Obviously, the NBA draft (like all sports drafts) isn't an exact science and picking Greg Oden ahead of Kevin Durant could end up looking foolish in retrospect. Still, I think things like Bill Simmons' effort to turn this into a controversial debate are pretty foolish. Consider, say, Seattle. If you could put Oden in the middle with Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis scoring from the perimeter plus a competent Luke Ridnour / Earl Watson platoon at the point, you're in pretty solid shape.
But if -- as seems likely -- you wind up with Durant, what kind of a big man are you going to snag in a sign-and-trade for Rashard Lewis? There's just way, way, way more depth out there in terms of quality perimeter players and it's genuinely rare at this point to see a seven footer in the draft who isn't a "project" (i.e., crapshoot) of some kind.
This article available online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2007/06/boring-draft-analysis/42703/
