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Chad Ford on Patrick O'Bryant and others.

KB21

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KB21 Grand Master

KB21

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Chad Ford's Blog

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SARASOTA, Fla. -- Pretend for a second there were no mock drafts. No Top 100s. No consensus about which players should be candidates for the No. 1 position.

If you just sat in a gym watching prospects play, who would leap out at you?

After spending some time in the gym with LSU's Tyrus Thomas on Friday, I came away pretty convinced that Thomas is one of the best two or three prospects in the draft -- maybe the best.

Most NBA GMs agree. It's not much of reach.

However, after spending an hour in the gym on Monday with Bradley's Patrick O'Bryant, I had a very similar reaction. O'Bryant looks like the kind of prospect who should be a candidate to be the No. 1 pick in the draft.

The only difference? No one has mentioned O'Bryant as a No. 1 candidate.

Let me be the first.

As I watched him work out, I had to keep asking myself, why isn't this guy getting mentioned as a potential top pick in the draft?

Physically, he reminds me a lot of a young Tyson Chandler. Similar size, body and athleticism.

The difference is that O'Bryant already looks much more polished offensively than Chandler has ever looked.

Here's the case for O'Bryant: He's a 7-footer with long arms. He's got a nice frame that could easily carry another 25 or 30 pounds of muscle.

He's an excellent athlete with springy legs. He runs up and down the floor like a deer. I know that phrase is used too often to describe guys who run well. Here I mean it more literally. The kid takes long strides, has a bounce in his step and glides effortlessly across the court -- it's truly reminiscent of how a deer runs.

Defensively he's good. He rebounds the ball well and is an excellent shot-blocker.

His ability on the offensive end surprised me. He showed a number of post moves, including a sky hook. That's right, a sky hook.

Where'd that come from?

"My high school coach was a little old school," O'Bryant said. "He made me shoot 400 of those every practice till my arms fell off. He wanted me to be Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar]."

So why isn't the 7-0, athletic, coordinated, defensively and offensively gifted center not being mentioned as the potential No. 1 pick?

The Toronto Raptors need a center in the worst way. The Chicago Bulls could sure use one too. The Portland Trail Blazers are in dangerous of losing Joel Przybilla, their only decent center. And what about the Atlanta Hawks? Couldn't they use another big man?

You'd think, but to date O'Bryant hasn't worked out for any of those teams. The New Orleans Hornets, Seattle SuperSonics, Boston Celtics and Utah Jazz are the only four teams that have worked him out.

I talked to the GMs of two of those teams, and both said that they were impressed with O'Bryant's athleticism and size, but felt he was pretty raw and needed to work on his body.

OK. Can't argue with that. The kid is raw and he needs to hit the weight room. And he played less than a half of the season at Bradley, certainly not a breeding ground for great NBA big men.

The other knock? Some NBA scouts believe that O'Bryant isn't the most motivated player in the draft. Will he put in all the hard work he needs to become a great player?

All are legitimate concerns for the big guy. But I'm still asking: In a draft supposedly devoid of centers, how could this guy slip through the cracks?

It may not happen much longer. On Wednesday, O'Bryant will have an open workout at the Orlando camp for all 30 teams.

My prediction: I think at the end of the day, O'Bryant sneaks into the top five on draft night.

You want upside? No one in the draft at his height has his athleticism and skill.

Yes, he's a risk without a long track record. But in a draft supposedly void of superstar talent, O'Bryant may make teams think twice.

There are some blurbs about Cedric Simmons and Kyle Lowry as well.

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KB21 Grand Master

KB21

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It is quite possible that the 2004 high school class will represent 6 of the top 10 picks in this draft and possibly 7 of the first 15 picks.

Tyrus Thomas, LaMarcus Aldridge, Rudy Gay, Patrick O'Bryant, Cedric Simmons, and Rajon Rondo may all have their name called in the top ten of this draft, while Kyle Lowry is the next class of 2004 member that could get his name called in the top 15.

I've been saying it for a while, but this is the best class of talent that has ever come out of high school.

