Anyone looking for consensus on the projected order of selection for the first six lottery picks in Thursday night’s NBA draft is likely to be frustrated, but at least two national publications agree on who they believe the Wolves will choose. ESPN The Magazine and Sporting News predict the Wolves will choose Brandon Jennings with the No. 6 pick.
ESPN magazine asked NBA players such as Kevin Love of the Wolves who they would choose for their teams. Told that the first five picks will be Blake Griffin, Hasheem Thabeet, James Harden, Ricky Rubio and DeMar DeRozan, the Wolves’ 20-year-old forward chose Jennings, a point guard who opted for a year playing in Italy after finishing his high school career in 2008.
“We need a good 3, but since DeMar and Harden are off the board I like Brandon,” Love told the magazine. “I admire his passing. … Plus, he’s a lefty, which makes him unorthodox and a tough matchup.”
Sporting News sees these players going in this order before Jennings: Griffin, Rubio, Thabeet, Jordan Hill and Tyreke Evans. The publication said this about Jennings: “He’s a gamble, but the Timberwolves desperately need a point guard.”
The Wolves also have the No. 18 and 28 picks in the first round. Sporting News offered a rather unorthodox draft day strategy, suggesting that with the point guard depth in this draft the Wolves ought to take three PGers on the first round and maximize the likelihood of finding a keeper.
Point guard is a problem but so, too, is finding a center that can block shots and rebound. Sports Illustrated thinks Thabeet, the 7-3 shot blocking-rebounder from Connecticut, will fall to the Wolves at No. 6. SI’s first five are Griffin, Evans, Rubio, Jonny Flynn and Harden.
Thabeet’s the consensus choice as the best big man in the draft. There’s no consensus, though, on where he and many others will be drafted on Thursday night.