With the draft just a few days away, it’s a good time to zip through another consensus mock draft. I’ve pulled in the first 14 picks from ESPN, DraftExpres, NBADraft.net, SI, Yahoo and FanHouse to see if we could come to some sort of consensus as to how the first half of the draft might go. If a player was taken by a certain team in three-plus mock drafts, he is listed in bold with the number of drafts in parenthesis. If there was no consensus, or if he was drafted by a team in two mocks, then he is listed in italics.

(I know the font is a little small, but you can click on the table for a larger version.)

A few random thoughts:

– The top four appear to be set, with Wall, Turner, Favors and Wesley Johnson going to the Wizards, Sixers, Nets and T-Wolves, respectively. These picks intuitively make a lot of sense, which probably means they won’t go this way on Thursday night.

– I listed Cousins at #6 because I don’t think there’s any chance that he falls further than that. But with his “character issues,” who knows. He had a great workout in Sacramento, so I’d bet that he goes #5 at the latest. Besides, Monroe seems like a great fit in Golden State with his basketball IQ and willingness to pass the ball.

– After the #6 pick, this draft seems like a free for all. There are a number of forwards — Aminu, Hayward, Babbitt, Davis and Patterson — all jockeying for position.

– Even though he wasn’t the consensus — there was no conensus — Babbitt seems destined to land in Utah. Aldrich is a possibility there as well.

Photo from fOTOGLIF

It’s been nearly a month since we published our first mock draft, so it’s a good time to take another look and see where certain players are going.

I’ve pulled in the latest mocks from ESPN, DraftExpress, NBADraft.net and FanHouse to come up with a consensus of the first 14 picks.

If a player is picked by two or more sites, they’re the consensus, unless there’s a tie. In that case, I’ll make the pick. The same goes for when there are four different players listed.

A few random thoughts…

– It seems like the top four are starting to settle — John Wall (WAS), Evan Turner (PHI), Derrick Favors (NJ) and Wes Johnson (MIN). I think those are all solid picks for those franchises. DeMarcus Cousins might have the most upside of anyone in the draft, but his proverbial “character issues” are weighing him down. He didn’t test very well athletically, though that doesn’t matter much in my mind, due to his rebounding prowess. A bigger concern is his body fat, which tested pretty high at the combine, but is reportedly coming down. Maybe I’m just a Bucks fan that is gun-shy about fatties that suddenly drop weight after the Robert “Tractor” Traylor debacle.

– Greg Monroe is just a so-so athlete, but he’s a good passer and a good feel for the game. He’d be a great guy to feed in the high post with the idea that he’d be able to hit guys cutting to the basket. It looks like it’s between Monroe and Cousins at #5 right now.

– The Clippers are an interesting pick. They have two good young players at power forward (Blake Griffin) and shooting guard (Eric Gordon), an aging point guard (Baron Davis) and a pretty good center (Chris Kaman) who is in his prime. (Kaman averaged 19-9 last year, believe it or not.) The big hole is at small forward, and the pipe dream has LeBron coming to L.A. As a backup plan (which they’ll no doubt need), the Clips could grab Xavier Henry here, who tested better than expected at the combine. Another small forward option would be Hayward, who is the more polished player at this point. Luke Babbitt is a shotmaker who would space the floor well for Griffin and Kaman down low.

– Speaking of Babbitt, he just seems like a Utah player. If he slips past #9, I’d be surprised, but it’s interesting to see that none of these mocks have him going #11 to New Orleans. The Hornets landed a good shooting guard in Marcus Thornton last year, and Chris Paul could really use another shooter to set up at small forward. Everyone (except Chad Ford) seems to think he’s headed to Memphis.

– I think Patrick Patterson is going to make some late lottery team in need of a good power forward very happy. He tested better than expected at the combine, and along with his tremendous strength and his record of improvement, he should blossom into a fine starter. His detractors point to his rebounding (7.4 rpg), but it’s tough to post eye-popping rebounding numbers when you play alongside a boardmonster like DemMarcus Cousins. He averaged 9.3 in his sophomore year, so he should be fine on the glass.

Photo from fOTOGLIF

The NBA Draft combine is over, and all of the measurements have been released. The NBA stopped ranking players in overall athleticism, so I thought I’d take a stab at it.

In short, I looked at three categories — jumping (max vertical leap), lateral quickness (lane agility drill) and straight ahead speed (3/4 court sprint) — to come up with an overall athletic factor for each player within his position, be it guard, wing or big. The player’s performance in each athletic test was compared to the group’s average.

For example. John Wall’s max vertical (39 inches) was divided by the group’s average (33.2 inches) to calculate his Max Vertical Jump factor (1.174). After calculating the factors for Lane Agility and 3/4 Court Sprint, the three factors are averaged to determine the player’s overall athleticism. I then sorted the players by position and by their overall Athletic Factor.

Let’s start with the guards. These are players that are projected to be point guards or combo guards in the NBA.

Table 1: Guards

The Big Winner? Terrico White’s vertical leap of 40 inches is quite impressive, but his lateral quickness is a little worrisome. One could argue that leaping ability is not as important as speed or agility for guards. John Wall didn’t disappoint and by this method proved that he was the best overall athlete in the draft.

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It’s early, but what the hell? The lottery is behind us, so let’s take a stab at our first consensus mock draft. I’ve pulled in the latest mocks from ESPN, DraftExpress, NBADraft.net and SI.com to come up with a consensus of the first 14 picks.

If a player is picked by two or more sites, they’re the consensus, unless there’s a tie. In that case, I’ll make the pick. The same goes for when there are four different players listed.

The first three picks seem settled already, though much can change in the next month. Wall-Turner-Favors makes a lot of sense, especially for the teams in question. John Wall seems to be a no-brainer for the Wizards. If they hold onto Arenas, he can play the two. I think they’ll eventually move Agent Zero and build around Wall.

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