WRG 2010 Mock Draft - #7 Detroit Pistons

2010 Free Agent Class? Pshhh. We already plundered the 2009 class. Who needs Wade & Bosh when we already got Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva. It's not like they haven't played up to what we signed them for. It's not like we screwed our cap situation by overpaying for these guys. Oh wait. We did. Crap.

We got Rodney Stuckey. He's pretty good at scoring, but nothing else. Rip Hamilton? Scorer, not much else. Charlie V? Solid scorer, not good at anything else. Ben Gordon? Elite scorer. That's it.

What the hell have we been doing? Not only did we screw ourself in free agency, we have no inside presence. The same team who prided themselves as "the Bad Boys" are now starting an undersized Swedish guy at PF? What happened?

We need to rebuild from the inside out. We need toughness on the inside, we need size, we need someone who can do something besides score. So with our first round pick, we are gonna go with the rugged throwback center, Cole Aldrich. He may not be athletic or a great scorer, but he'll grab some boards, rattle some rims and hopefully knock some teeth out.

WHITEWASH IN THE FRONTCOURT!

WRG Mock Draft #26: Chicago Bulls

With our last pick, we bolstered our frontcourt by adding some toughness and bulk. We love how active we are up front.

Now we have to face a hard reality. We have been dancing with Ben Gordon for years. We offered him a huge contract that he (unwisely, it turns out) rejected, and ever since our relationship has been a bit - um - uncomfortable.

We have a pretty nice roster, and, frankly there are some players we would like to draft and stash in Europe for a while.

But what has happened here is that a player we were prepared to draft at #16 has fallen to us here, and he is such a nice fit for us that we think he could equal a few wins this season - with lots of room for future development. We think it would be positively irresponsible to let this opportunity go. We would love to save some bucks in the short term, but passing up an inexpensive player we can control for several years who we feel will be starter quality is something we think is just bad business.

So we hedge our bets and take our gift - a sweet-shooting, big-time combo guard that could either compliment or be a natural replacement for Ben Gordon.

The Chicago Bulls select Jeff Teague. We know it would cost us if we didn't.

Is the zero for gravity - or players with him in the green room?

The Memphis Grizzlies are on the clock.

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.