Andrew Wiggins

At RealGM, an excerpt from my e-book about why the Kansas freshman isn't necessarily the next big thing.

The Cavs and Embiid

With presumptive No. 1 overall pick Joel Embiid suffering a foot injury during pre-draft workouts, everything is suddenly in flux for the Cleveland Cavaliers. The back and the feet are the two worst places for a young big men to have medical issues and Embiid now has red flags at both.

Here's the problem for the Cavs. Embiid was the one guy in the Top 4-5 who fit with the rest of their young core. If they draft anyone else, it becomes an exercise in who don't I love anymore, which is not a game you want to be playing if you are trying to contend for a playoff spot immediately. 

- Andrew Wiggins: Even if you take Wiggins to play SF instead of SG, you can't keep Kyrie Irving and Dion Waiters as your back-court of the future. The problem is simple - there won't be enough basketballs to go around. Irving and Waiters are undersized, ball-dominant scorers who need the ball in their hands to make things happen. If you take a wing at No. 1, you don't want him to be a 3-and-D player, but that's precisely what's going to happen to anyone who shares the perimeter with those two.

On the offensive side of the ball, Wiggins is a bit of a project with a pretty unrefined skill-set. He got a lot of criticism at Kansas for not being more aggressive in the half-court, but that's what happens when you have a wing player who isn't a great passer or ball-handler. Playing on a Cleveland team with Irving and Waiters, he's just going to have a hard time developing a more well-rounded offensive game and he could easily become a guy who only gets 10-12 shots a game. That's fine, but it's not what you want out of your No. 1 overall pick. 

- Jabari Parker: He's basically the same type of player as Anthony Bennett. They are both 6'8 240+ combo forwards with questionable defensive projections who can shoot and put the ball on the floor at a high level for a player with their size. In theory, either guy could play at the 3, but you rarely see guys their size who can move their feet well enough to play perimeter defense and a lot of their upside comes from their ability to hit the glass, which is negated when you are playing 25+ feet from the basket.

@HPbasketball Bennett and Randle, the twin townhouses?
— Seth Partnow (@WhrOffnsHppns) May 21, 2014

I think that would hold true for Bennett and Parker as well. Both those guys need to play as small-ball 4's and we haven't even gotten into the problem that creates with Tristan Thompson, whose established himself as a solid NBA PF in his own right. In essence, if you take Jabari, you have drafted three PF's in the Top 5 in 3 years and you still don't have a long-term answer at SF or C.

- Dante Exum: I'm a huge Exum fan, but he's an even worse fit in the back-court than Wiggins. He's much closer to being a primary ball-handler at the next level than Wiggins and he's going to take the ball from Kyrie and Waiters. None of those guys can really play as a SF, so a trade becomes an even more urgent priority.

With the exception of Kyrie, none of the other Top 4 picks - Waiters, Bennett or Thompson - have proven that much at the next level. However, Waiters and Thompson have shown flashes and you just took Bennett with the No. 1 overall pick. He had a miserable rookie season, but he was injured than he showed up out of shape and was playing out of position on a team that was trying to win now, so it's way way too early to write him off as a legitimate NBA player.

Worst of all, if you trade any of those guys you are selling as low as possible and then hoping a rookie can step in right away and be a primary option on a playoff team. In my mind, Irving, Waiters and Bennett can all be starters on a good team - if they are playing with a defensive-minded center who can score out of the low post. That's the other issue with not taking Embiid - you still have a giant hole at C and a bunch of defensive question marks in front of it.

It's hard for me to see a scenario where you have three No. 1 overall picks in three years, plus two more No. 4 overall picks, and you don't take a C at least once. If Embiid can stay healthy, he's the perfect complement to the players they already have and he allows them to all grow together. If they take anyone else, they have to start giving up on talented young players while they are still on their rookie contracts. There's no easy answers in Cleveland, but if they don't take Embiid, they will still a need a player who can do the things he can do and no other way to get him.

