5 NBA fanatics have decided to do an NBA draft franchise.  What this means is that each year we draft 10 players, and assemble a roster.  The roster is G G F F C B B B B B.  Each year you choose 5 starters.  Starters get 100% of pts and bench players get 75%.  You can stash 2 Euros for a roster of 12.  The first year you don't cut anyone.  Subsequent years, you have to cut 10 players and name 5 starters.

The point system is a little complicated, so for this exercise, just comment on who has the best roster.  We just drafted the first 5 players today.  Assume pts are based off of minutes, ppg, rpg, bpg, apg, spg, etc.  Vote for who you think has the best team.

Jeremy

Kyrie Irving

Josh Selby

Chris Singleton

Donatas Montiejunas

Jonas Valanciunas

Sam

Reggie Jackson

Klay Thompson

Kawhi Leonard

Derrick Williams

Nikola Vucevic

Nate

Shelvin Mack

Marshon Brooks

Jordan Hamilton

Jan Vessely

Enes Kanter

Casey

Brandon Knight

Jimmer Fredette

Tristan Thompson

Marcus Morris

JaJuan Johnson

Kirk

Kemba Walker

Alec Burks

Markieff Morris

Kenneth Faried

Bismack Biyombo

My friends and I decided to do an NBA franchise draft.  Criteria is which team will win the most NBA titles over the next 5 years.  We decided to let the readers at Canis Hoopus determine who drafted the best franchise.

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Lee has a tentative agreement with GSW for Anthony Randolph. 

The deal, according to sources, would send Lee to the Warriors for Anthony Randolph, Ronny Turiaf and Kelenna Azubuike among others. The deal was first reported by Marcus Thompson of the Contra Costa Times.

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post?id=17829

Gortat being traded to the Wolves.  Unknown who the Wolves are giving Orlando.

http://www.hoopsnotes.com/2010/07/marcin-gortat-will-be-traded/

Possible insider info from RealGM via KFAN.

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Here's my 2010 big board lottery to be judged as the season progresses.  I think Favors, Whiteside, and George will take some time to develop.  Cousins will probably get called for tons of fouls out of the gate.  And Aminu will take awhile to develop his outside game, but over the long haul, this is who I like.  If I were the Wolves, Favors or Aminu would be a tough call.
 
I think Monroe, Udoh, Turner, Wall, and Johnson will probably start strong and be in the rookie game.  These players, minus Wall, are older and have NBA ready games.
 
I have never seen Whiteside play, other than youtube clips.  But defensively, I think he can step right into the NBA and play 15 productive minutes per game.  Cousins is eventually going to be a monster.  I think he'll have a great first NBA season, but he's going to get killed by the refs.  Wall and Turner will be great right off the bat.
 
Hardest to project is Favors.  Dominant HS player who totally underperformed at GT.  Xavier Henry is in the same boat.  These two are young and have a ton of upside.  I don't think either will be there by the picks I've projected.
 
Harward is probably going to go in the top 10.  I absolutely love his handle, shot, and yes, athletisism.  This is probably the highest Paul George has been projected.  I just really love his stroke and athletisism.  It would be really hard for a GM to take him over Henry, but I would.
 
Quency Pondexter over Aldrich was tough, as Pondexter is undersized at the 3 and doesn't have the J to play the 2.  Aldrich will play in the NBA for 10 years and is a much safer pick.
 
1.  John Wall
2.  Demarcus Cousins
3.  Evan Turner
4.  Al Fariq Aminu
5.  Derick Favors
6.  Paul George
7.  Greg Monroe
8.  Wesley Johnson
9.  Gordon Hayward
10. Xavier Henry
11. Hassan Whiteside
12. Luke Babbit
13. Ekpe Udoh
14. Quency Pondexter

I admit that I value FTA, vert, and above the rim youtube clips probably more than most GM's.

After watching the Wizards vs. Timberwolves game, I came to one solid conclusion.  Flip Saunders, as coach, is a huge liability for the Wizards rebuilding effort.  Why?  Because he is going to continue to win games.  Here's what I would do if I were the Bullets owner.

1)  Promote Flip Saunders to GM/President and take away his coaching duties temporarily.

2)  Promote Randy Whittman as coach, guarunteeing no more than 15 wins per year, and probably 2-3 for the rest of the year.

3) Fire Ernie Grunfeld.  He traded Ricky Rubio for two over-rated expirings.

4) Obtain draft picks and purge salary for two years.

5) Appoint Flip Saunders as head coach of the 2012 Washington Wizards

Here is a translated letter from Mark Madsen to Ricky Rubio.  The original letter was in Spanish, but was translated below the fold from babel fish.

(Ed Note: I bumped this up because it's an interesting letter.  Madsen spent his Mormon mission in Spain and he writes a nice letter to Rubio.  Also, while you're over at his site, check out the post where he says some interesting things about the possibilities of being traded and the up-tempo future of the Wolves.)

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Will an athlete who signs with the New York Knicks make more money in endorsements than an athlete who signs with the Oklahoma City Thunder?  Does the size of the media market an athlete plays in correlate to the amount of endorsement dollars said athlete brings in?  The answer, statistically, is no.

I’ve compiled the top 25 money making professional athletes competing in team sports and correlated their endorsement wages against the size of the media market they play in.  The results indicate that there is a slight negative correlation between media market size, and the amount of endorsement dollars an athlete collects.

Click here to read the full data, explanations, and analysis.

(Ed Note: I fixed the link and bumped this to the front page.  Please head on over to the JFSC for the entire article...as well as telling us what you think about the findings in the comments.)

Following the rookie salary scale, below is the money Ricky Rubio can expect to make by executing the options available to him.  This breakdown assumes that Rubio will get a max contract after his fifth year and that a Euro team would pay him 2M per season in addition to buying out his contract.  This analysis does not take into account marketing.  However, given that Brandon Jennings signed a 1M yearly deal with Body Armor, it's safe to assume that Rubio will be able to net significant additional marketing dollars by playing in MN, instead of Europe.

Buyout, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015
Signs with MN this year
-6.1, 2.7, 2.9, 3.1, 4, 5.3, 9, 11, 11 = 42.9M

Waits one year
-6.1, .1, 2.7, 2.9, 3.1, 4, 5.3, 9, 11 = 32M

Waits two years
0, .1, .1, 2.7, 2.9, 3.1, 4, 5.3, 9 = 27.2M

Signs 3 year contract with Euro team, including full buyout
0, 2, 2, 2, 2.7, 2.9, 3.1, 4, 5.3 = 24M

Signs 4 year contract with Euro team, including full buyout
0, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2.7, 2.9, 3.1, 4 = 20.7M

From this breakdown, it's clear that Rubio should be signing with MN yesterday.  Waiting a year, his second best option, basically lops off 11M in salary made over an 8 year period.  We are going to see Rubio dishing to Kevin Love in a couple months.

Full article here : http://www.macofthemiac.com/2009/07/01/ricky-rubio-contract-analysis/