WRG 2011 Mock Draft - #16 Philadelphia 76ers

Drafting in the middle rounds is great when a player you don't expect to be there falls into your lap. Last time this oppurtunity presented itself, we found a starting PG who should have been drafted way higher. Thanks to all the teams who passed on Jrue Holiday.

This year, that guy is Marcus Morris. He was the 2010-2011 Big XII player of the year, and he's still available at 16? We're in as much shock as you are. Did we mention he's from Philadelphia, too? We were expecting Markieff Morris to be in play here, but not when his brother is available. Marcus gives us toughness, rebounding and scoring inside. This is a no brainer.

And he's the little brother.

WRG 2010 Mock Draft - #16 Minnesota Timberwolves

 
This is the second of our three picks, so we need to use it on a player we think won't be around seven slots from now when we go again.

We need depth at almost every position, and we have some issues scoring the ball.  Our two best players play the same position and were not very compatible last year.  Last year, we wasted a top five pick on a player who is doing exactly nothing to help us.

But our real problem is we can't stop anyone from scoring - ever - at any point in the game, and we have absolutely no toughness in the paint.

So before we can't get anyone to help with that, Minnesota selects Daniel Orton, who can help us right away simply by being big, and will help us in the future by being a smart, skilled true center we hopefully can rely on for years to come.

 Whaaa? Who the hell is this guy?

He's on Kentucky? 

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.