Being Dunleavy is hard

Every year at Blazer's Edge we have a mock draft, much like they do at other sites. One of the great things about our mock draft is that different readers are assigned the roles of various GMs, and we are allowed to try our hands at trades and other things that swirl around the real draft. It's a lot of fun, and it gives us a sense of what might really be happening in the league around the big day. Last year I got to be the Grizzlies, a team with two picks and good position, but somehow screwed it up and forgot all about it on the day of the mock draft. I was really disappointed in myself, and ended up not making any picks (Dave had accounted for this possibility and had backups ready).

This year I was given a second chance and the role of Clippers GM. As we've come closer to the mock draft – which starts at 11 am today – I have been trying to do as much as possible to help out the Clips organization. The first thing I wanted to do was draft Bake Griffin. The second thing I wanted to do was open up space in the front court and open up space in the locker room by moving Zach Randolph. I started talking with the Grizzlies GM, since they had professed a desire for a big time low post scorer who also would bring in the rebounds. Zach Randolph can do both of those things. The Grizzlies GM had also suggested that he didn't really want Rubio, which meant that I was gunning for the second pick as well. The initial proposal I came with was this one:

The Grizzlies GM said that he didn't really want Randolph and would rather have one of my other bigs, but suggested he would perhaps take Al Thornton to make a Randolph deal work. At that point I suggested adding Thornton and Gay, a deal he quickly turned down.

With the knowledge that Memphis thought Thornton needed to be in the deal, and also wanting to rid my team of two other impediments to Griffin growing into the leader in the locker room – namely Baron and Ricky Davis – I started looking for potential partners with them. The Rockets were shopping McGrady, and I knew that there had been interest in Baron Davis at one point from their end. If I was going to be able to get the rights to Rubio from the Grizzlies then it would be worth it to get rid of Baron, so I wanted to make these two deals, the Rockets deal contingent on the Grizzlies deal:


The Memphis deal would send the Clippers the rights to Ricky Rubio, and the team would move forward building around Gordon, Rubio, Griffin, and Kaman. I would have cut Buckner with his non-guarantied contract, and then had expiring Darko and T-Mac deals to work with either at the deadline or next summer when the big guys became free agents. Imagine LeBron joining Gordon, Rubio, Griffin, and Kaman in Los Angeles and taking the Clippers to the title.

The Grizzlies deal never happened, so I was never able to offer the deal to the Rockets (which wouldn't have flown in the mock draft anyway because it wasn't actually related to the draft). This is the sort of stuff I was trying to do to make the Clippers better, a tough prospect considering the way Dunleavy has destroyed them in recent years.

It has been quite some time

Yeah, I haven't blogged since I got up to Oregon and started working on finishing my M.Ed. Today marks the end of two of my three classes, though, and the two that are ending are the ones that required a ton of effort, energy, and e-focus. I have been able to pay attention to some things going on in the sports world, but not as many things as I would like. For instance: I haven't watched hardly any of the Blazers' summer league games. I think summer league is really fun, and this year might have been even more fun because of the way Jerryd Bayless has destroyed the opposition and Petteri Koponen has shown his abilities as a guard at this level. Something else I haven't talked about at all? How about NBA free agency or a few of the crazy trades (and trade ideas) that have been going on. Elton Brand? Baron Davis? Cory Maggette? Marcus Camby? (Not) Zach Randolph? Topics that interest me but that I haven't put any time into on this blog. Or I could have been talking about the fall of Jeff Francoeur. Or Chipper Jones' attempt to hit .400. Or Lofa Tatupu still being a great guy despite being charged with a DUI. Yeah, that one's pretty old, but it's still relevant and I haven't mentioned it until now. What's that? I failed to mention the University of Oregon football player who drowned earlier this week, when I've been on campus? Yep, until today. I was attending classes at the sight of the U.S. track and field Olympic Trials and didn't talk about the crazy atmosphere? True again. A guy who graduated from my high school became the first catcher to be charged with a loss as a pitcher in a game since 1901. (Thanks Jayson Stark.) How about the best swimming event in a long time, one that included three people from my high school – and could have had two more – competing against one of the best fields in the history of the sport, and I didn't mention it except on my other, non-sports blog? I did that too. Did I even mention the way Kevin Pritchard destroyed the rest of the association in the draft again this year? I don't think so.

All of that as a big way of apologizing and saying that I'm back. With a much lighter load for the rest of the term, and with the arrival of my iPhone, I plan on keeping things alive at this site for a good while to come.

And I'm putting in a new countdown. This one will tick off the days until the Blazers report to pre-camp camp. I'm giddy already.

I have to put it in writing

The Nuggets will beat the Lakers.

Reasons? I've got a few:

1. I hate the Lakers. That shapes everything I think. And I hate hearing my students talk about how good they are. Again, this shapes everything I think about this series.


2. Denver can play great defense. They did it enough times to be ranked 10th in defensive efficiency for the season, while being the first ranked team in pace. And that's pretty impressive because they're running a lot but still doing a good job of keeping teams from scoring a lot per 100 possessions. That still ends up being a lot of points, but shows some decent defense. The best example was that Seattle game when they won 168-116.


3. George Karl has been a good coach in the playoffs a few times. Three times, really. In 92-93 and 95-96 with Seattle, and in 2000-2001 with Milwaukee. Those teams were above .500 in the playoffs, but none of them won the finals. Still, if he can get everything together with those crazy guys, maybe it'll work.


4. While I don't think the Nuggets can do anything to stop Kobe, I think that they have a chance to completely shut down the front court help on that Lakers team. Camby and Martin should easily shut down any combination of big men that LA will trot out there. If that happens, Kobe might give up and try to win it on his own with his offense, instead of focusing on the defensive end shutting down 'Melo, which doesn't bode well for the Lakers – as I've already said – especially since Kobe won't have to put in that much effort to get his points. The extra effort won't get him that many more points, but the points that 'Melo will get with Kobe focusing on the offensive side will be enough. Barely.


5. The big three question marks for the Nuggets are going to come out and play well. Okay, I have no evidence for this, but the Nuggets will win if these three come to play in every game: J.R. Smith, Linas Kleiza, and Eduardo Najera.


6. Did I mention that I hate the Lakers? Yeah, that's important for this, and the one other important thing: I don't think anyone is picking the Nuggets. Didn't they learn from the Warriors last year? This is a team that won 50 games in the west. They showed glimpses of brilliance, and they're pretty tough to beat a mile up. If the Staples Center was some amazing place where the fans brought the ruckus, I'd say that there was no way Denver can steal a game in LA. But this is a stadium filled with celebrities who are there to be noticed.

Denver wins in six.