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http://espn.go.com/nba/lottery2011/mockdraft

Some potential prospects:

1. Kyrie Irving, PG, Duke
2. Derrick Williams, PF, Arizona
3. Harrison Barnes, SF, North Carolina
4. Jonas Valanciunas, PF, Lithuania
5. Jared Sullinger, PF, Ohio State
6. Enes Kanter, C, Turkey
7. Terrence Jones, F, Kentucky**
8. Perry Jones, PF, Baylor
9. Tyler Zeller, C, North Carolina
10. Kemba Walker, PG, Connecticut
11. Brandon Knight, PG, Kentucky
12. Jan Vesely, PF, Czech Republic
13. Kawhi Leonard, SF, San Diego State
14. Donatas Motiejunas, FC, Lithuania^
15. John Henson, PF, North Carolina

I like Terrence Jones

Terrence Jones
Height: 6'8"
Year: Freshman

+ Versatile offensive skill set that includes a developing perimeter jumper, with range past the college three-point line.
+ Handles the ball extremely well for a 6'8" kid, allowing him to potentially move out to the two or the three depending on match-ups.
+ Good frame to continue to build on. Strong upper body that allows him to finish through contact in the paint.
+ Good passer with nice court vision. I don't think it would be a stretch to let him run some point-forward ala Lamar Odom and Hedo Turkoglu.
+ Rebounds the ball at a very high rate.
+ Combo-forward with lots of skills that any team should covet highly. Has the potential to become a solid defensive player with amazing offensive skills. Has the ability to take over games when his game is on.

- Despite making a good portion of his jumpers, the form is not great and could be tweaked a little bit. Might struggle to get his shot off in the NBA.
- Must continue to develop his right hand, as he is extremely left-handed heavy in his repertoire right now.
- Hips must become more fluid in man-to-man defense. His movements are stiff despite being a good athlete. His man defense right now isn't terrible, but it could certainly use more work.
- Must improve as a man defender in the paint. Doesn't seem to understand quite how to play post defense yet, which should encourage teams, because he has actually done a pretty solid job this year.
- Needs to get better at the free-throw line. For someone who gets to the line as often as he does, Jones doesn't convert at a high enough clip.

Terrence Jones reminds me of someone from his time at a big-time college who also got drafted high. Great rebounder who got balls that made you drop your jaw, but also let some easy ones go. Good scorer who would disappear from some games and always defer on the court.

He has had a disappointing NBA career from his draft slot perspective, but has been able to stay in the league as a starter and get paid from many different clubs. He's also infuriating to coaches/fans and isn't ever going to be beloved.

I'm talking about Drew Gooden.

Terrence is very similar to Lamar Odom for me.

rearranged the list to my preferences. hoping that Barnes comes out as I wouldn't mind having him, but also to push others down to the Clippers pick.

I only know the Euro-guys by what I have read. I like Kanter because he can score and has legitimate C size. I like Veseley because he's extremely athletic and has potential to be a major threat on both ends.

1. Kyrie Irving, PG, Duke
2. Derrick Williams, PF, Arizona (if we think he can play SF, he might be our #1 spot. tough call so I'll go with the more important position)
3. Enes Kanter, C, Turkey (only really ahead of Barnes because he's a true center)
4. Harrison Barnes, SF, North Carolina
5. Jan Vesely, PF, Czech Republic (I prefer athleticism and he should be a SF with height for us)
6. Jonas Valanciunas, PF, Lithuania
7. Jared Sullinger, PF, Ohio State
8. Brandon Knight, PG, Kentucky (proved alot in the tourney obviously)
9. Kawhi Leonard, SF, San Diego State (tourney hurt, still see a possible Gerald Wallace in him)
10. Kemba Walker, PG, Connecticut (Jason Terry isn't a bad comp)
11. Alec Burks, PG/SG, Colorado (I love how this kid plays)
12. Terrence Jones, F, Kentucky
13. Chris Singleton, F, FSU (as long as he checks out medically)
14. Perry Jones, PF, Baylor (I don't think I'd ever put his name on the card though)
15. John Henson, PF, North Carolina
16. Kenneth Faried, PF Morehead (effort and rebounding will never be a question with this guy. him and AV could never play together)
17. Marcus or Markieff Morris, F, Kansas
19. Donatas Motiejunas, FC, Lithuania^
20. Tyler Zeller, C, North Carolina
21. Tyler Honeycutt, SG/SF, UCLA (one I really want to drop to #31)

