Carolina March - Tar Heel Born, Bred, and Working on That Third Thing

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It took a bit longer, but with the 46th pick Danny Green joined LeBron James and Shaquille O'Neal with the Cavaliers. It's a late pick for someone who was shooting up the ranks of small forwards in the last couple of days. He'll be a great defender for the Cavs, though. Too bad that I can't help thinking the O'Neal/James combo is going to be a bit of a disaster next season.

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Minnesota Drafts Wayne Ellington, Promises to Keep Him

by T.H. on Jun 25, 2009 10:24 PM EDT in Basketball Comment 0 comments

They just can't get enough of Carolina guards, no matter how they try to quit them. After trading Rashad McCants at the start of the season and picking up Ty Lawson solely on Denver's behalf, the Timberwolves spent their 28th pick on Wayne Ellington. Having already drafted Ricky Rubio and Johnny Flynn earlier in the evening, Minnesota must have been absolutely guard-starved before today, right?

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Ty Lawson Drafted by Minnesota, Headed to Denver

by T.H. on Jun 25, 2009 9:56 PM EDT in Basketball Comment 0 comments

With the eighteenth pick in the draft, Minnesota picked their third straight point guard, as a proxy for the Nuggets, who picked him up in exchange for a draft pick down the road. Lawson appears to have been selected to be the anti-Chauncey Billups, to spell him and run an entirely different style of offense. If the Nuggets can run both Billups' deliberate half-court style and Lawson's faster, Carolina pace, they'll be a tough team to counter.

Also, George Karl finally got somebody to help him make fun of Dahntay Jones come March. Good for you, George.

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Indiana Pacers Select Tyler Hansbrough at 13th; 1st Heel Drafted

by T.H. on Jun 25, 2009 8:55 PM EDT in Basketball Comment 0 comments

I'm not sure anyone expected Hansbrough to go this high, or even necessarily be the first Carolina player picked, but the Indiana Pacers obviously have confidence in him. The New York crowd at the draft site, not so much, chanted "Overrated." The post-draft interview points out that the Pacers run an up-tempo offense not unlike UNC's, and Stuart Scott tosses out a gratuitous Dudley Bradley reference.

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Tyler Hansbrough Monotonically Speaks!

by T.H. on Jun 23, 2009 8:04 PM EDT in Basketball Comment 0 comments

Tyler Hansbrough also came in for a workout with the Trailblazers last week, and Oregon Live has video and an interview, if you want to hear him say "banger" a lot:

Also a propos of the NBA draft, the fine drinking establishment I entered after work today was showing the NBA Draft on a couple of TVs, which threw me for a loop as the draft isn't scheduled to take place until Thursday. It wasn't until Joe Forte's face popped up as Boston's latest pick that I picked up on the fact I was watching the 2001 Draft, notable to UNC fans as the one that selected Forte, Brendan Haywood, and Shane Battier. I'm wondering, is it a particularly bad draft, or does the bottom third of the first round typically have such dismal results? Forte, whose own professional career was spectacularly poor, was followed in the draft order by Jeryl Sasser, Brandon Armstrong, and Raül López, none of whom I recognized at all. The remainder of the first round was Gerald Wallace, ignored by the team that drafted him but later a starter for the Bobcats, journeymen Samuel Dalembert and Jamaal Tinsley, and lastly, Tony Parker. (Gilbert Arenas went two picks later in the second round, permanently affixing a chip to his shoulder).

If 2001 is typical of your lesser talent drafts (as this year's is said to be), does this bode well for the four Tar Heels in the draft, all projected as late first rounders to second rounders? The success rate at those slots are low, but of 2001's five future All-Stars, three were selected at 28 or lower. (Compare that to one of the more talent-laden drafts, 2003, which had four All-Stars in the first five picks, but only three after that.) Are NBA teams less adept at spotting talent in down years? Or will none of this year's Carolina alums make much of a name for themselves in the pros?

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Ty Lawson's NBA Chances

by T.H. on Jun 22, 2009 7:29 PM EDT in Basketball Comment 0 comments

More photos » by Paul Sancya - AP

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Both Dave Berri and apparently John Hollinger (I don't get ESPN insider, this is via Matt Yglesias) are speaking highly of Ty Lawson's chances in NBA; Hollinger has him as he best player in the draft behind consensus top pick Blake Griffin, and Berri's numbers list him as the best point guard in the draft and third overall, behind Griffin and DeJuan Blair. The number-crunchers are pro-Lawson, the more holistic folks, like Chad Ford, put him in the bottom third of the first round.

The biggest knocks against Lawson seem to be a) his size, and b) that his stats are inflated by playing amongst the talent at UNC at the speed they run at. The first is somewhat valid, but doesn't explain the draft watchers' love of Johnny Flynn, who is also 6'0", and posted significantly worse numbers for the Orangemen this year as a sophomore. The second objection, to anyone who watched a lot of UNC games this year, is pretty ridiculous. Playing with the offensive threats he did may have inflated his shooting percentage and added the occasional assist, but where Lawson really draws attention to himself is his lack of turnovers. His ridiculously low number compared to other point guards on that score came despite the breakneck pace he and the Tar Heels were running at, a tempo that would lead you to expect more turnovers, as they have less of a deleterious effect on your team's chances. That, factored in with Lawson's speed and strength, makes him a better prospect than a lot of people are considering at this point, and definitely more likely to succeed than similarly sized guards like Flynn and Darren Collison.

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Tar Heels Drop Second Game to ASU, Eliminated from the CWS

by T.H. on Jun 19, 2009 8:44 AM EDT in Baseball Comment 0 comments

Two bad innings were enough to sink it for Carolina, as they gave up a 4-0 lead on a Kole Calhoun grand slam in the fifth only to be shellacked for eight runs in a dismal seventh inning. It was ASU pitcher's Josh Spence second win against the Heels in Omaha, as he again pitched seven innings, while the Heels went through seven pitchers in the course of the game. UNC finishes the season 48-18; Virginia is the last ACC team still in contention.

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Carolina Eliminates Southern Miss in an 11-4 Win

by T.H. on Jun 16, 2009 6:34 PM EDT in Baseball Comment 0 comments

The bats that failed the Heels in their opener against Arizona State came back with a vengance this afternoon, as UNC rattled off twenty-three hits en route to an 11-4 win. Pitcher J.R. Ballinger was put in a hole early after giving up five runs in two and two-thirds innings, including Dustin Ackley's 23rd, 24th and 25th hit in the College World Series. The 25th was a new CWS record; the team's overall twenty-three tied another record mark.

Adam Warren pitched for the Heels, going seven innings and giving up only three runs. UNC will next face the loser of tonight's Texas-ASU matchup Thursday at 6 pm.

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