I got an e-mail yesterday from Yaniv Orgad of Haaretz Sports wondering about Omri Casspi’s situation and if I knew whether or not the Nets were going to draft him. Now even with my big ESPN title (ok fine, not so big), I still have no clue. However, Yaniv included a link to an article from Haaretz, and it had an interesting excerpt:
Omri Casspi is just one of 36 players invited to tryouts this weekend with the New Jersey Nets, a senior executive said yesterday. Gary Sussman, the team’s vice president of public relations, would not comment on the Israeli’s chances to be chosen by New Jersey, which has the 11th overall pick in the upcoming NBA draft’s first round. But he did say Casspi made an impression on Rod Thorn, the Nets’ president, who watched him in camp in Chicago. He added that New Jersey would probably invite him to a personal tryout next Tuesday.
I can’t tell from the article if the workout happened yesterday or if it will be happening next Tuesday (I am guessing it happened yesterday), but this is real interesting. When I talked about this a little while ago, I was talking about a group work-out. Now, he is getting an individual one. What does this mean? Well a couple things (remember, this is only 1 blogger’s speculation).
- Thorn has got a trade completed that has us drafting late in the first round, but it all hinges on whether or not Casspi impresses everyone at his work-out. If Casspi doesn’t impress, we won’t go through the deal.
- We have a trade done that has us drafting later in the first round and haven’t announced it yet and now we are working out guys who are late round projections.
This can be all wrong, but really who knows? This could even have something to do with that Carlos Boozer sign and trade (probably not though – I still don’t think it will happen).