I thought about awarding this to Deron Williams for his 27-point, nine-assist, seven-rebound effort in Utah’s 113-99 win over the Spurs, but then I remembered that Tony Parker isn’t exactly known for his defensive prowess. Tim Duncan is. So that makes Carlos Boozer’s line — 27 points, 14 rebounds, three assists, two steals and two blocked shots — all that more impressive. He went 12-20 (60%) from the field and regularly scored on Duncan, who has been named to the All-Defensive team 12 times in his illustrious career.

The final score should be no surprise. The game was in Utah, and the Jazz had their backs up against the wall a little bit as they started out the season with a 1-3 record, which included a home loss to the Rockets.

Spurs rookie DeJuan Blair had another nice game, posting 14 points and nine rebounds in 21 minutes. He’s averaging 9.8 points and 8.5 rebounds through four games and is shooting better than 70% from the field. The Spurs will use him extensively during the season to keep Duncan as fresh as possible for a playoff run.

Every year, first-year players greatly impact the NBA regular season. They tend to thrive on bad teams for two reasons: 1) the best players generally go early in the draft to struggling franchises, and 2) those teams need their services so they play heavy minutes. In fact, over the last three years, the players that made the All-Rookie First Team played an average of 29.0 minutes per game. Playing time is opportunity, and with opportunity comes production.

Over that span, players that were named to the All-Rookie First Team played on teams with a combined 500-730 (.407) record. Only four players — Andrea Bargnani and Jorge Garbajosa on the 2006-07 Raptors, Luis Scola on the 2007-08 Rockets and Michael Beasley on the 2008-09 Heat — played on teams with a winning record. The other 11 players were on teams that averaged 25 wins.

Looking ahead to the 2009-10 NBA season, there are a number of rookies that will get big minutes on bad teams. I’m going to rank them in order of what I perceive to be their talent plus their opportunity, because a rookie needs both to succeed in his first year. Fantasy hoopsters should take note: Rookies can be great picks on draft day, if you know which ones to pick.

1. Blake Griffin, Clippers
In the preseason, Griffin is averaging 14.7 points and 8.5 rebounds in 28.5 minutes per game. The Clippers found a taker for Zach Randolph to clear the way for Griffin to start at power forward, and he should be a fixture there for the next few years. I expect he’ll get 33-35 minutes per game during the regular season, so 16-17 points and 9+ rebounds are a reasonable expectation. From a fantasy perspective, he’s currently PF19 off the board, but will likely finish as the PF11 or better if he stays healthy. 10/27 Update: He didn’t stay healthy. Griffin will miss six weeks with a stress fracture in his knee.

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It’s waaaaaaaay too early to start judging the 2009 NBA Draft, but that’s not going to stop me (or anyone else, for that matter) from trying. It takes at least three years before a draft class really shakes out, so there’s no reason to fly off the handle criticizing (or praising) a team for what they did on Thursday night.

That said, as the draft wore on, there were some picks I liked and some that I didn’t. This is by no means the final say on whether or not the pick is good or bad; it’s just a snapshot that’s based on what we know right now.

So let’s jump the gun:

CHEERS TO…

Thunder: #3 James Harden
I don’t know that Russell Westbrook is really a point guard, but Harden projects to be a great fit in OKC.

Sixers: #17 Jrue Holiday
The talented freshman worked out for most of the lottery teams and was reportedly up and down leading up to the draft. With this much PG depth, I figured someone would slip and the Sixers were the beneficiary. In Holiday, they get a lottery talent and their point guard of the future, though Lawson would have been able to come in and help the Sixers more immediately.

Nuggets: #18 Ty Lawson
I thought he’d go to a team in more need of PG help, but the Nuggets swooped in and snatched him up. At the very least, I think he’s going to be a capable starter.

Grizzlies: #36 Sam Young
At 24, Young doesn’t have the upside of many of the players drafted ahead of him, but he’s already a better player than most, as well. If he can improve his handle, he could be a starter-quality small forward.

Spurs: #37 DeJuan Blair
Think this guy played with a chip on his shoulder before? Just wait and see what kind of energy he brings in 15-25 minutes playing for the Spurs. I know his knees are an issue, but I’m shocked that he wasn’t picked earlier in the second round.