What do you have against Perry Jones?

my dream draft scenario:

http://www.draftexpress.com/nba-mock-draft/2011/

Cavs get:

#1 Irving
#8 Kanter
#31 Honeycutt

(and if we do make the Rip trade, Vesely is also there for the Pistons pick)

As weak as this draft is, I like all of the european players. This is a deep draft for them.

We are about to have the same record as Minny.

Good lord they are a train wreck

the wolves are a mess because they only have youth, no good veterans to mix in. That's why I could see gilbert adding another good veteran with the trade exemption. I liked what the nuggets did. not only did they get draft picks, they received good young players, that were already established, to go along guys like nene, martin, jr smith, and lawson. the wolves tried to throw a bunch of rookies and young guys together, and hope it works. when it doesn't, trade a few of them off, and do it all over again....that's why they suck year after year.

personally, I think Minny is a mess because they only drafted players that can play offense. yes, youth is a factor, but Love/Flynn/Darko/Beasely are all offense-first-and-only guys.

plus, they have 4 PF prospects (add in 'lost' anthony randolph), which isn't exactly how to build a team.

minny is definitely a train wreck.

i don't think you can call the cavs that. it's to be expected that after the decision, there would be this. i think it is also healthy for them to be high in the draft.

if this happens beyond year 2 or 3 of this, where we are struggling to win 20 games, then you can call it a train wreck.

dan gilbert and chris grant get a pass this year, next year, and maybe the year after that. 3 years is the max that i want to see this team at the bottom.

i mean whatever it takes, but if you can have 2 of 3 drafts be good, you should be back in the mix.

like i said before, there are only 2 ways the cavs can get back to being an upper echelon team like they were the last 5 years.

either through the draft, or through a trade. and probably with a trade, it'd be a guy who's good, but blossoms into an even better player. you're not gonna get dwight howard or kobe or KD through a trade. but maybe a gasol? a guy who was solid in memphis but went to LA and with better players and coaching, became a legit star. gasol doesn't get a ton of cred even now, but that guy is unbelievable.

i think we as cavs fans gotta realize we probably aren't going to get a major top end free agent signing. guys just don't really want to play there, at least not in their prime. it's a lot like baseball except it's not a bidding war.

I agree. How about a Gerald Wallace as another example of a guy from a trade? A guy who everyone has always known to be good, but just isn't 'THE' guy. After you assemble a team for him to contribute to though, he can be a very important piece.

(another example if they had traded him as was rumored was Iggy)

The method we need to follow is more like the Portland/Chicago model. Be bad enough to acquire a few top10 picks and focus on guys who can make your team difficult to deal with (long rangy guys who are athletic mixed in with a few big guys). At the same time, acquire as many other lotto picks as you can (even the best GMs miss on picks, so you need to increase your odds).

OKC was following this blueprint and got a shot in the arm when they were able to land Durant and followed that up with a great pick of Westbrook (tons of questions on him coming out of UCLA remember as Collison was their primary PG not Russell). They even got lucky having the Chandler trade fall through because now they have Perkins long-term (better version of Tyson for virtually the same price). I am NOT expecting to be as fortunate as OKC (alot had to do with Presti, but there was definitely luck involved too).

With all the question marks surrounding this year's draft class ... I think we can only expect one of the two picks to really be a key contributor. If we somehow land that Detroit pick, then maybe two of the three. We're still a few years off though. I agree with SWynn though ... three years should be enough time to turn this around a bit.

