Your loathing for Hawes is why so many of the Sixers’ faithful had an initial gut reaxn against this pick. The fear is that Vucevic is more of the same on the defensive end. Without question, Vucevic’s offensive game is very pro-ready and translates to the NBA better than what Hawes brought to the table last season.

While I haven’t watched Vucevic in College, the few glimpses of defense I’ve seen him play in workouts….combined with some of the scouting reports…..scares me a little bit. He looks like a better one-on-one defender than Hawes, but not exceptional in that department. He looks like he is potentially a problem defending screens and protecting the rim against NBA level talents. He actually looks a little worse than Hawes in that department. My hope is that I just haven’t seen enough of Vucevic and that there’s more to him on the defensive end. My other hope is that coaching can help bring out some of his defensive potential.

Take those fears and combine it with the fact that there was more talent still on the board than in most drafts, and hence the reaction.