Charlotte’ victory in New Orleans on Wednesday clinched a playoff berth for the Bobcats, and officially conveyed their first-round pick in June’s draft to the Wolves. Minnesota acquired the pick, which was lottery-protected, from Denver last June in exchange for point guard Ty Lawson. (The Nuggets traded for the pick a year earlier, for a draft choice that Charlotte used to draft French center Alexis Aijnca.) The pick will be #15 or 16 this year.
Let’s shoot for Whiteside, Henry or Monroe here. That would be terrific value for this pick.
Don Nelson set the NBA career record for victories by a coach in the Golden State Warriors‘ 116-107 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday night.
The 6-foot-7 point guard is expected to be a top-three pick in the June 24 draft. Yet he said his decision wasn’t an easy one.
“This is the toughest thing I had to do,” he said, his voice breaking. “But I was blessed with this decision and I have a great opportunity. I’m going to turn a leaf over and go on to the next stage of my life.”
The Chicago native averaged 20.4 points, 9.2 rebounds and 6 assists while shooting 52 percent from the field, 36.4 percent behind the arc and 76 percent at the line.
Turner was moved to point guard before the season, a decision by coach Thad Matta that raised some eyebrows because Turner had never played the position and had been prone to making mistakes with the ball.
Turner is at the top of most of our draft boards I would hope. An all-around solid 2 in the making and exactly what we would want with our top pick. Another guy the Wolves should keep their eye on with their mid-first rounders is Hassan Whiteside, who declared today as well.
Turner will also sign with David Falk, who orchestrated the whole Stephon Marbury debacle years ago and is certainly not partial to small market teams such as the Wolves.
Wall/Cousins also in, amongst others
The freshman All-Americans are among five Kentucky players who declared for the NBA draft on Wednesday, an exodus that includes freshman guard Eric Bledsoe, freshman center Daniel Orton and junior forward Patrick Patterson.
Wall and Cousins are expected to be among the first few players selected after leading the Wildcats to a remarkable turnaround season in Calipari’s first year on the job.
Kentucky went 35-3 this season — Calipari’s first as Wildcats coach — winning the Southeastern Conference regular season and conference tournament titles before falling to West Virginia in the regional finals of the NCAA Tournament.
This all sounds fantastic right now. All Wolves fans thinking that this may be the year we win the lottery, clinging to false hope. Only about 4 weeks to go until the mid-May lottery apocalypse and the realization that our top draft pick will most likely be Al Farouq Aminu/Wesley Johnson at 5.
Jefferson Sits vs. Warriors Wednesday
Jefferson missed practice on Tuesday and the shootaround on Wednesday morning. Coach Kurt Rambis says the absences are excused and he hopes to have his leading scorer back for practice on Thursday.
Here’s hoping everything is going ok with Big Al.
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