No this isn’t another Blake Griffin post.
And yes I know that Rod Thorn has already said that trading the pick wasn’t likely:
“A trade is always a possibility, but it is not very likely to happen, we have a pretty good mix of players lined up for the Chicago interviews.”
But still there is some interesting stuff going on in Chicago that is leading me to think otherwise. What exactly? Well, Timothy Varner and Graydon Gordian of the great Spurs blog, and TrueHoop Network associate, 48 MinutesOfHell are in Chicago covering the combine, and they were given the opportunity to interview Omri Casspi (PF/SF from Israel), who the Spurs have been interested in for a very long time. It is a great interview, and I strongly suggest that you guys check it out. Especially the 7th paragraph:
Casspi hasn’t worked out for the Spurs. He’s not sure if he will. In the coming weeks, he’s slated to work out for Minnesota, Golden State, Portland, Sacramento, and, curiously, New Jersey. In other words, picks #11, 24, 28, 31 and 32. The 37th pick, which once belonged to Golden State, is now the property of San Antonio. It’s hard to see Casspi falling that far in the draft, especially after some of the early entries pull their names. Some consider the question of whether or not Casspi will slide to 37 a moot discussion, however.
So it seems that the Nets are working this kid out. Now he is a solid player, but most mocks have him going late first/early second, so that is why he wasn’t on my big board. The Nets certainly won’t be reaching for him, so what is the point of the workouts? I don’t really know what the deal was, and Timothy was planning on asking Thorn, but couldn’t find him at the combines, he did get a chance to ask Chad Ford about it though, and this is what he told me while we were chatting on GoogleChat:
Timothy: i just talked with Chad Ford about ithe said it was a little oddhe didn’t raise an eyebrowjust said, “yeah, that is a little odd”if I see Thorn, I’ll ask himI’ve not see him, though
I have a couple theories that I am knocking around in my head:
- The first is that we are looking to trade down because Casspi is our guy and Thorn a) doesn’t want to reach with the 11th pick for him and b) by trading down, we will probably be picking up a second round pick in this year’s draft as well.
- The second theory, is that Casspi is a back-up option. Let’s say all of the top guys on the Nets’ board are gone by 11, and they don’t want to pay a player they don’t like 11th pick money. The Nets then trade down with a team that has a late first round pick (perhaps a team that needs a PG or something) and we sit and hope that Casspi is there.
- My final and most interesting theory. We are looking to move Vince Carter, Yi, or Bobby Simmons. The trade is either with a late round team and we swap picks, or the deal helps land us a early second round pick. We use said pick to draft Casspi.
Now with all this being said, Casspi hasn’t worked out with us yet and he might not even impress Rod Thorn and the rest of the guys. I am just saying the fact that we are interested in him is obvious because we are working him out, and if we like him, we may trade down for him (Taking him at 11 would be such a freakin reach).
Quick little side-note: Sorry for the sporatic posting this week (this is my last post until Monday), it has been a bit hectic for me, but I am coming back full force next week!
