Rumors are flying around about the number two pick. Every few hours a rumor emerges, contradicting the previous rumor, and the Wolves have been said to "shopping the pick heavily" and "leaning towards keeping the pick" multiple times throughout the day.
Here are the second-hand rumors I've gathered throughout the day. Don't quote me on any of this.
- The Wolves are seriously shopping the pick, but not really.
- The Lakers were thought to have offered Pau Gasol for Kevin Love and the number two pick. Last I heard that was false.
- The Suns have offered Marcin Gortat and pick number 13 for the second pick. Chad Ford says this is the Wolves best offer so far.
- The Wolves offered the number two pick for Andrew Bynum.
- The Pacers reportedly offered Roy Hibbert and the 15th pick for the number two pick, only to get denied by Minnesota.
- This is my favorite - these are two direct quotes from today's Rumor Central on ESPN:
The Wolves are expected to move the No. 2 pick at some point between Tuesday and the end of the draft on Thursday.
and
The Wolves, with two days to go before the draft, claim they will hang on to the No. 2 pick in the draft."Anything can happen, but right now we're going to keep 2," assistant general manager Tony Ronzone told the Star Tribune. "We like 2."
This would be a great time to plead with the Sixers to offer Andre Iguodala and the 16th pick for number two to draft either Derrick Williams, Enes Kanter or Bismack Biyombo, but I won't waste my breath. I think there's a 0.001% chance of any such thing happening. The Sixers want a veteran in return for Iguodala, supposedly.
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Peter Newmann and Dean Oliver of TrueHoop look at the age factor in the draft.
There is no perfect formula to factor age into the equation, but the trend is that a younger, highly drafted player will have more success than an older one.
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Pistons beat writer Vincent Goodwill tweets that Markieff Morris may have played himself into consideration for eighth pick.
Source: Markieff Morris may have put himself in the mix for the No. 8 pick with the #Pistons with his workout today.
Morris has been linked to the Sixers quite frequently, so this is note-worthy news.
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Check out Chad Ford and Bill Simmons 70-minute podcast on the NBA draft. I haven't listened to it yet, but I will. Don't expect serious analysis, but you'll be seriously entertained.
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Ben Cohen of Grantland looks at 'What GMs don't know about the NBA Draft'
"That, for me, is the hardest thing to do - trade a player that's a known for an unknown, or vice-versa," said Kevin Pritchard, former general manager of the Portland Trail Blazers, last March at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference.
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Ken Berger of CBS Sports has a long, detailed update on the NBA CBA talk. Read at your own risk.
The sliding salary band for teams, which essentially sets a league-wide cap with flexibility to deviate on a team-by-team basis above and below the $62 million target, also would put the onus on teams that have been reluctant to spend much above the current minimum payroll to spend in the hopes of enhancing their ability to compete.
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