The NCAA Tournament Is Over, It's Big Board Season, Here's One

I love the NBA. I hate college basketball. I never watch it. I avoid it like the plague. That's not because of some idealized notion of amateur athletics that the big, bad, evil NCAA is violating. I hate it because it is shitty basketball played by inferior players.

Guys, this isn't rocket science. If you take all of college basketball, and find the guys who are the ABSOLUTE BEST, and take them all and make it their job to play basketball, that's the NBA. How would that not be a superior product? It even weeds out the slow doofus guys like Doug McDermott. It's pretty much perfect.

It wasn't always this way. When I was growing up, we had teams like the Runnin' Rebels and The Fab Five and that North Carolina team that had Jerry Stackhouse and Rasheed Wallace on it. When I was at Syracuse, we played a Kentucky team in the Final Four that had a minimum of 27 NBA players on it. Get the hell off my lawn, but that was when college basketball was cool.

Now? Now it's just a bunch of guys who have barely played with each other, passing the ball around or dribbling it for 30 seconds until the best player on the team takes some runner.

Let me ask you, who do you think is a better doctor, a COLLEGE doctor or a PROFESSIONAL doctor?

And this Wisconsin winning stuff (ed note: but not the championship!) is the worst. It just reinforces the silly bullshit from old guys about SCRAPPY guys who PLAY THE RIGHT WAY being what college basketball is about, when really most times it's just a bunch of guys playing the wrong way.

Anyway, since I'm such a big NBA guy and love the Sixers, the draft is a big part of my life right now. You can see the problem, yes? So even though I don't watch any college basketball, and I mean barely any, I still have a BIG BOARD that I'm going to share with you.

You may think this is a joke, but this big board is exactly how I feel. It's fueled by YouTube and cool names and more YouTube.

*truth be told I don't even know enough guys to do a big board so I had to look up someone else's to figure this thing out.

100. Frank Kaminsky or that guy on Wisconsin who looks like Keith Van Horn

I don't want anyone who looks like Van Horn, or the lead detective guy on Broadchurch. I love Broadchurch, but I want that guy solving crimes, not playing basketball.

10. Jahlil Okafor

Last season, I decided I wanted no part of Jabari Parker, and I was staunch in this belief. The reasons? He looks fat and I didn't like that his NBA comp was Carmelo Anthony. Wellllll helllllo Okafor? Looks sorta chubby and his NBA comp is Al Jefferson, who I hate. No thanks.

9. Kristaps Porzingis

Now usually I'm big on the foreign guys, mostly because they have sweet YouTube videos set to weird music, and nobody knows them, so it makes old guys bitch about taking them. But if you were to say to me, "Spike, Kristaps Porzingis doesn't sound like a guy whose rights get traded 600 times a la Ricky Sanchez and never plays here," I'd say you're a damn liar. No thanks.

8. Jerian Grant

Um, did you see that Vine? Hello!

7. D'Angelo Russell

I've heard people talk about him too much. I go against the grain. As I told Mike in an unaired segment of the podcast, I didn't listen to Serial until last week. Russell is a guy I'm destined to not want until we don't have him.

6. Willie Cauley-Stein

Here's what I like: I heard someone compare him to Andre Iguodala.

Here's what I don't like: the guy's got a hyphen in his name. Not ready for that any time soon.

5. Montrezl Harrell

I have no idea how to say this guy's first name. That's why he's #5, I can't tell if I love that or I hate it.

4. Karl-Anthony Towns

Now, you may know me as one of the biggest Nerlens Noel supporters this side of the Mississippi, and I am. And if they take Towns, there is more of a chance of them trading Noel, which I don't support. You know what I do support though? Sam Hinkie trolling everyone, and picking Towns and keeping all three giant guys, or trading one of them, is going to drive the anti-Hinkie crowd batshit crazy.

3. Justise Winslow

Let's examine this, shall we?

Cool name, check! I can already see the section in the mezz level named after him. Great headline potential, too.

A wing player? Check! I love Noel and Embiid, but wings mean rings.

2. Emmanuel Mudiay

This guy was going to play for Larry Brown, then decided, fuck it, I'm playing in China. Larry Brown has been telling Sixers fans to get off his lawn for the entire Hinkie era, and any guy who decided he'd rather go play in China then spend another day with Larry Brown is all good with me (I made up this story but so what?). Plus, he gets overseas points, the crowd will sound awesome chanting "Muuuuuuuuuudiay," and he's a point guard, so it will be a lot of fun to tell people how much better he is than that stiff MCW.

1. Mario Hezonja

Have you seen this guy on YouTube?!

I mean, check this out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d4vqiqSMOY

And this!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9R05d01sRE

Yo this guy is a smooth as heck, jumping, shooting Danilo Gallinari.

That's all Spike wrote so I guess he's done. Etch this big board into stone, stat!