dudleysghost

I don't think that's a totally fair comparison, because the 2004 draft was so much weaker in the middle than 2007 looks to be. And I hope we aren't using the Telfair pick as our benchmark to beat!

Anyway, I'm also on the not-Conley bandwagon. We just don't need a rookie PG unless he is going to be very good, and I don't think he will be that good. If he is, it will be years from now, when he learns to shoot and gets adjusted to the NBA game. He did a great job running the Buckeyes, but the NBA and college are just so different that most PGs take years to adjust, if they ever do.

Even if we get a pick in the 10-14 range (presumably by trading Jack) and he is available, I hope we don't draft him. We're getting ready to compete, and it isn't going to help having two very young guys as our only options at the spot. If the choice is between keeping Jack or getting Conley, I'd keep Jack.

Although certainly, if some other team in that range is looking for a PG for the more distant future and they are willing to wait, like say Philly or Sacramento, Conley wouldn't be a bad pick at all.

__________________
Jeff Van Gundy to the Houston Chronicle: "Everybody gets excited about youth except the coach, because he knows youth means mistakes, mistakes mean losses, losses means you're fired."

Boob-No-More

Mike Conley Jr. is the only PG in this draft I'd trade Jarrett Jack for TODAY. I think he'll be a better playmaker and better on-ball defender than Jack.

To me, Jack is more of a combo guard who doesn't excel at either position. He's not a good enough playmaker to truly lead a team deep into the play-offs and not quick enough to guard smaller PGs. He's also not enough of a scorer and not big enough to truly play the 2 guard position.

Both Crittenton and Acie Law will likely score more than Conley Jr., but neither is close to the pure playmaker he is. Both also played horribly in the NCAA tournament, where Conley Jr. excelled and helped lead his team to the championship game. He also teamed with Greg Oden to lead his high school team to three straight state championships and numerous AAU tournament wins.

Skeptics will say he simply road Oden's coattails, and it's true that Conley Jr. wouldn't have been nearly as successful without Oden. However, he's a proven winner and he showed he's capable of playing his best in the big games during the NCAA tournament. In addition to playing well in the title game against Florida, Conley Jr. played very well against Tennessee, Memphis and Georgetown when Oden was saddled with foul trouble and played limited minutes. With Oden in foul trouble and limited to 18 minutes of PT, Ohio State probably wouldn't have made it past Tennessee without the play of Mike Conley Jr. The same could probably be said about the Georgetown game where Oden was limited to 20 minutes due to foul trouble and Conley Jr. once again stepped up his game.

By comparison, Crittenton was awful in Georgia Tech's first round loss to UNLV, where he was thoroughly outplayed by the Runnin' Rebel guards. Acie Law scored a lot in the tournament, but proved beyond a doubt he's truly a shoot-first PG. In his three tournament games, he jacked up 46 FGA and only had a total of 5 assists. In the one point loss to Memphis, Law jacked up 17 shots and had only ONE assist. Not what I'm looking for in a PG for this (or any) team.

The real question to me would be how does Conley Jr. fit in with the Blazers plans. They already have Sergio, who has shown he's a very talented passer with outstanding court vision. However, Sergio is a weak defender, and like Conley Jr. lacks a consistent outside shot. Sergio had some big games, but his best games occurred November - mid-January (prior to his ankle injury). Once other teams realized he was a much better passer than shooter, they simply backed off him and played the pass and dared him to shoot. When they did, his production went down and his confidence seemed to suffer. He really needs to improve his shooting to keep defenses honest. He started the season by taking most teams by surprise. Most teams hadn't scouted him nor seen much film on him. That will change tremendously if he ever becomes a starter in the NBA. Opposing teams will spend time breaking down film on him to learn his tendencies and exploit his weaknesses. Due to his uncanny passing ability and excellent court vision, Sergio has the potential to be a very special playmaker. However, he needs to improve his shooting and on-the-ball defense to be an elite NBA PG.

I'm not sure how much it matters, but to me, Conley Jr., with his superior on-the-ball defense and effective, but less flashy passing seems more like a "Nate Guy" to me than Sergio. FWIW, Nate seemed really reluctant to compliment Sergio's play last year, and usually turned a positive question into a negative answer:

"With fans, it's about entertainment," McMillan said. "I don't think they ever watch what he does on the defensive end. They see him pounding the ball, and he has that ball on a string, and his no-look passes. There is so much more to it, though. They don't see that in calling out plays, nobody hears him or understands his accent."

Perhaps this says more about Nate than Sergio, but Nate's the coach and if he's not happy with Sergio's play, he won't give him the minutes the rest of us may think he deserves.

Of course, I wouldn't trade Jack and draft Conley Jr. unless we managed to add a more experienced PG to the roster. The obvious choice would be Steve Blake. If he'd take it, I'd be willing to give him a three or four year deal starting at the MLE with the understanding he will be the starter (in place of Jack) next season and beyond that his role will depend on his own play and the development of the youngsters. At some point, you'd have to make a decision between Conley Jr. and Sergio, but you wouldn't need to make that decision for a couple years. That would give you enough time to evaluate which one better fits in with the team and appears most capable of quarterbacking the team to a championship. At that point, you trade the other and Blake becomes the back-up PG.

Again, I'd ONLY do this if the Blazers can get TWO more lottery picks - one to take a SF (Brewer, Green or Thornton) in the 5 - 9 range for a trade involving Zach and a second pick in the 10 - 14 range for Jack that would be used to draft Conley Jr.

