Frankly, I think it's two weeks too early to lay judgement on the league wide value of Christmas. I don't own a crystal ball and I don't practice saneria, but if this guy shows he can score out of a pick and roll/ pick and pop and defensively at least alter some shots, his value could climb. His biggest knock was only looking like an NBA player his senior year. Well, who cares about the past at this point? Can he show the ability to help a team this year? Players raise their stock in summer league every year. In the summer of 2002, I saw Boozer prove he was a better player than lottery pick Dajuan Wagner. I DONE SEENS IT!
I was a huge fan of Juanny.... actually lost a $100 bet that he'd be an All-Star within his first 5 years in the league.
Unfortunately, I saw the same thing too in the Summer League. Boozer was by far the better player. I convinced myself that Juanny just need some time to figure out the game but little did I know that he had no left hand whatsoever and that he wouldn't be able to stay healthy, at all. I loved his quickness, his floater and his shooting(although he ran VERY hot and cold, when he was hot he was damn near unstoppable like JR... unfortunately he was way more often cold than hot).
He gave me some hope with games against Toronto, Denver and Miami where he was hot from 3 but those were all in his first two months before teams learned that he had no left hand and started overplaying him to one side.
That draft was the only draft that I actually liked Pax's picks(other than 2003, but that doesn't count. . I was a big fan of both Wagner and Boozer pre-draft. I thought Wagner was the best player in that draft (although I would've probably taken Ming over him at #1 due to his size). I thought he'd easily be a better player than Jay Williams and Dunleavy (went 2 and 3). I was ecstatic when he fell to us. I wanted to trade up in the late 1st for Boozer after seeing what he did in the tournament(If Duke gets him more than 10 shots, they beat Indiana.... Williams and Dunleavy were a combined 11-35 and lost them that game. Boozer was the best player on the court in that game.) and reports from his workouts.
Anyways, Wagner was my biggest draft miss of all-time. I made up for it by hating the Luke Jackson pick from the second it was made(I wanted JR Smith, Jameer Nelson or Pavel Podkolzine(ugh, damn you Chad Ford)). RandolphKeys and some of you guys from the Cleveland.com and SaneCavsTalk days may remember my diatribes against the Jackson pick.
Of course, I moved on to a somewhat miss the next season.... I was a HUGE Shannon Brown fan, like thought the guy would be the next D-Wade(in my defense he wasn't a horrible player and played quite a few years). I was somewhat vindicated again with the Boobie Gibson pick as I LOVED that pick because I wanted either Gibson or Brown at 26 and we got BOTH.
Oh, memories.... One last one I'm sure Keys will remember is my love affair with Steven Hunter. I wanted that guy as a backup for Z so bad. I loved his defensive potential and I still think LeBron would've made him look so much better by hitting him with alley oops (pretty much his only offense). I hated when he was stuck behind Dalembert in Philly even though I though he was the better player of the two. We didn't talk much about advanced stats at the time(82games stats were popular though) but he averaged 2.5 blk/36 for his career including 3 years that he averaged over 3per36.
