NBA Draft Thoughts 2013

I kind of wanted to do some sort of mock draft of the NBA on where players should go and where they would go.. But, that would have been time consuming, so I didn't end up getting to it.  Instead I decided that I would pretend to be the GM of the Charlotte 'Bobcats' and attempt to solve some of their problems, which will be in a different post.  In this post I hope to at least glance at a few players in the draft and the trades which occurred around the draft and offer my limited knowledge on both of them.

Trades of note
New Orleans and Philadelphia
Noel for Holiday
Jrue Holiday's salary was set to skyrocket this year and will continue to be high for the next 4 years.. But still, I think the 76er's kind of got mugged.  The Pelicans won this trade.  Admittedly Noel could become a very good player, but still Holiday is a quantifiably good player, albeit with a vaguely high salary, while Noel is largely unknown.

T-Wolves and Jazz
Trey Burke for Muhammad and Dieng
I expect fairly good things from all 3 players..  But, Muhammad is kind of an unknown high-risk high-reward, while I expect Burke to become a very decent player.  I'd say the Jazz barely won this trade.

Grizzlies and Nuggets
A second round pick and Darrell Arthur for KOSTA KOUFAS...
Not a good trade by the Nuggets..  In really any way, except that Arthur also plays decent defense.  I'm fairly high on Koufas, I think that he should be getting high starting minutes on a playoff team.

Also, ESPN said the following.. "The Grizzlies, sources said, made the move to create playing time for young big man Ed Davis"
How does that even make sense?  You are trading for a CENTER, not exactly a wing player..  Oh well.  I know Centers and Power Forwards aren't entirely interchangeable, but still, they are by and large quite similar.  So while Davis may indeed get a couple more minutes, it's still not really a major block of time that is created by the trade.

Player Notes
Don't have a lot of thoughts about the players.  I didn't watch very much college basketball this year.  So I mostly just know the big name players.
Otto Porter seems a bit undersized, I'm not certain if he will end up being a good pick for the Wizards
Trey Burke may be a bit undersized as well, but I expect good things from him.
Cody Zeller should be very decent.

I guess I'll go ahead and take a shot at ranking the top 10 players..  Or 14 as it ended up being..  (Basically based on the little I know of them, and how I think they will have performed in the NBA 3-5 years from now.  So very limited selection, since I know virtually nothing about a fair number of the players, especially about players from other countries)

Top 14 choices 
Cody Zeller
Trey Burke
Victor Oladipo
C.J. McCollum
Jeff Withey
Deshaun Thomas  (The Spurs got a steal)
Anthony Bennett
Alex Len
Rudy Gobert
Shabazz Muhammad (possible bust as well)
Ryan Kelly
Gorgui-Dieng
Nerlens Noel  (I expect him to be decent, but his attitude and the drama surrounding him worries me)
Mason Plumlee

I'm technically not including him, but I expect Nate Wolters to be at least a serviceable bench player.  Also, Seth Curry should have a job 3 years from now.  And Mike Muscala could also be decent.

Potential busts.  
Otto Porter
Kentavious-Caldwell-Pope
Ben-McLemore  (Impressive year in college, I would just feel a lot better if he was at least a Sophomore.  A bit of a boom or bust pick.  And considering Sacramento picked him.. Well...  I'll let you decide.)
Tim Hardaway Junior