BNM

Boob-No-More

That some mocks are showing Conley Jr. in the 3 - 6 range in this very deep draft shows you how much better he is than Telfair (who most likely would have been available at 22 in that much weaker draft). 3 - 6 is definitely too high for Conley Jr., but I do think he's worthy of a 10 - 14 pick in this draft.

As I've said, I'd only draft Conley Jr. if we have another, higher pick to select the best SF available AND we have a plan in place to land a more experienced PG (i.e. Steve Blake). Blake is a better playmaker than Jack. So, Blake + Conley >> Jack, both now and in the future.

BNM

dudleysghost

I don't think Telfair would have been there at 22, but my point is he sucks anyway so it's not really a good benchmark. Being a better prospect than him means very little.

Well, that makes sense, but it's a whole lot of contingencies. I don't see it as likely that we'll end up with TWO more lotto picks AND that Conley will fall to 11, and even then we'd be presuming that we could get a good veteran PG in a free agent market that has few of them available. I also think you're being a bit pessimistic on Jack and optimistic on Conley, but that's just my opinion.

__________________
Jeff Van Gundy to the Houston Chronicle: "Everybody gets excited about youth except the coach, because he knows youth means mistakes, mistakes mean losses, losses means you're fired."

dkap

If you're his agent and have been pushing for the Blazers to draft him, as has been reported, then most definitely, you would try to get him in for a workout. The only way they can draft him is to trade for a pick in the right range, and it's unreasonable to expect them to do so without having had that direct contact in a private workout.

Dan

Boob-No-More

I'm not saying Conley is a "must have", but I do understand why some people are high on him (but taking him in the 3 - 6 range would be a serious reach in this draft). Addressing the small forward need is definitely the highest priority. Most likely accomplished by trading Zach for either a proven small forward or a high enough draft pick to get a top SF prospect in this draft.

Once that's accomplished, if KP wants to trade Jack to the Hawks for 11 or Clips for 14 and take Conley Jr., I'm fine with it.

Although, with so many high rated SFs in the daft, it's likely that at least one of them will fall to 11, or below. So, who knows what Pritchard has up his sleeve. For instance (totally hypothetical situation), if he gets the 5th pick from Boston (for Zach) and the 11th pick from Atlanta (for Jack) AND thinks Milwaukee plans to take Conley Jr. at 6, he might pick him at 5 and take Thornton, Green or ??? at 11 (assuming he thinks the SF he REALLY wants will be there). I think picking Conley Jr., at 5 would shock a lot of people, but picking him that high almost guarantees one of Green or Thornton will be available at 11.

BNM

Boob-No-More

Again, you could say the same thing about Corey Brewer, Jeff Green etc. The Blazers clearly need a SF more than a PG, and there are all kinds of rumors about them trading for a second lottery pick, yet Brewer, Green, Julian Wright, etc. aren't scheduled to work out for the team.

I also wonder how cagey Pritchard is being about this. The draft is a bit like a poker game and it's hard to tell who's bluffing. Would KP actually NOT schedule a workout for the player he REALLY wants to avoid showing his hand and risk somebody else snatching that player out from under his nose? Hard to say, but given his success in last year's draft, I think other GMs will be watching KP very closely to see if they can figure out who he'd take if the Blazers land a second high draft pick.

I'm not saying he wants Conley Jr., but if he did and other teams knew it, they could try to get more out of him in a trade.

BNM

dudleysghost

I don't see it as just filling a positional need, it just seems to me that Conley is a high risk/high reward kind of pick. It definitely makes sense to me that some are high on him, because he has athletecism and skill and played very heady in college at such a young age. I just think that PG is such a tough position to predict and often takes longer for players to reach their peak. Even Draft Express, who is the only board I know that still has Conley in the top 6, has his high-low listed at Chris Paul and Aaron Miles. That's quite a range.

For a team that wants to take a chance on a draftee panning out big in the future, Conley would make sense. Our team though is loaded with blue-chip talent. I don't think we need to take a lot of risk. Maybe KP thinks Conley wouldn't be a risk, and the pick makes sense if so, but he seems like one to me. I would pick other guys over Conley, like Brewer, Thornton or Green, not because they are small forwards or because I think they have higher potential, but simply because they seem like safer picks to me. Conley may someday turn out to be one of the top players in this draft, and that wouldn't be bad for us to have, but if we get another lotto pick and just end up with a solid contributor, in addition to our core of ODen/Roy/LMA, we'll be in great shape.

__________________
Jeff Van Gundy to the Houston Chronicle: "Everybody gets excited about youth except the coach, because he knows youth means mistakes, mistakes mean losses, losses means you're fired."

dkap

No, not at all the same. There haven't been reports of those players' agents pushing for a trade to get them to Portland. Their agents have no expressed interest in where they land, so they're only going to work out for the teams likely to pick them.

Dan

Boob-No-More

Again, I agree. I'd definitely take Brewer or Green ahead of Conley Jr. Thornton vs. Conley is a toss-up for me. We NEED a three and Thornton can SCORE, but he's weak in other areas (basketball IQ, passing - he doesn't, he's a bit like a smaller Zach in that regard - and potentially defense).

I've said all along, if we get ONE more lottery pick (in a Zach trade) we use it on KP's choice of best SF. If we get TWO more lottery picks (one for Zach and one for Jack), I wouldn't mind using one on a SF and the other on Conley Jr. - assuming we can land a veteran PG (either as part of the Zach trade, or through the MLE or possibly another trade involving Outlaw or Martell). With Oden, Aldridge, Brewer/Green, Roy, Veteran PG, we'd be set for now. Add in Sergio and we're looking good long term. So, that third lottery pick can be a bit of a risk (although I view Conley Jr. as a safer bet than than Sergio, not as flashy, but a more well-rounded player).

BNM