And Minny *is* the train wreck. We had a big sawed-off shotgun sized hole blasted into the team, and then lost more to injuries and trades. When we went on that losing streak, we were dressing a bench squad that was scrapped together and had no playing time with each other. Minny *constructed* that team, and they're still almost as bad as us

also, realize with this draft, we have a nightmare scenario looming. we could end up with the #5 and #10 picks in the draft.

that could leave us out of the top4 I consider elite (Irving/D.Williams/Kanter/Barnes)

not as bad a spot with the #10 pick as the 2nd tier is reasonably deep with 'good' players (none I expect to be special but still) but we could miss out on a player we really want (for instance, if we luckily get Kanter at #5 and want Brandon Knight, he could easily be gone by #10)

#8-10 is going to be a scary pick as it is ... nothing is sure-fire around that area, and you always tend to get guys that were awesome in college but can't take it to the pros. It's Luke Jackson, Dajuan Wagner territory for sure.

And actually ..... this scraped together team is playing decent basketball on occasion late in the year. It's still a team that is missing big pieces .... but it is also a team that is developing pieces. (even if they are backup pieces)

This team with Varejao and Erden back at full strength, and a plus type player at SG and SF to go along with a developing Hickson and the Davis/Sessions combo at PG could be a pretty good team. Add in the guys who have spent this entire year working and developing as backups and we could have a really solid bench.

Look at all of the games we lost this year because we only had 1 true "big" in Hickson .. after we lost Varejao and Jamison to injury ..... and before the trade for Harangody and Erden .... and before Hollins started coming on a bit. (and Hollins looks to be at that "up/down" stage in his career, where he has a good game, followed by a down game)

Considering that we have 4 picks in this coming draft, we could wind up releasing some quality players next year.

SG could be a complete overhaul position. SF definitely needs an impact player. Probably either Gee or Eyenga makes the team, along with a rookie or 2. Maybe both if we only draft 1 SF.

PF is set if Hickson continues to grow into the position. Samuels, Harangody and of course Jamison will all battle it out for spots. I actually like Samuels. I think that he could develop into a solid player.

C is another position with some promise ..... but one that can be upgraded. There are a lot of questions here. How will Varejao fit in when he returns? What do we really have in Erden? Is the Hollins who was aggressive against Miami a mirage, or a peek into the future? Man if we could have had a guy here take a path similar to Hickson and start to show some real strong promise, it would go a long way towards answering a lot of questions on the team.

PG is solid right now, but Davis is getting older. Sessions has shown quite a lot this year, and I like him as a backup. He has to realize that he could see more time on the court, even if he doesn't start, than Davis does. I do see us grabbing a PG in this draft ... even though it is far from our position of most need.

Given that we started the season with a C in Varejao who has proven to be a real weapon off the bench ..... a developing, if underperforming PF in Hickson ...... an aging PF in Jameson ....... a PG in Mo Williams and SF in Joey Graham who couldn't find the court because of injuries ..... and questions galore at SG ....... and then we lost most of our "settled" positions with injuries to Williams, and Graham, and Varejao, and Jamison, and even Gibson ...... man we lost damn near our original projected starting lineup to injury.

This is a team loaded with possibilities and tons of questions. If 1/2 of the question marks break our way, we could be on our way to having a pretty decent team. If not .. then we grab another lottery pick and build from there.

the lockout worries the hell out of me. my gut feeling says it gets done (just like my feeling with the nfl) but many experts say that the nba is more likely to miss part or all of their season..

there are a few guys i like in the potential crop of lottery guys, but if the lockout scares some of them away, then i am worried.

as far as who the cavs could trade for, there are a ton of guys i think have the potential to turn into really really good starting players.

one guy i was high on is wilson chandler. not saying the guy is the next lebron or anything, but there are parts of his game that really impress me. i kinda found it funny that bspn was pimping him as a young player that would have been great for lebron to play with nyc (during FA) but then dismissed him as nothing when the bricks traded carmelo and sent him packing. like, oh, bspn's favorite team didn't give up anything for melo.

