By Brandon Gallawa - Email Brandon
I don’t know that I can express in words how much I hate the Spencer Hawes pick right now. I don’t hate him as a person. I don’t even know the guy. But the Kings are now worse for drafting him than not having him at all.
Spencer Hawes is the exact same player as Brad Miller. A soft, slow, non-athletic big man that doesn’t rebound, has no toughness, and plays with finesse. He is the one player that I (and many other Kings’ fans) didn’t want Sacramento to draft. Geoff Petrie comes out of this draft looking inept.
Petrie apparently can’t be trusted with a lottery pick. Jason Williams in retrospect was a terrible pick at seven in 1998 (especially since Paul Pierce was still available at that time), but at least that pick was an exciting player that put Kings’ highlights on SportsCenter every other night. I don’t know that there is a Kings’ fan out there that is excited about Spencer Hawes. Petrie should have just traded the pick for a few late first round picks where he has struck gold in the past. Or better yet, he should have traded down to the 13th or 14th pick and still would have been able to draft Hawes and pick up a player to replace Artest or Bibby. Not to mention that pick could have been bait for another team to still give up value for Ron Artest because the Kings have little chance of getting any value in return for him.
All Kings’ fans have asked for the past three seasons was an athletic big man that would grab rebounds and block shots. A high school girl’s basketball team would grab more rebounds than the Sacramento Kings, so why would they draft yet another big man who is afraid to do the dirty work? Not only is he the same player as Brad Miller, but he played in the Pac 10. This is a conference that has not produced a quality NBA big man in the past 20 years.
This pick only made the Kings younger, but it didn’t improve the team as it is currently constructed. It also was extremely frustrating on a personal level for two reasons:
- Now all my buddies get to rip on my team even more because they took a guy that they know I hate. Not to mention the fact that I would have bet the farm that the T-Wolves would have gone after him coming into the draft.
- This leads me to my next frustration. Terrible general managers looked amazing during the draft. Isaiah Thomas pulled off a trade for Zach Randolph that was inspired, and it made the Knicks a contender in the East. The Portland Trailblazers have been a poorly run franchise for the last three years, but they will win a championship within the next five years (probably sooner). The Atlanta Hawks made the right moves to improve their team for the next five to six seasons. The Celtics ended up with Ray Allen, and they will be scary (until his ankles fall off). And Kevin McHale made the right move drafting Corey Brewer.
That last point is the most frustrating. If not for McHale actually making the right choice, the Kings wouldn’t have ended up making the wrong one. It was as if they felt obligated to take a slow big man because he was there, and they thought he wouldn’t be. Just because other teams avoided the mistake of drafting Hawes, that didn’t mean that Petrie was then obligated to make it.
The worst part is the Kings didn’t need another Brad Miller. Most Kings’ fans don’t want the old version of Brad Miller that is already under contract. Why would we want a new and not-so-improved version? The Kings have been looking to trade either Mike Bibby or Ron Artest since the off-season began, so why would Petrie not draft accordingly or move them on draft day when everyone is open for trades? This is a draft that the Kings had to use to replace one of those players and in the process become younger and more athletic. Meanwhile they draft a guy who moves like he has an arthritic hip, and he isn’t even 20.
My opinion of this pick may change if the Kings are able to move Bibby or Artest and move some of their terrible contracts (i.e. Kenny Thomas and Shareef Abdur-Rahim). If this turns into a youth movement that may take two or three years to develop, I may start to support the pick because the franchise will actually have a direction. Until then Geoff Petrie should be on the hot seat.