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1/06/2006

THE OL' PLAYER A & PLAYER B

2 players signed contracts to remain with their original teams this offseason. Player A signed for 6 years and $58 million. Player B also signed for 6 years, but $64 million. That takes them both to 2011, which seems like an eternity right now to Player B's team.

Career:
Player A: PPG 7.0 RPG 6.9 BPG 1.9
Player B: PPG 7.3 RPG 7.4 BPG 1.4

This year:
Player A: PPG 8.7 RPG 10.4 BPG 3.2 FG% 54 FT% 62
Player B: PPG 4.9 RPG 7.9 BPG 1.1 FG% 56 FT% 40

Player A has shown solid progress every season. Player B has yo-yo'd with this season being his worst performance to date. It might not matter (although I think it does) that Player A went to college. Player B did not. Player A was still an early entry, but played 2 years of NCAA ball. After the draft CNNSI's Marty Burns graded both team's drafts as "C". His grades were off a bit, but he nailed it with this : "Unless (Jerry) Krause has some grand plan yet to be revealed, this looks like the biggest disaster in Chicago since Mrs. O'Leary's cow. "

Player B is Tyson Chandler. The Bulls traded Elton Brand to the Clippers for their #2 pick, which they used to select Chandler. Then the Bulls drafted Eddy Curry with their own #4 pick.

Player A is Samuel Dalembert. He was drafted by Philadelphia with the 26th pick. He looks to me to be in the Marcus Camby mode. If Chandler does not get it going, he will end up being remembered as the next Brad Sellers.

I can think of only a handful of big men who are successful when drafted straight from high school. Here is a list of preps to pros players. I guess my point is that Dalembert is a rising star and Chandler is not. And also that when looking at that list, I wonder how awesome some of these guys would be had they gone to school, even if it was only for 2 years like Dalembert. You just don't learn the complexity of systems in high school. You don't travel like you do in college. You don't learn to deal with the media. You don't get the experience of going against the better talent. The NBA has realized this and stopped the preps to pros phenomenon. I wish Chandler had gone to college.

And for the record, no way Brand would have stayed here when his rookie deal expired so I believe Krause had to trade him. But it's obvious now he should have went for proven talent.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting speculation on whether or not Brand would have stayed. Never thought of that, but certainly makes sense. As for getting something proven, though, not sure Krause could have done that. Brand was still considered just an undersized power forward who padded his stats on crappy teams. Nobody knew if he could sustain that level of play on a contendor (sick to say that about the Clip Ship now!). Also, that draft was thought to be one of the deepest at the time, so having two top-five picks was certainly a big deal then.

The Zoner said...

Good points. It was a very good draft--Tony Parker (28th!), Joe Johnson, Gasol, JRich, Eddie Griff, RJeff, Haywood, Randolph and more.

But I disagree on Brand. It was pretty obvious what he could do at that point and also that he was improving all the time. I just think Krause went for the 2 kids in hopes of building another dynasty. So basically we drafted Mike Sweetney 4th. And got Chandler for Brand. Ouch.