the guy has potential to be a solid contributing starter/6th man.

gerald wallace i agree. i think he's a really good 2-way guy, can play at both ends. always plays well against the good teams too, which is even more impressive since the good teams obviously have all the skill and size.

you've gotta find one or two of those type guys if you're cleveland. combine that with 2 or 3 lottery picks and you could have a lethal starting 5.

i think irving is probably the safe, smart pick for the cavs if they land at 1 or 2. (irving could fall if teams with PG's like washington or NJ pick ahead of the cavs)

makes too much sense. byron scott is great with point guards, the cavs have a few point guards, but no one to really build around. i like sessions a lot, but i don't know if he's your top man at PG.

considering that draft picks like Honeycutt are saying they fully expect a lockout but just don't know how long it will be when declaring for the draft, yeah I'm worried about the season.

then again, that could mean top # of lotto balls 2 years in a row just for being horrid this year. not too shabby way to kick-start a rebuild (and also 1 less chance for LeBron to get his ring before Gilbert )

Kobe was before the time of high-schoolers coming out early (he was drafted 13th I think), so he was a bit of a "gamble" at the time. Same thing with Dirk and "foreigners".

By the way ... Dirk was drafted 9th and Pierce 10th in the same draft ... know who was #8? Larry Hughes ... so there you go.

FYI

We are 100 times more likely to have football next year instead pf basketball. Stern is a doushebag.

Kobe was a bit of a strange thing entirely because Adidas was running his pre-draft workouts and they wanted him to be a Laker.

hopefully our FO can pick out the busts from the good picks from #8-10. even the horrid draft of 2006 had Rudy Gay at #8, so there's some hope

Anytime you can trade Kobe Bryant for Vlade Divac you gotta do it.

Anyway, look back at the 1996 draft, Iverson, Marbury, Ray Allen, Antoine Walker, Eric Dampier, Kobe, Stojakovic, Nash, Jermaine O'Neal, Ilgauskas, Derek Fisher all in the 1st round. Not bad.

But I really think the 2008 draft will turn out to be one of the best ever: Rose, Mayo, Westbrook, Love, Gallinari, Eric Gordon, Brook Lopez, Hibbert, McGee, Hickson, Ryan Anderson, Serge Ibaka, Nicolas Batum, and George Hill in the 1st round.

Comeon ... nothing tops the 2000 draft! Headlined by K-Mart and Jamaal Magloire! Big household names like Darius Miles, Chris Mihm (another stellar #7/8 steal by the Cavs!), Marcus Fizer, and Joel Przybilla. Guys that are so well known that they are recognized just by their first name ... Stromile, Dermarr, Keyon, Etan, and Speedy. Also marked by the world's best dancer, Mark Madsen going as the last pick in the first!

Ha ha ha...

Mark Madsen does have two rings though.

Yeah I was thinking about that draft. That could be this year's draft, with Kenyon Martin as the 1st overall pick.

One thing I love about the 2000 NBA draft is that if you gave round1 and round2 to someone who only knew about what players did once they got to the NBA, do you think they would know which round was which?

round2 at least had Redd (allstar and all-nba team selection) to the whole 2 allstars (no all-nba teams) for round1 (and Magliore's allstar selection was a sham). also Eddie House, Jaric, Cardinal, Najera, etc. are names that would be recognizable.

Which is why I put #7/8

He got drafted 7th, but then we "used" our 8th pick to actually get him. Man, did the Bulls really take us to the woodshed on that one.

or Jameer Nelson or Caron Butler.

Oh, that's right! I just remembered that the Cavs were the most-likely landing spot for him in the draft and that they were around 8-10 again and took Luke Jackson. Dick Vitale was furious. I forgot that he fell that far!

on the plus side, we got to say Luke Jackson was a former Cav when he went for 40 in the D-League

hey prp, how's that facepalm smiley coming?