WRG Mock Draft: #16, Chicago Bulls

It was a good year for the Chicago Bulls. We hit it big in the draft with Derrick Rose, who was the top rookie in a stellar class. We made the playoffs despite a lot of injuries and a novice head coach - and when we got there, our team competed hard and played a tough, memorable series with the defending champs. And now we can finally start planning for our future because there will be a resolution to the Ben Gordon situation that's plagued us for years.

Even if we have to replace Gordon, our team has a glaring weakness - toughness up front - that we feel must be addressed in this draft. We have a lot of athletic, active forwards, but none of them can operate in the paint. We need some bulk inside.

At this point, there are two choices we feel are worthy of this selection. We like DeJuan Blair. He is an extremely strong rebounder and defensive presence who compliments our frontcourt players nicely. He is shorter than we'd like, but it isn't a dealbreaker for us. We feel his incredible standing reach and his brute strength will allow him to do the job just fine. We feel the drawbacks with him are the long-term health of his knees and his conditioning. We don't think he can play the kind of minutes we need at full effectiveness, even though he has slimmed down in the last few months. We also can't find his ACLs on the scans we have of his knees, and that is a dealbreaker for us.

That leaves our board with only one name, and it's not a coincidence he played for the country's most successful college program. We love drafting winners, and this guy it's virtually impossible to find a bigger one than this guy. We also feel he is an underrated athlete and like that he has a decent offensive game. The Bulls haven't had anyone for years that could score inside, and we think he can take advantage of some matchups we can create for him down there. He isn't the rebounder or defender Blair is, but he isn't bad in those areas, either. In our view, the tradeoff for the better offense and durability is worth it.

The Bulls select "Psycho T", Tyler Hansbrough - the only guy we know of in this draft who had his jersey hanging from the rafters of his college gym last season.

You should see the other guy.

The Philadelphia 76ers are on the clock.