble, but a good one to take for a team starting over."

More of a statement on the draft than on the Bobcats ability to draft, but I will take a B.

David Aldridge of NBA.com and TNT and NBATV, I thought leaving ESPN was a step down for him but no, he’s doing quite well; anyway, DA puts the Bobcats near the head of the class.  That’s a small part of a massive post that you should read all the way through.  Aldridge combines being an insider with being a “big-picture guy” masterfully and I really appreciate all his work across all those Turner related platforms.

The Players:

I told myself I’d never read anything Grantland, the Bill Simmons sub-site of the ESPN behemouth, but they were pretty good, if overly broad and snarky in their draft coverage.  This interview with Bismack Biyombo was really good.  The guy speaks good English and assuming his age is correct, he’s been carbon dated afterall, the young fella is really really intriguing off the court.  Hope to meet him someday, but profiles will have to do until then.

Beckley Mason of HoopSpeak had an interesting draft from the looks of his recap, but this quote about Bismack further heightened my interest.

"Speaking of unknowns in suits, Bismack Byombo made an immediate impression. His arms are super long and his hands are huge. It’s the kind of thing that really strikes you when you see an NBA player’s dimensions set against everyday object–as when Byombo grabbed his chair to pull it out and sit down."

Further evidence of Biyombo’s massive wingspan and hands, this picture from Bobcats.com:

Some interesting tweets as well regarding Bismack’s Contract from DraftExpress:

As for Kemba Walker, there isn’t much new, you see he’s been the biggest name in the NCAA for the last year and there is no need to beat that dead horse now is there?  Kemba being there for the Bobcats at #9 was a no-brainer, absolutely worth whatever it means to DJ Augustin going forward, he’s that kind of player.

Interesting bit over at Queen City Hoops about Corey Maggette and his ability to get to the line, which is impressive to say the least.  More of his stat-heavy stuff but interesting none the less.

Another really intriguing bit about that #39 pick that the Bobcats traded off to Golden State just as I got excited about it.  Tim Kawakami says this is a major culture change in Oakland and that they just wanted Tyler, so they took him for cash considerations, something they wouldn’t have had under the owner previous to Joe Lacob.

General Reaction From Local Media

As I broke down the jokers we call writers in Charlotte on Saturday, there are some seriously good stories, as usual, from our friend Mike Cranston of the AP.  First an article about Rich Cho‘s impact on the picks they took.  Next up, an overall look at the Bobcats rebuilding plans.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a pile of links.