But it's an odd numbered year. Last year's draft was the strong one. Therefore, this year's must be the weak one. Has anyone else noticed this pattern?
2009 - Greg Monroe went back to school. People called it weak. Looking back, it was way underrated.
2010 - They called it strong, the year of the big man. If Favors doesn't pan out soon, it will go down as way overrated.
2011 - Like this year, everyone called it the weakest ever. Kyrie's a star, and somehow we came out with Kanter at 3 and a prototype SG (kinda rare) at 12. It's looking underrated.
2012 - How much did it suck to lose out on two picks in such a deep draft? It's true Drummond would have been there for us had we won the coin flip, but Terrance Ross went eighth, Austin Rivers tenth. I know it's early for some of the skinny big guys, but so far 2012 is looking not as great as advertised.
2013 - Granted, it hasn't looked awesome for picks 1-3. There are no Derrick Williamses, Evan Turners, or MKGs in this draft, no truly worthy, all-star potential, surefire #2 picks, but maybe it's deeper than it's being given credit for. No way would I trade whichever PG we draft at 13/14 for Kendall Marshall. All in all, it might be better that we lost our pick in a deep draft and got to keep one in this weak draft.
I wish we would just admit how bad we are at evaluating the quality of a draft class as a whole. Maybe it's true that one class may be weak and another strong, but I haven't yet seen the data to prove it. I wish instead of just judging a class by the number of superstars (3 = strong, 1 = weak), that someone would measure draft classes by average production or even just career minutes played. So much of it is opportunity anyway. We know this in Utah. We'll have to listen to people calling Kanter and Favors busts, as if they haven't earned more minutes.
For now, however, GMs will allow the media to call entire draft classes weak because it makes their job easier. They have an excuse when they make a bad pick. But I bet good GMs really know that there is talent to be found in this draft, and hopefully this makes trading up a little easier.
