Anyway, about Paul Pierce. I didn’t have a certain #2 fallback after Bosh. I looked at Pierce, Ray Allen, Kirilenko, and Chris Paul. I settled on Pierce because of his obvious all-around game. No one category he dominates, but does them all well and none that he hurts you in at all, which is the best you’d want for a pick this late in the first round. More ast/reb than Ray Allen and two years younger, less of an injury risk than Kirilenko, and slightly better #’s overall than Chris Paul right. I debated each one, and it would have been fun having Chris Paul for the second straight year. In the end, I guess it’s the old rationale – you can’t win a roto league in the first round, but you can lose it, so I went with the most safe all around player. Not exciting, but at least very dependable, durable, and consistent for the last few years, and still in his prime.

For alternatives, the closest player I almost drafted was Ray Allen. We all know his strengths, but I was nervous about starting out with two guards in Pierce and Allen for my foundation and not picking again for 20+ spots. Allen’s 3’s and FT% are awesome, but we know he’s also unimpressive in some other spots. If I had Chris Bosh (Grr, Howland) I would have picked Ray Allen in a heartbeat. Since Yao has a high FT% as well, Allen’s one category dominance of 3’s didn’t seem as good for me as Yao’s strength in rebounds, blocks, and FG%. I also considered McGrady as a high risk/reward pick, and kept seeing the quotes about how good he’s feeling, but it seemed too risky since my next pick wasn’t until #35 overall if he did have his back flare up, as it always seems to. I would never root for a player to get injured, but since we know it’s a possibility for McGrady, if it happened Yao’s value would only go up even more, while T-Mac’s would fall. Guaranteeing a first-rate center is another safe decision, plenty of time to be stupid later.

Other candidates for this slot were Baron, Nelson, Mike James and Felton, 3 of which were (somewhat surprisingly) available when things came back around to us.

David West was a safe, consistent pick. I am worried about some of his shots, and scoring, going down because of Peja's arrival. I'm thinking his rebounding will possibly also be lower this year than last, and he might be a bit overrated right now because all the new pieces in NO are going to take away from him. But he still shoots great% from the field and the FT line, will keep improving as a player since last year was only his fifth getting regular minutes, and did too well last year for them to go away from him altogether. I'm still desperate for a PG and some assists, but he'll provide consitent numbers as a role player on my team.

If I wasn't so worried about a guard I might have taken Troy Murphy here, and considered Josh Howard too. In the end, I just needed my first PG too badly and may have stretched for it.

Villanueva could turn out to be a great pick as he helps in all categories except assists. However I am suspicious of why Toronto traded him for Ford. There are rumors that he has an attitude problem.

Ford will help in assists and steals but very damaging in FG%.

My rationale in the end was that, again, somebody was going to need to produce for Portland. Zach was a 5th rounder for most leagues last year and had an off year, but I think it was because it was his first back from microfracture surgery. We've seen that most of the players who try to return from this still aren't really all the way back their first year. While certainly a head case, he's been consistant for producing while he's on the court. 18-20ppg and 8-10 rpg the last three years is solid considering we're almost into the 8th round. Reports are that he is in better shape this year and stronger on his knee than last year, almost back to pre-surgery. I'm conting on that to bounce back from his sliding numbers the last two years and more toward the 48-51% FG from a few years ago than the 44% the last two years. He doesn't get much in the steals/blocks categories, but has shown this preseason a bit more versatility and really solid numbers, and anything gained there would be a bonus. At this point in the draft you almost have to start accepting some imperfections in your players and holes in their games. Randolph I believe can be a player who still adds positives who may not help much in some categories, but doesn't hurt me at all. I might have taken TJ Ford here instead if he were available, but I have to still be pretty excited to get Zach this late.

I still am searching for another PG but felt it was too early for Claxton, Stoudamire, or even Cassell since his minutes are up in the air. It's the tough part waiting 20 players between picks, I could either grab one now too early, or expect they'd all be gone when it got back to me. I felt like Francis had a better chance for contributing across the board this year than either of those three, so I gave up on the PGs again and thought that I had an outside chance Damon Stoudamire would be there for an automatic pick at 9.11 for me (nope).

On the positive side... maybe Isiah Thomas can turn the Knicks around and Marberry will pass the ball. If Curry could get to 16 pts a game and 6.5 rebounds then this pick wouldn't be so bad.