Chapter 489: The 16-Year Draft
With the NBA Finals coming to an end, many basketball fans are turning their attention to international competitions, and although the Olympics are still more than a month away, this has not stopped the national teams from starting to prepare for the championship, especially those who are aiming to win the championship - the United States, Spain and Argentina.
As a relatively famous warm-up game before the opening of the Olympic Games, the Stankovic Cup naturally has to be paid attention to by many people, especially those fans who like Ye Xuan, and they started booking tickets early, this time there are not many teams participating in the Si Cup, not as grand as the one 08 years ago, but it also invited the European powerhouse French team, the South American champion Argentina team and the African champion Nigeria team, plus the Asian champion Chinese team fighting at home, although there are fewer teams participating in the Si Cup this time, but at this glance, all of them are elites.
However, it is a pity that the French team and the Argentine team are not the strongest team, although the French team has Batum, Fournier and Gobert, but such as the well-known sports car Parker, Duck Noah, Turyaf, and Ye Xuan's former teammate Masimi did not return to the team, so the French team came to China to participate in the team is actually a second team.
And the personnel on the Argentine team's side are even more uneven, Scola and Ginobili are old and have withdrawn from the national team, and the current Argentine national team is a number of players who work hard in the South American league, there are few NBA players left, the only NBA player is Delfino, but Delfino is obviously the kind of player who doesn't play well in the NBA now.
And the Chinese team, because the overall age is still relatively young, so it is basically all members of the competition, after all, the oldest person in the team is actually Yi Jianlian, who was born in 87, and Li Gen, who was born in 88, and even Ye Xuan, who was born in 94, is not a young man in the team, Zhao Yanhao is 97 years old, Zhao Jiwei is 95 years old, and Zhou Qi is 96 years old, so the Chinese team's lineup is actually planning to train at the beginning of the selection, but with the addition of Ye Xuan, a powerful backfield, The overall strength of the team has been improved, which is why the national team has suddenly changed from the original slogan of protecting eight to rushing three.
However, after the NBA Finals and before the start of the Stankovic Cup, there is another big event related to the Chinese team, that is, the NBA draft. Ye Xuan's Lakers team has nothing to choose, after all, the first-round pick has been traded to the Magic team, and the Magic team finally drew a fourth sign, although it is a little worse than the first three picks they imagined, but it is okay.
The reason why this matter is also related to the Chinese team is because this time two Chinese participated in the draft, they are Zhou Qi and Wang Zhelin. In the final result, Zhou Qi was selected by the Rockets at the 43rd pick, and Wang Zhelin was selected by the Grizzlies at the 57th pick, although he was selected in the second round, but the media is generally more optimistic about Zhou Qi's prospects, after all, the Rockets' China complex is still very strong, plus Howard has announced that he will start looking for a home after the Rockets were eliminated, and he didn't think about staying in the Rockets at all, but directly chose to jump out of the contract and seek his next home. So the Rockets' interior emptiness may allow Zhou Qi to find some opportunities.
As for the other signings, the first is naturally the 76ers who have won the top pick, the 76ers have been rebuilding for almost 10 years, and they are still moving towards the top show every year, and I don't know if their boss is addicted to rebuilding. However, this time they made a wise choice, directly taking Ben Simmons, who performed very well in college and has been at the top of the prediction list since the beginning.
Ben Simmons began playing official games at the age of 7 and, in addition to basketball, he is a member of the football team and is an amphibious athlete. At the age of 14, Simmons decided to stop playing football and focus on basketball. In 2013, Ben Simmons studied at Montverde College in the United States. In the 2013-14 season, Ben Simmons averaged 18.5 points, 9.8 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game while shooting 69% from the field to lead the team to a 28-0 record to win the high school All-American Championship, and Ben Simmons scored 24 points and 12 rebounds in the finals and was named MVP. In the 2014-15 season, Ben Simmons averaged 28 points, 11.9 rebounds, 4 assists and 2.6 steals per game, led the team to win the national championship again with a record of 28-1, and was selected as the tournament MVP, and was named the 2015 Naismith High School Player of the Year team, was selected to the 2015 All-American High School All-Star Team, and participated in the 2015 McDonald's High School All-Star Game.
Ben Simmons entered Louisiana State University in 2015 and in 2015-16, he averaged 19.2 points, 11.8 rebounds and 4.8 assists in 34.9 minutes per game while shooting 56% from the field.
The winner of the Eye Show was the Suns, who used the pick to select Brandon Ingram, who is also a small forward position. In fact, Ingram was the favorite for the top pick before Simmons ran for the election, but compared to Simmons' dominance on the court, Ingram was still a little worse. In 2015, Brandon Ingram entered Duke University to represent Duke University in college basketball. On February 18, 2016, Ingram played 40 minutes in Duke's narrow 74-73 win over the University of North Carolina and finished with 20 points, 10 rebounds and four assists, becoming the first player in Duke history to score 20 points and 10 rebounds for Duke in a game against North Carolina for the first time since 1996.
On March 21, 2016, Brandon Ingram scored 25 points in a match between Duke and Yale University to help Duke win 71-64 and advance to the round of 16 of the NCAA Tournament. In the 2015-16 season, Ingram played in 36 games for Duke University, averaging 17.3 points, 6.8 rebounds, 2.0 assists, 1.4 blocks and 1.1 steals in 34.6 minutes per game. In terms of data, Ingram is indeed worse than Simmons, and Simmons is still a foreigner, although Australia's population is not large, but the Australian champion can also drive the economy or something like that (manual ossosis).