First, we saw Dwight Howard, Shaun Livingston, Josh Smith, Sebastian Telfair, Robert Swift, JR Smith, Al Jefferson, and Dorrel Wright represent this class in the 2004 draft. Marvin Williams represented this class in the 2005 draft. Now, we have the above representing the class for this draft. The talent level of this class and the depth is just unreal.

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KB21 Grand Master

KB21

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I think Dwight Howard is well on his way towards superstardom. I also believe that both Josh Smith and Marvin Williams showed flashes of their potential superstar ability late in the season. Shaun Livingston has the look of a future superstar if he can stay healthy. On a per minute basis, Al Jefferson is as productive as any player in this class with the exception of Dwight Howard.

Right now, the jury is clearly out on Sebastian Telfair. If there is one guy who will crap out of this class, it is Telfair. Robert Swift showed some ability once Bob Hill took over and started playing him.

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Diesel Grand Master

Diesel

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As far as your website goes, the things that people really want to see are your lists. How tough is it to come up with a national top 100 list?

It is really, really difficult. There are no rules to follow when evaluating a guy. The tough thing is that you have to balance production with potential. You really have to know that player. You have to know his age, his work ethic, and his academic capacity. Does he have desire to get better? Who has he surrounded himself with? What is important to him? That is just in terms of off the court.

Then you have to look at him as a basketball player. Where is he right now? How far can he go? Why is it that he is not where he needs to be? You have to a make a judgment call on whether or not he is capable of getting where he needs to be. Sometimes I will see a kid and want him to be better more than he wants to be better. There are so many different ways to look at it, but at the core the key is to achieve a balance between production right now, and potential for the future.

How much stock should we put in a top 100 list like yours?

I would hope that you could put a significant amount of stock in it. It is hard, though. There is a guard in Chicago named Patrick Beverley that is just starting to peak right now, and I’ll never have the chance to do all the homework I would like to do on him. But in the grand scheme of things, he’s a top 100 guy in the latter half of it. He may end up better than a guy in that 40-80 range that is leveling off as a prospect. That’s the difficulty of trying to compose a top 100 list.

I wanted to ask you about a couple of players that were somewhat unknown at the high school level, but have really exploded in college. Did you see Adam Morrison back in the day?

Morrison (ranked by Scout.com as the #26 SF in the class of 2003) was probably one of the last ten or fifteen we excluded from our top 100 list. I saw him play in a tournament in Las Vegas with an eastern Washington team. At the time he was 6’5 and very thin. He’s just a different guy than the one who came out of high school.

Was Gonzaga really the only school that offered Morrison?

They got it done really early, so there really wasn’t much of a chance for anybody else.

The other guy I wanted to ask you about is Tyrus Thomas...

I’ve got a story on Tyrus Thomas. Thomas played for the Louisiana Dream Team with another player you’ve probably heard of named Martin Zeno, now of Texas Tech. When I saw him at AAU nationals, he was very thin, absolutely in need of weight. Thomas was a guy who was talented and probably hitting his stride as a late bloomer, which taught me a lesson.

I look at a kid like Jarvis Varnado (Mississippi State, #61), who is in our top 100 this year. Varnado is doing the same kind of things that Thomas was doing in the second half of his high school career. We didn’t have Tyrus Thomas in the top 100, and put Jarvis Varnado in the top 100 to not make a mistake like that again. Similar to Thomas, he's a guy that doesn’t have a ready for college body but you can tell is blooming.

Morrison and Thomas are two guys that I’ve looked back and seen where we have made mistakes. It is really the same thing with both guys, in that they weren’t ready physically but were really peaking late. With a player like Varnardo or a Perry Stevenson (committed to Kentucky, #60), I want to make sure we don’t miss on those guys that have similar characteristics. You have to be willing to learn from your mistakes and self evaluate.

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AHF Grand Master

AHF

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Yes, he does, and if we draft O'Bryant, he will grade us an A. Then, if O'Bryant struggles (which he will), Ford will do a 180 and say Billy Knight made yet another mistake in drafting potential (passing on Roy or Williams, e.g.).

I agree with everything except the giving the Hawks an A part. Last year we drafted the guy who was #1 on his board and got docked for it. He isn't a BK fan.

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