Nuggets' 2002 NBA Draft Revisited

So, as I was looking up the Nuggets' draft history trying to figure out how Luis Flores ever became associated with our team, I noticed the 2002 draft. It's worth a look back.

Our first selection, at #5........Nikoloz Tskitishvili from the Republic of Georgia. Wow. I had completely forgotten we'd taken him that high. I started to wonder what we really missed out on, but then I realized that entire draft was basically a train wreck. Highlights included Yao at #1, Amare Stoudemire at #9, Caron Butler at #10, Tayshaun Prince at #23, Krstic at #24 and Carlos Boozer at #35. Other than that, it's real ugly.

The Warriors took Mike Dunleavy at #3. The Clippers took Chris Wilcox at #8 and Melvin Ely at #12. The Bucks took Marcus Haislip at #13 and 76ers took Jiri Welsch at #16. And then there were the tragic injury players; the Bulls took Jay Williams at #2 and the Cavs took Dajuan Wagner with the #6 pick.*

Yes, the Skeeter pick was terrible, but most of the other teams totally screwed up as well. And the draft was really, really weak. People always want to bring up Amare Stoudemire, but he was one of the very few players that year who made a serious impact.

But then, the Nuggets use the 25th pick in the first round on Frank Williams out of Illinois, and the 33rd pick in the 2nd round for Vincent Yarbrough from Tennessee.

The Nuggets created a package of those two picks, Antonio McDyess (with his K-Mart-like knee and contract) and a future second round pick (2004's ?) to send to the Knicks for Marcus Camby, Mark Jackson, and the draft rights to Nene.

That trade turned out pretty dang good for the Nuggets. That seems like some good thinking by the management at the time. Unless you remember that Camby was coming off a season in which he played 29 games and averaged 11 points, Mark Jackson was at least 58 years old, and no one had ever seen Nene play. That doesn't sound very good. Knicks fans, as to be expected, booed the sh*t out of the Nene pick. And at the time, the papers were talking about McDyess as a "steal" and "ready to return to All-Star form" because no one knew how bad the knee really was.

So despite our best efforts to screw up the draft and make a completely worthless, possibly terrible trade, 2002 worked out alright. I think. Right? Wait...

We drafted two guys who are out of the league (Williams and Yarbrough), and Tskitishvili who's averaging 2.1 points in his NBA career with our 2 first-rounders and second-round pick. But we ended up with Camby and Nene.

And Casey Jacobsen, who was the 22nd pick of that draft, will probably be on our roster this season after playing on our summer league team.

Not too bad I guess.

*Note: I was getting my info from USA Today's old draft preview. Their scouting report for Jay Williams? "Comparative upside: Stephon Marbury. Comparative downside: Chauncey Billups." Basically, no one has any idea what they are talking about. Only time will tell.

NBA Vegas Summer League Highlights

The Toshiba Vegas Summer League wrapped up, and NBA.com posted some nice video. Highlights include Jason Maxiell banging on poor Boniface Ndong in typical Bearcat fashion, and Will Bynum showing serious handles. Sadly, Ndong gets posterized twice in this brief clip. And one of them is courtesy of Xavier alum Lionel (Superintendent) Chalmers, who until today I was not aware could dunk. Not a good sign.

I also looked at the stats of the league leaders, because everyone's been going crazy about what Randy Foye's been doing. Yes, he led the league in points this year. And last year it was J.R. Smith. So I don't know what to make of that. Is that good news for the Nuggets, or bad news for Randy Foye? I'm thinking it doesn't mean anything seeing as how in 2005, Nuggets superstar Luis Flores averaged more points than Chris Paul. While playing significantly fewer minutes.

End of the Road for G-Mac

It looks like it might be the end of the road for former Syracuse star Gerry McNamara in the NBA.

The Orlando Magic signed G-Mac as an undrafted free agent on June 30th to evaluate his play in their summer league and put some heat on Travis Diener.

McNamara was finally given the shot I thought he deserved, but a nagging injury and an unconscious Travis Diener (34 points against the Bulls, including 7-10 from 3) seems to have put an end to his time in the NBA. It now looks very doubtful that G-Mac will make the Magic roster next season, as Diener will most likely lock down any available back-up point guard spot.

I thought before the draft that McNamara would have been a great fit in Denver because of his heart, determination, 3-point range and his winning history with Carmelo. But that was before he hurt his groin and had an awful workout for the Nuggets. And then I found out he has asthma. Hardly a good condition for playing in the Mile High City.

Harold Reynolds Fired

Harold Reynolds has been fired from ESPN and Baseball Tonight for sexual harrassment. He allegedly gave an "inappropriate hug" to a female PA.

I find it surprising that Reynolds would do something like this, because his on-camera demeanor seems so laid-back. But ESPN takes such incidents very seriously these days after the release of "ESPN: The Uncensored History," in which New York Times sportswriter Michael Freeman revealed a network and work environment rife with sexual discrimination and harassment. An odd aspect of the book is that it portrays nice guy Mike Tirico, who like Reynolds seems very mild-mannered, as one of the lead villains.

It's always the people you least expect, or perhaps it's the people who think they can get away with it. I mean, if Sean Salisbury got in trouble for this, no one would blink an eye. But maybe he's a great guy in real life. There's a big disparity between someone's on-camera persona and their off-screen behavior. Maybe Reynolds is a good guy who made a mistake, but something seems fishy.

I remember listening to the Herd radio show on ESPN radio a few months back, and Cowherd was arguing with callers who objected to his depiction of all NBA players as sleazy adulterers. People would call in with names like David Robinson, he's not sleazy right? Cowherd then said that at ESPN, the guys who seem like jerks are actually the best guys, and the guys who seem nicest on camera were the ones you had to watch out for. Too bad he didn't name names at the time.

GZA, RZA, and Bill Murray

Yakhouba Diawara

The Nuggets are expected to sign Yakhouba Diawara to a 2-year, $1.1 million contract. So who is this guy?

The 6-7, 225 pound forward is a native of France, and played on a dominant French Junior National Team alongside with Tony Parker, Boris Diaw, Micheal Pietrus and Ronny Turiaf. He came to the United States to play for the College of Southern Idaho CC, and then transferred to Pepperdine.

In his senior year at Pepperdine, he averaged 14 points and 5.7 rebounds and was selected to the All-West Coast Conference team in 2004. After going undrafted, he returned to France and played for Dijon before signing with Bologna of the Italian league, to whom the Nuggets will have to pay $500,000 to buy out Diawara's contract.

As a member of the Nuggets' Vegas Summer League team, he is averaging 11.8 points and 3.0 rebounds a game, while leading the team in minutes played at 23.0.

He is a defensive-minded player who can guard four positions on the floor, and may play shooting guard for the Nuggets. Karl likes the defensive intensity, attitude and work ethic of the aggressive Diawara. "He wins because he competes so hard," said Karl.

USA Today has compared him to Andres Nocioni of the Bulls. If he shoots three's like Nocioni, this could be a very good thing.

But whether he can provide outside shooting or not remains to be seen. Karl believes he has an "upside" offensively, but who knows what that means. With Bologna, he shot 54% from 3-point land, where the line is deeper than college, but not as deep as the NBA.

This seems like another good, cheap pickup for the Nuggets. Our international scouts love this guy, and he has really wowed the Nuggets management during workouts and thus far in Summer League. He has a lot of potential, and we didn't have to waste a draft pick to see if he's legit or not.