Hornets: #43 Marcus Thornton
The Hornets have issues on the wing and they took a point guard with their first pick. They made up for it in the second round by acquiring Thornton, an off guard, from the Heat. He’s a great scorer and can make contested jumpers.

JEERS TO…

Timberwolves: #5 Ricky Rubio / #6 Jonny Flynn
It’s not that I don’t like the individual players or the individual picks; they just don’t make any sense when picked together. I don’t know how a Rubio/Flynn backcourt will be successful. Had the T-Wolves drafted Stephen Curry with one of the picks, it would have made a lot more sense.

Jazz: #20 Eric Maynor
Maynor is a good all-around player, and maybe the best that was available, so let’s not be too hard on the Jazz here. Still, how many minutes is he going to play behind Deron Williams? If he turns out to be a player, they can use him as an asset, so maybe they didn’t feel that way about any of the frontline players that were available.

Hornets: #21 Darren Collison
New Orleans has star/superstar quality players at PG, PF and C, and a good young prospect in Julian Wright at small forward, so off guard seems to be their biggest need. Like Utah, the Hornets went with a point guard to back up their best player. I like Collison, I just don’t like this pick for New Orleans (though they made up for it in the second round).

Blazers: #31 Jeff Pendergraph / #33 Dante Cunningham
I don’t have a problem with the players themselves, but with the fact that Portland passed on DeJuan Blair twice in the second round (where the financial risk is much lower if his health turns out to be a problem). They could have used his toughness and rebounding, but were unwilling to roll the dice on his knees.

The draft kicks off (or is it “tips off”?) in less than three hours, so I thought it would be fun to publish one last edition of the consensus mock draft. I pulled in mocks from SI.com and ProBasketballNews since they are current and are well respected enough for NBA.com to use in their consensus.

If three or more mocks made a pick, then it’s considered majority rules and that pick is listed in bold with the number of votes next to it in parenthesis. For those picks that have two or fewer mocks agreeing on a pick, I make the pick for them. For example, the five mocks have five different players going to the Knicks, so I made my best guess — Jrue Holiday. I went with Jennings over Flynn for the Bucks at #10 because Chad Ford reported that the Bucks are in love with Jennings’ upside. Et cetera.

A few random thoughts…

- Even though the #5 and #6 picks aren’t true consensus picks, three mocks had the T-Wolves using one of those back-to-back picks on Stephen Curry, while three mocks had the T-Wolves using the other pick on James Harden — who cares who is picked first? (Besides the players, of course. Their salary depends on it!)

- I’d be a little surprised if the Thunder drafted Rubio and kept him. Although I don’t think it would be a bad move, as Russell Westbrook is too much of a shoot-first point guard in my opinion, Westbrook’s camp has been pretty adamant that he doesn’t want to move off the ball. If OKC sees Westbrook as a point guard, then the best fit appears to be James Harden.

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The draft is just a few days away, so it’s a good time to take one final stab at mocking the first round of this draft. I’ll continue to update the consensus draft this week, but this will be my last attempt at predicting what will happen this Thursday.

First, let’s take a look at the most recent consensus. Chad Ford released the most recent version of his mock draft today, NBADraft.net also updated today, while DraftExpress updated their mock yesterday.

Now I’ll go, pick by pick, through the first round, taking the consensus into account while also throwing in my $0.02 here and there.

#1 CLIPPERS
The Clips have shown no signs of trading away their opportunity to draft Blake Griffin. There is much fluidity with the next few picks, but the Oklahoma product is pretty much guaranteed to be the first pick. The Clippers will then (reportedly) try to move Zach Randolph or Chris Kaman, though it might be wise to move forward with Kaman and Griffin in the front court, Baron Davis at the point, and Eric Gordon and Al Thornton on the wing. Randolph is going to be tough to move. (I still can’t believe that Mike Dunleavy traded for him last season.)
Pick: Blake Griffin, PF, Oklahoma

#2 GRIZZLIES
The consensus says that Hasheem Thabeet will be the pick and I don’t disagree, even though he just pulled out of a workout with Memphis due to a shoulder injury. DraftExpress thinks that Memphis will go with James Harden and move O.J. Mayo to the point, which they say is his natural position. I don’t know that they’ve given up on Mike Conley yet, so I think they will go big with this pick. Their biggest need is at power forward, so trading down and drafting Jordan Hill is a possibility. But if they stand pat, Thabeet could very well be the pick, even though he doesn’t seem to want to play in Memphis.
Pick: Hasheem Thabeet, C, UConn

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DraftExpress is over at the Reebok EuroCamp, and reported some rumors that are making the rounds.