And the Tanhua Show was taken by the lucky Celtics, don't you ask the Celtics to still play the playoffs? How did you come to the list? Then we need to thank the Nets for their selfless dedication, not only this season's first-round pick, but even next season's first-round pick Nets can't get it, next season? It still seems to be owned by the Celtics, so the Nets are now the fighters in the bad team, and they are all rotten.
Angie has endured a lot of notoriety when he traded championship winner Kevin Garnett and his own meritorious captain Pierce, and now he has also proved his vision in this deal, and the swaggering Danny Angie used the signing to select his favored Jaylen Brown, a graduate of Joseph Heeler High School in Marietta, Georgia. In his final year of high school, Brown helped the team win the Georgia championship. He has since participated in the 2015 Nike Summit and the McDonald's All-American High School Star Game. In the Nike Summit game, Jaylen Brown played 16.1 minutes, scoring 8 points and 2 rebounds; In the McDonald's All-American High School Star Game, Jaylen Brown played 21 minutes and finished with nine points, six rebounds and two assists. He then attended the University of California, Berkeley. In the 2015-16 season, he appeared in 34 games for the team, averaging 14.6 points, 5.4 rebounds and 1.9 assists in 27.6 minutes per game, shooting 43.1% from the field and 29.4% from three-point range.
Although his stats are more average than the two in front of him, his characteristics are just right for the Celtics, who are relatively small forwards, and can help their defensive black hole Thomas Jr. share a lot of pressure when he plays a shooting guard. And with a little development, Jaylen Brown has the potential to become the next Gerald Wallace-caliber defensive striker.
The fourth pick is the Magic, they won one of the better interior players in this year's draft, Dragan Bender, this interior player is very young, November 17, 1997, Dragan Bender was born in Kaplina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the 2014-15 season, Dragan Bender played 4 games for Maccabi Youth Team Tel Aviv, averaging 23.0 points and 10.8 rebounds per game. It is this kind of outstanding performance that makes him one of the few reassuring insiders in this draft.
However, the Magic team now has Vucevic on the inside, and there is a steel plate like Diamond on the bench, so I don't know why the next inside line is selected to grab the position? Just when everyone was still wondering, the first trade of this draft appeared, the Suns and the Magic made a deal, sending the top pick Brandon Ingram to the Magic team, in exchange for the No. 4 pick Dragan Bender, Jason Smith and some cash, it seems that this deal is actually the Suns using their top signing to rob the Magic team once, after all, after they got Ingram, there is not much space to cultivate him, after all, the Suns' outside lineup is already very luxurious, Eric Bledsoe, Brandon Knight, Devin Booker, Markieff Morris, TJ Warren, PJ Tucker, these are all players at the shooting guard and small forward positions, so they selected Ingram to rob the Magic, and at the same time they traded their favorite Dragan Bender to their hands, they also got an extra small forward and some cash.
The subsequent draft was still held, and the Timberwolves got the top pick for two consecutive years, getting an excellent interior and an excellent small forward, respectively, and this time used their fifth pick to find a backcourt player, Chris Dern. Chris Dunn entered Providence College in 2012 and represented Providence College in college basketball.
In the years that followed, he showed his talent in basketball, and by the 2014-15 season, Chris Dunn was averaging 15.6 points, 5.4 rebounds, 7.5 assists and 2.7 steals per game, and was named to the Great East Division Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year, as well as being named to the First Team of the Great East Conference. In the 2015-16 season, he averaged 16.4 points, 5.3 rebounds, 6.2 assists and 2.5 steals per game, and was named the Great Eastern Division Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year, and was named to the All-American College Basketball Second Team and the Great Eastern Territory All-America First Team.
His characteristics are very clear, that is, the tackling ability is very outstanding, the speed is also very fast, the play is very dynamic, it can be said that Chris Dunn has excellent physical condition and athleticism, all-round skills, the first step is extremely fast, is an excellent singles, and can also find teammates in the open position in high-speed advancement, can effectively feed the ball to the inside, and can also use bursts to activate outside firepower. Dunn is an excellent defender, with rebounding and steals being his strengths.
And why Dunn fell to the fifth pick with such a good evaluation, the reason is that playing without the ball is Dunn's weakness, and his ability to catch the ball and jump shot needs to be strengthened. In addition, injury concerns are a big problem for Dunn. In the link of catching and shooting, Dunn still has obvious flaws, as a core point guard, and the awareness of blocking and dismantling between big men is not good. That's what made him fall to the fifth pick, if it weren't for these factors, he could still compete with Ben Simmons for the top pick, after all, a young player who is good at defense is simply a model that can be used when selected, and it doesn't have to be like other players, it takes a lot of energy to develop, and this type of player has the highest success rate after adapting to the environment.
The draft and trade situation after that will not be described one by one, but in the second pick of the second round, the Lakers signed an interior player, Ivica Zubac, this is also an international player, he is from Croatia, but after the trade window opens, the Lakers may start to recruit All-Star level players, especially interior players, Gasol and basically return to the Lakers, so Ivica Zubac should not be able to get too much playing time in the Lakers, But from another point of view, if the Lakers suddenly rise, he may also be able to follow a championship.