One of my favorite Xs and Os bloggers is Brett Koremenos over at HoopSpeak, so I was genuinely excited when he extended an offer to participate in a mock draft with him for HoopSpeak.com (you should be reading this site every single day).  Over there, Brett and I pretended to be a GM 15 times each, not trying to predict the draft, but choosing guys who we thought were the best fit for the team.  I think we did a pretty solid job:

1- Cleveland Cavaliers: Kyrie Irving. Irving played just 12 games in college due to a foot injury that kept him out for most of the regular season, but if you are the Cavs, you can’t really pass him up. Out of all of the players in the draft, I think he has one of the most pro ready games.  He’s very comfortable running the pick-and-roll and while he isn’t the most athletic guy, he can hang in the air and finish around the rim nicely against taller defenders. While there are things that he needs to work on (his kick out passes tend to miss his teammate’s shooting pockets), I think they are easily correctable if he puts the work in. All in all, I’m pretty certain I just chose Cleveland’s point guard of the future. – SP

Cavaliers Selection: Irving

2- Minnesota Timberwolves: On behalf of KAAAAAAAHN and the Timberwolves, I will select Jimmer Fred…kidding! I’ll take the logical choice in Derrick Williams. Williams and Irving are the two best players in this draft. Even though Minnesota’s roster is a jumbled mess of pieces that don’t fit any other player here is probably a reach. While I’m not as high on Williams as most, I think David West-ish numbers are a reasonable projection for his future and that type of production is not worth passing up to take a flier on someone else. – BK

Timberwolves Selection: Williams

Those were the two obvious ones, head on over to HoopSpeak and check out the rest!

After an inadvertent whistle, the Chicago Bulls and the Atlanta Hawks found themselves in a jump ball situation at center court with 2:27 left and the Hawks holding onto a six point lead.  After winning the tip, the Atlanta Hawks came down, milked some time off the clock, and then ran a great play to get Al Horford a wide open look in the paint:

On this play, the Hawks use the threat of Joe Johnson coming off of a Al Horford pindown screen to draw the defense to him, allowing Horford to cut into the lane wide open.  If this play looks familiar, it should.  In fact, the reason why I didn’t break this play down frame-by-frame is because I have already done so once in this series.  In game one, the Hawks used this same exact play in a similar situation (time, score, and quarter):

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Once a week, Maurice Brooks updates his MVP award race page over at ESPN.  For this week’s edition I was asked to list the top 5 coach of the year candidates and explain why in a sentence:

1. Scott Brooks, Thunder: It’s rare that you get a young team to buy in on the defensive end, but the Thunder have (fifth in defensive efficiency), and it is because of Brooks.

That’s obviously just a small sample, so you should go ahead and check the rest out.  There are lists for MVP, Most Improved, Rookie Of The Year, Defensive Player of the Year, and the Sixth Man race. 

This week’s edition features a good amount of TrueHoop Network guys; including Royce Young of Daily Thunder, Jared Wade of Eight Points Nine Seconds, Matt Moore of Hardwood Paroyxysm, and Dan Feldman of Pistoned Powered.  In my opinion, this really shows off the high quality of writing that is taking place here at the TrueHoop Network.