Jordan Hill potentially slipping into the bottom of the top-10 or even possibly slightly beyond. The talk is that the Washington Wizards’ 5th pick could very well end up being claimed by Stephen Curry (whether for them or another team trading up), and that since Minnesota, Golden State, New York and maybe even Toronto appear to be looking at other positional needs, Hill could be on the short end of the stick come draft night.

Hill has a lot of upside, picked up the game late, and still averaged 18.3 points and 11.0 rebounds per game for a NCAA tournament-caliber team in a power conference. He has long arms and a great reach, and he can jump out of the gym. The only concern from his combine numbers is a lack of lateral quickness. He’d be a good fit for the Bucks at #10 and even the Raptors at #9, though Toronto might be interested in finding a banger so that they can move Chris Bosh to power forward full time.

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It has been about two weeks since I published my first mock draft, so it’s a good time to check back in with all the news and rumors and take another stab.

Like I said in the intro of my first mock, it’s tough for me to make predictions about what teams will do because I’m constantly thinking about what they should do. These are obviously two very different things.

For this go-around, I’m going to try something a little different. I’ve compiled the picks for four mock drafts from sites that I respect — ESPN (Chad Ford), Dime Magazine, DraftExpress and NBADraft.net — and then I’ll provide my own picks taking their picks into account, to form some sort of consensus.

Let’s get on with it…

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With the NBA Draft Lottery behind us, we now know the exact order of the first 14 picks. The Los Angeles Clippers hit paydirt when they won the right to draft Oklahoma forward Blake Griffin with the first overall pick. The Grizzlies moved up from #6 to #2, and the Thunder moved up one spot to pick #3. The big losers Tuesday night were Sacramento and Washington, who had the best and second-best shot at the top pick, but instead fell to #4 and #5, respectively.

Mock drafts are tough for me because I’m usually thinking about what teams should do instead of trying to predict what they will do. This mock will be more predictive, but if I disagree with a selection, I’ll say so. Over the next few weeks, I’ll update this mock to jive with the latest news from around the league. It’s still very early in the process so things are very fluid. One mock has a player going #11 while another may have him going #29.

I’m just going to make picks for the first fourteen slots on the first go-round and then provide the picks of a few different mocks that I respect for #15-#30, along with a short writeup for each team.

#1 LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS
Even Mike Dunleavy can’t screw this one up. Barring something obscenely out of the blue, Oklahoma’s Blake Griffin will be the first overall pick. The Clippers could use a power forward to replace Elton Brand, and Griffin is the only “sure thing” in this draft. He’s strong, skilled and athletic, and he has an improving offensive game. He has star written all over him.
Pick: Griffin, PF

#2 MEMPHIS GRIZZLIES
The Grizzlies were reportedly one of the few teams more interested in UConn’s 7’3” center Hasheem Thabeet than they were in Blake Griffin. The Grizzlies already have 7’1” Marc Gasol, so Thabeet wouldn’t fill a need like Jordan Hill, Ricky Rubio or Brandon Jennings would (assuming the team isn’t sold on Hakim Warrick or Mike Conley), but Thabeet has the potential to become a dominant defensive center along the lines of Dikembe Mutombo. But will he be willing to put the work in to become an effective post player?
Pick: Thabeet, C

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- SPORTSBYBROOKS has photos of the Playboy bunny that Andrew Bynum was photographed carrying around on his shoulders and the third one is…outstanding. Laker fans should feel good about Bynum’s workout regimen — there’s no doubt that he’ll be back at 100% for a playoff run.

- YARDBARKER has video of Andrew Bynum hula hooping with a couple of playmates.

- Will Leitch over at DEADSPIN brings us his “Ten Humans of the Week” column, though I don’t agree with his take on Gus Johnson.

- LARRY BROWN SPORTS says that DeJuan Blair has a backup plan if professional basketball doesn’t work out.

- SPORTS CRACKLE POP has a photo of Tim Tebow’s new gal pal.

