The great philosopher and basketball guru Terrence Williams tweeted the other day that people that run mock drafts were "kicked out of chess clubs and couldn't swim that well, LOL" so they are not to be believed. Certainly an interesting and highly debatable point made by Mr. Williams and it got me thinking about how the Mocks fare against the actual drafts.
Being the fan of accountability that I am, I went back and did a quick comparison of the 2008 SBN Mock draft with the actual 2008 draft. You can see the full comparison chart here. Overall, I would say that the Mocks did pretty well.
A few wins for the mock:
- The Knicks picked Gallinari at #6 while the Mocks had him falling to the Suns at #15. So far anyway, I would say the Mocks got that one right but perhaps if Danilo comes back healthy then D'Antoni will be justified in taking his Italian buddy's son so high and ahead of Bayless or Brook Lopez
- The Mock had Anthony Randolph going 8th to the Bucks instead of Joe Alexander. Randolph ended up going 14th. Can we all agree now that Randolph > Alexander?
- Courtney Lee looks like the big sleeper of last year's draft falling to the Cavs at 19 in the Mock and to the Magic at 22 in the real. The Mock at least picked him before the actual
- Another big win for the Mock was Mario Chalmers going 20th to the Nuggets while the GM's let him fall all the way into the 2nd round
Of course the GM's had some wins too...
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Jason Thompson being picked 12th by the Kings was a great choice while the Mocks let him fall to the Jazz at 23. I am a big JT fan.
- The Nets picking Ryan Anderson at 21 certainly looks better then the Mocks having him go 27th
- And the big fail of the Mock was the Warriors picking DeAndre Jordan 14th. We Mockers should have let him go late in the 1st or early in the 2nd which is where he actually ended up
In the top 6 or so there were some differences with where Westbrook, Bayless and Gordon went but I don't think you can argue that the order any of those guys were taken was wrong as long as they were picked in the top 7 which they were by the Mocks. Bayless of course fell to the Pacers at 11 but the Blazers snapped him up by trading the 13th pick (Rush) and Jarret Jack.
Bayless didn't get big minutes like those other guys but that's because he was playing on a much better team. Bayless will likely be just as good as Westbrook and Gordon. That trio of athletic scoring guards is going to be around for a long long time.
So there you have it Terrence, the poor swimming, chess club failure Mock drafters did pretty well last year.
That brings us to this year's Mock which Ridiculous Scott at Ridiculous Upside is managing. So far, 11 picks have been made.
The 2009 SB Nation Mock Draft thus far:
1. Los Angeles Clippers - Clips Nation: Blake Griffin
2. Memphis Grizzlies - 3 Shades of Blue: Ricky Rubio
3. Oklahoma City Thunder - Welcome to Loud City: James Harden
4. Sacramento Kings - Sactown Royalty: Tyreke Evans
5. Washington Wizards - Bullets Forever: Hasheem Thabeet
6. Minnesota Timberwolves - Canis Hoopus: Stephen Curry