WRG 2010 Mock Draft - #14 Houston Rockets

    
We thought we were rebuilding last year, but we shocked ourselves and everyone else by coming out like a house on fire - and it landed us at the very end of the lottery.

We're not complaining, though.  We have the MIP, and he is half of one of the most exciting backcourt combos in the league.

Up front, though, we have issues.  Our franchise center is a huge question mark.  We feel we should plan for the worst case scenario in regards to him.  We are also concerned with our UFA forward who is so valuable to us. We want him back, but we can't be sure that's going to happen.

The good news here is that a lot of quality big men have fallen to us.  That is unusual and unexpected, but we are not complaining.

Our choices run the gamut from polished and mature to "so raw he can barely play".  We'd normally hedge and go somewhere in the middle, but in this case we need a guy who can take over a key role if needed and do a representative job.  There's only one remaining player we think can do that.  We also think his temperament matches our current roster and that he will feel right at home with us.

The Rockets select Patrick Patterson, a very pleasant surprise and a much needed addition to our team.

You sure this is right? I thought he was taller. 

And in color.

WRG 2010 Mock Draft - #13 Toronto Raptors

We have holes aplenty. Turkoglu wants to be traded & Bosh is more into twitter than basketball. Our center is a perimeter PF. We don't have much quality depth.

We could go a number of ways here, but we're gonna go with the best fit. We want a player who is a professional. We don't want him asking his twitter followers where he should play or sign. We don't want him to sign with us and then renege on his contract a year later and ask for a trade. We're gonna purge our franchise of undesirables and add players who fits into our culture.

After we let Bosh walk and trade Turkoglu, we have two major holes: SF and big man.

There are a number of big men, but a lot of the good big men left right now are huge question marks and need time to develop. We don't want that. We want someone we know is going to be solid, so we're looking at wings. The player we want even sounds like a French-Canadian. Xavier Henry.

HIGH FIVE!

WRG 2010 Mock Draft - #12 Memphis Grizzlies

 
Brass tacks.

We would love to tweak our improved roster using this draft and upgrade at backup PG or add a situational defensive grinder type to get us some late stops.

However, we have a key player who is a restricted free agent who we don't want to pay, so we aren't doing any of that.

Luckily for us, a raw, cheap version of this player has fallen into our laps.

The Memphis Grizzlies select Paul George.  He may not be an upgrade, but when we watch him we will get the warm, fuzzy feeling that comes with not downing Tums like M&Ms from being locked into a ridiculously risky $80M contract.

Not Gay

WRG 2010 Mock Draft - #11 New Orleans Hornets

This is simple.

We need depth, everywhere except PG.

This draft doesn't have many good point guards anyway. We can just take the player who we think is the best, regardless of position at this spot. We hoped someone would fall to us, and Greg Monroe did. Not only do we look at Monroe as the best player available, but he's from New Orleans. It's a match made in the bayou.

We're happy to have a little depth in the frontcourt for once. And we're even happier that we won't have to play Sean Marks.

Welcome home, Big Greg.

WRG 2010 Mock Draft - #10 Indiana Pacers

 
Apparently we came to terms with LeBron not coming to Indianapolis early on, because we have 12 players signed through next season.

We also love our big program college players.  We have two National Players of the Year and our players have made eleven All-American squads.  If we were eligible to go to the Final Four, we would be close to a lock!

Of course, that means our players were in college long enough to cash in all those honors, and that's really the problem.  We have savvy, mature players who work hard, but we are at a talent deficit against almost every team in the league.

So with this pick we would like to add a player who represents the first step in changing that.

To be honest, we would be better off trading some of our players and trying to move up a few spots, but at this pick there are still a few high-ceiling young  players we can develop.

Highest on our board are a couple of big men, so we will take the one that can play the four and fits best with our H&H frontcourt - Hibbert and Hansbrough.  He's a familiar face to the latter, backing up the iconic star at North Carolina.  We believe those roles will eventually be reversed for us.

With the tenth pick, the Indiana Pacers select Ed Davis.  We still love our big program players, but this time the player we are taking will hopefully have a lot more future accolades than past ones.

 Thousands of Ed Davises have lived in Indiana, 

but none have ever dunked a basketball.

WRG 2010 Mock Draft - #9 Utah Jazz

This pick certainly has made the rounds. Acquired in 2004 from the Suns (who acquired it from the Knicks earlier in the year), the protection has finally ran out. It's a nice luxury to have a top 10 pick coming off a second round playoff exit, especially since we traded our original pick in a separate deal (Kyle Korver).

Carlos Boozer and Kyle Korver are our two biggest free agents, and we could use some help to replace them. We hope to re-sign Korver, and one of our top draft targets on the wing was just snatched up ahead of us by those pesky Clippers in Luke Babbitt, so we are gonna look towards the front court.

Losing Boozer will be a blow, but we have Paul Millsap waiting in the wings. We're ready to unleash the beast, but we still need to add to the depth in the frontcourt. We really want to add something we've been missing in the frontcourt for a while: athleticism. Boozer, Millsap, Okur...all solid players, but below the rim. We haven't had an athletic big man since The Mailman.

We don't want a project player. We want someone who can come in and contribute, has a good attitude, and is a Jerry Sloan type player. One player fits all these requirements to a tee. That player is Ekpe Udoh.

Udoh's 23 years old and has impressed us with his interviews. He's a good kid, will add athleticism and shot blocking to the front court, as well as a versatile offensive threat. We can't wait to see "The Nightmare" in a Jazz uniform.

Congrats! You're now the 6th black guy in Utah!

WRG 2010 Mock Draft - #8 Los Angeles Clippers

Wants are important.  It's not all about needs.  We need everything.  But what do the Clippers want?

What we want with this pick is a guy who is young enough to have untapped potential, but who can play big minutes for us on day one.  We want a wing player or pure PF who can play facing the basket.

When we look at the board, we see a lot of young projects and older players near their ceilings.  We think we are too talented to take on projects.  We are above average at the positions we have filled and we have the cap space to be that way for at least one more.  However, at pick #8, we don't want a specialist or a guy who only does dirty work.  We need a player that is going to give us real production.

We probably would be best off trading up or down from here, but while we see no perfect choice, we think we can get someone here that mostly fits our criteria - our wants.

So with the eighth pick in the 2010 draft we take a guy who is young enough to develop physically and on the court, has shown great skills and big-time production and fills a few huge weaknesses in our team.  We select lefty Luke Babbitt - the guy who will give us most exactly what we want.

Luke was named a McDonald's All-American for 
his outstanding performance working at McDonald's