3/18 Update: I’ve modified a few picks with the news that Ty Lawson may not be able to go tomorrow because of the injury to his toe. This news casts serious doubt about just how healthy he can get over the next three weeks, and I no longer see North Carolina as a Final Four team. I have modified my picks so that North Carolina loses to Gonzaga in the Sweet Sixteen. I project the Bulldogs to go on and beat Syracuse in the Elite Eight, which means that Gonzaga is now one of my Final Four teams. (I know, I can’t believe it either.)

This column is dedicated to the millions of Americans that will be filling out their March Madness brackets over the next few days.

You might be thinking — why should I bother listening to this joker?

Well, this is the third time that I’ve written this column and in the previous two seasons (2007, 2008), I successfully picked the winner both times.*

* Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

I’m still tweaking my method, but the crux of it is simple: Start with Jeff Sagarin’s computer rankings and go from there. Over the past two seasons, teams that had a 2+ point advantage in Sagarin’s “Predictor” category went a combined 82-15 (85%). That’s a good place to start. Even when the teams are closely seeded (within 1-3 seeds), Sagarin’s ratings are solid. Last year, in games that were closely seeded, teams with a 2+ point Sagarin advantage went 14-2 (88%). In 2007, they went 8-4 (67%). So over the last two seasons, that’s a combined 22-6 (79%). Not bad.

LOCATION

Last year, there were five games where tight (< 2 point) Sagarin matchups were won by teams with a distinct location advantage. Davidson beat Gonzaga in Raleigh, Mississipi State beat Oregon in Little Rock, Kansas State beat USC in Omaha, Stanford beat Marquette in Anaheim and Texas beat Stanford in Houston. In fact, there weren’t any tight matchups that were won by the team that was at a distinct geographical disadvantage. This year, I am going to make this my first tiebraker for tight Sagarin matchups.

SEED DIFFERENTIAL

Seed differential is also a consideration, as teams with a four- to nine-seed advantage win at about a 75% clip. The data for the previous 16 seasons was compiled by BostonSportsHub, but since they are no longer updating their site, I added the seed records for the 2008 tournament. Here is a summary of the 17 years worth of data.

So if Sagarin calculates that the teams are within two points, and there are no geographical considerations, then the next thing I look at is seed. If the differential is four or more, I am going with the better-seeded team barring some overriding factor. In 2008, this methodology was 2-1, winning the Oklahoma/St. Joseph and Purdue/Baylor matchups, while losing the USC/Kansas St. matchup. (Interestingly, all three winners had a slight advantage according to Sagarin, even #11-seed KSU.) Had I gone with KSU’s location advantage, this part of the system would have gone 2-0.

POMEROY RATINGS

Last season, I used Points Per Shot (PPS) to pick seven games and went 3-4. I still believe that PPS is a vital stat, but it doesn’t take into account turnovers, which is key when trying to determine just how good a team is. Ken Pomeroy has offensive and defensive efficiency stats that take into account pace and strength of schedule, and those are compiled to calculate his Pythagorean Winning Percentage.

Here’s how the last few winners were ranked at the end of the tournament in this statistic: Kansas (1), Florida (2), Florida (1), North Carolina (1) and Connecticut (2). Clearly, when picking the overall winner, we don’t want to stray too far from this ranking.

Let’s take a look at the Final Four participants for the last five years and see how they finished, keeping in mind that their final ranking does take into account how they performed during the tournament.

2008: Kansas (1), Memphis (2), UCLA (3), North Carolina (4)
2007: Florida (2), Ohio St. (4), Georgetown (5), UCLA (6)
2006: Florida (1), UCLA (3), LSU (10), George Mason (23)
2005: North Carolina (1), Illinois (2), Louisville (5), Michigan State (7)
2004: UConn (2), Georgia Tech (7), Duke (1), Oklahoma St. (3)

So, excluding the outlier (George Mason), the average Pythagorean ranking for Final Four teams over the last five years has been 3.6. I wish the site showed the pre-tourney rankings, because it would be helpful to know where these teams were ranked when they started the tournament. Since all we have to go by is where they stand now, it would seem unwise to pick a team outside of the top 10 to reach the Final Four.

I used the Pythagorean method back in 2007, and through the second round of the tournament, it had picked 37 of 48 winners. I stopped using it at that point, and I’m not sure why. This year, I’ll keep track of its accuracy throughout the end of the tourney, though I think it’s important to use the static, pre-tourney rankings because that’s all we have to go by when we fill out our bracket.

We’ll see how much I use this statistic as we dig into the bracket.

So, without further ado…

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