Miami's Next Step

To understand where a team is going, you need to look at where they've been. Two transactions over the last two years tell the story of what went wrong for the Heat this season:

• Trading the No. 28 pick in 2012 for two future second-rounders from the 76ers.
• Amnestying Mike Miller last summer

If you are going to be a franchise that worries about the luxury tax and lets go of quality players for nothing in order to avoid paying it, you can't also be a franchise that snubs the draft and gives away picks in order to clear a million dollars in cap space. Conversely, if you are going to be a franchise that ignores the draft, you had better be willing to pay a pretty penny for veteran talent in free agency.

Both these moves represent giving away assets for essentially nothing. The Heat were initially given a future first-round pick from the 76ers, but there were so many conditions on it that it was almost inevitable it would turn into two second-round picks of questionable value. In essence, they violated a cardinal rule of the NBA draft - never, never trade down.

You never see the San Antonio Spurs giving up on draft picks and you saw the fruits of that strategy in this year's Finals. The Spurs didn't beat the Heat with the top of their rotation - they beat them with players #4-9. Miller and the 2012 first-round pick were two bullets Miami didn't have over the last few weeks and the Heat were a team that was desperately low on bullets.

That's what would worry me about the rumors surrounding Carmelo Anthony. It's not that Melo isn't a great player or is he isn't capable of being one of the top 3 players on a championship team, but they already have those players on the roster. Clearing room for Melo and their current Big Three would mean clearing out the rest of their roster and starting over with spots #5-12.

The Heat don't need to hit HR's - they need to rack up a couple of singles and doubles and fill out the back end of their rotation. If they had held on to that first-round pick two years ago, they could have had someone like Perry Jones III, Festus Ezeli, Jeff Taylor, Draymond Green, Khris Middleton, Will Barton or Quincy Miller. All those guys would be the best under-25 player on their roster.

In all likelihood, all those guys would look even better playing next to LeBron James, in much the same way that Norris Cole does. You could make the argument that any one of those guys could be the 4rth best player on the Miami roster next season. That's the thing about ignoring the draft and 2 years down the road - the future comes up on you faster than you might think.

The Spurs Title

At RealGM, a big picture look at how the Spurs approach to roster building helped them pull past the Heat.

Zach LaVine

At RealGM, an excerpt from my e-book looks at his superstar potential.

Marcus Smart

At RealGM, an excerpt from my e-book looks at how Smart was victimized by his college coaches.

Boris Diaw and Kyle Anderson

The Spurs re-took control of the NBA Finals in Game 3 thanks to an offensive explosion in the first-half, fueled by inserting Boris Diaw into the starting line-up and going all 4-out, all the time. Diaw's numbers didn't jump off the page - 9 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 block and 1 steal on 3-6 shooting - but he had the highest plus-minus (+20) on the Spurs, just like he did in Game 1.

Diaw is just an incredibly versatile player who does so many different things well - he's got the size, reach and basketball IQ to hold his own on defense, he shoots well enough to stretch the floor, he can post up smaller players, he can put the ball on the ground and create shots for everyone else on the team and he punches above his weight on the glass. In short, he's a lot like Kyle Anderson at UCLA.

Anderson has slipped under the radar for most of the draft process because he's not an ideal athlete and he doesn't have a defined defensive position, but people have been focusing too much on what he can't do and not enough on what he can. He's 20 years old, he's 230 pounds and he has a 7'3 wingspan - he can play as a small-ball PF in the modern NBA and grown into the position as he gets older.

At the 4, Anderson just so many different things for a team. He's an elite ball-handler who can run the point full-time, he's turned himself into a respectable outside shooter and he's an above-average rebounder for a guy who spends so much time on the perimeter. Check out his stats as a sophomore at UCLA - 15 points, 9 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 2 steals and 1 block a game on 48% shooting. He knows how to play the game.

The similarities between Anderson and Diaw are striking. Given where he is projected to go in the draft - the latter stages of the first round - he's not likely to start right away, but he's going to be one of the best second-unit players in the NBA. He just helps your team in so many different ways and he's a mismatch nightmare on offense - he's got an advanced post game and an advanced dribble-drive game at 6'9 230. 

Whatever team takes him, he's going to immediately upgrade their bench and offer a ton of upside on a very affordable contract. Anderson is as talented a player as there is in this draft - he was a sophomore with a 25 PER who was the best player on a Sweet 16 team that won the Pac-12 Tournament. His floor is Boris Diaw 2.0 and he's going to be one of the steals of this year's draft.