First Draft Pick: Best Player Available (Mostly...)

It more or less goes without saying that this is the most important offseason in the Memphis/Vancouver Grizzlies long, illustrious (14 years, 3 winnings seasons, 0 playoff victories) history. Along with smart free agent signings and good decisions on possible contract extensions, the upcoming draft will go a long way toward determining what kind of basketball team we are watching for the next few years. Unfortunately, this already-weak draft is now shaping up to be historically bad with potential lottery picks like Cole Aldrich, Willie Warren, Greg Monroe, Al-Farouq Aminu, Evan Turner and Ed Davis deciding to return to school for at last one more season. These decisions likely will not affect what the Grizzlies were looking at with their first pick, it will make the pickings even slimmer at picks 27 and 35. Later on we'll get around to some of the possibilities at those picks, but today we will focus more on the Grizzlies first pick of the draft, the one which will hopefully bring back a major piece of the rebuilding puzzle.

After losing a coin flip with the Timberwolves, Memphis now has the 6 seed for the draft lottery, with 75 ping pong balls out of 1,000. The Grizzlies have seven potential drafting slots (1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9) with a 7.5% chance of receiving the #1 overall pick. In this year's draft, there is an incredibly clear top two in Blake Griffin and Ricky Rubio (assuming Rubio comes out this year) and there is a definite drop-off following those two. Looking at the season Griffin had this year in college and the fact that he plays a position (PF), and plays it exactly the way Memphis needs a PF to play it, I'm going to go ahead and say that for Memphis this is a one man draft. Griffin should be the absolute no-doubt, sure-fire draft pick if the Grizzlies 7.5% chance comes through and they win the lottery. Griffin and Rubio are so far above the rest of the prospects that in my mind, Tier 1 consists of Griffin by himself and Tier 2 consists of Rubio by himself. What we are going to try to figure out, in this post and a series of other ones, is who belongs in the Tier 3 and what the ranking of players should be in that group.

More than anything else, the Grizzlies should be focused on bringing in the best player available with their draft spot. There are enough needs on this team that almost anyone drafted will be able to help out. The key for the organization is to figure out who they think is the best player and go after that guy, it's as simple as that. Don't pick Jordan Hill just because he's a power forward or Brandon Jennings because he's a point guard or James Harden because he can slash to the basket. If you think Hill or Jennings or Harden is the best player, and you have well thought-out and researched reasons why, then go ahead and take him, but don't force a pick. Anyway, let's get on to the players that for right now make up my personal Tier 3, and then we'll look at each player separately and hopefully come to some kind of a consensus about where the Grizzlies should be looking with their first pick. Players can always be added to or taken away from this list in the future.

In alphabetical order, with extremely short notes:

DeJuan Blair, PF: Not many people would have him this high but I'm really high on him, insane rebounding stats in college, physical power forward who will be very successful in the NBA

Earl Clark, SF/PF: Incredibly versatile, someone else who can step right into a backup SF role

Stephen Curry, PG/SG: Can play point or shooting guard, best pure shooter in the draft--already has NBA three-point range

Demar Derozan, SG/SF: Lots of potential, can step right into the back-up SF spot

Tyreke Evans, PG/SG: Can play on or off the ball, extremely quick driving the ball to the basket

James Harden, SG: First team All-American, maybe the best slasher in the draft

Gerald Henderson, SG: Impressive season at Duke this year, not sure how well he would fit with the Grizzlies

Jordan Hill, PF: Fills a need at power forward, seems to get by more on athleticism than anything else

Brandon Jennings, PG: Not really sure what to make of his year in Italy, big-time prospect last year coming out of high school

Hasheem Thabeet, C: 7'3'', possibly the best defender in college basketball last year