- Rick Morrissey of The Chicago Tribune: "There are two baskets at Murray Park. One court, two baskets. From that slab of concrete in the middle of Englewood grew a basketball player of such exceptional talent that the Chicago Bulls decided the kid wasn't going anywhere. They made 19-year-old Derrick Rose the No. 1 overall pick in Thursday night's NBA draft. The local kid made good. The local team made a good choice."
- John Jackson of the Chicago Sun-Times: "By choosing Rose, the Bulls may have ended any hopes they had of making a quick turnaround to become one of the Eastern Conference's better teams next season. It's unrealistic to expect Rose, at 19, to come in and be great as a rookie. Remember, the kid just graduated from high school a little more than a year ago."
- Greg Cote of The Miami Herald: "It is good when a team's high draft pick is popular with fans. It is better -- much -- when a team's high draft pick is smart. This one was. Beasley, a 6-8, 239-pound forward from Kansas State, is can't-miss, won't-miss, about as certain a future star as anyone all of 19 years old can possibly be."
- Dave Hyde of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel: "Get ready, South Florida. The Heat got the pick it needed. And it's a different personality than the Heat is accustomed to having. The early scouting report: Scores a lot. Rebounds a lot. Demands teammates hire a taste tester for meals."
- Tom Powers of The Pioneer Press: "As midnight approached, it was announced that Wolves vice president Kevin McHale still was working on 'a deal' and wouldn't be able to make an appearance in the pressroom for some time. We all groaned. His deals usually suck. No one put it past him to trade Mayo in the middle of the night. As it turned out, we were right. His deal sucked. He traded Mayo in the middle of the night. There is no hope for this franchise."
- Jim Souhan of the Minneapolis Star Tribune: "This could be a good deal, as long as O.J. Mayo doesn't someday remind us that the Wolves, on June 26, 2008, once traded a true scorer for a guy, in Love, who is best known for his outlet pass. ... The only problem is this: The Wolves are notorious for taking the wrong guy in the draft. And trading Mayo, the consensus third-best player in the draft, for Love, who possesses some NBA skills but not necessarily NBA post size, has to scare anyone who has watched Kevin McHale & Company operate."
- Jerry Brewer of The Seattle Times: "The Sonics, whose owners have mastered how to create strife the past two years, spent Thursday entangled in their wackiest web yet. As a result, the NBA draft turned stale. In this city, there was little joy on draft night; it deferred to fret. Across the league, the rest of the weak-pulse franchises celebrated their high picks and dreamed of amazing turnarounds. Here, the only words that mattered were the final remarks of a judge charged with ending the bitter KeyArena lease fight. Pechman vowed to make her ruling public at 4 p.m. Wednesday. The next five days will be unbearable."
- Geoff Calkins of the Memphis Commercial Appeal: "They have traded Kevin Love and Mike Miller to the Minnesota Timberwolves in a deal that will bring O.J. Mayo to Memphis. They have traded Donte Greene and a future second-rounder to the Portland Trail Blazers in a deal that will bring Darrell Arthur to Memphis. All this from the Grizzlies. From the sleepy, boring, hey-we-really-tried to make a deal Memphis Grizzlies. So you, sitting there at your breakfast table. Stand up and applaud. Applaud Chris Wallace, who finally got a chance to run his own draft. Applaud Mike Heisley, who didn't do so badly himself. Applaud a franchise that decided it was time to get off the sidelines and take a shot to be something better than it has been."
- Ken Berger of Newsday: "The Knicks got their Gallinari, but the Nets took a Gallinari-sized step toward LeBron James. While Walsh fruitlessly sifted through the Knicks' roster for a tradeable asset, Thorn and Nets GM Kiki Vandeweghe were staring at a feast. When you have an asset like Jefferson you can afford to part with, it's easy to have your eyes on the prize for the summer of LeBron. ... Thorn and Vandeweghe didn't just encroach on the Knicks' territory yesterday. They broke into the luxury box, popped open a cold one and put their feet up on the coffee table. ... As of today, it's advantage Nets, and it has nothing to do with Jay-Z."
- Mike Vaccaro of the New York Post: "What did the Knicks get last night? Here is what they didn't get: They didn't get Lew Alcindor or Patrick Ewing or Tim Duncan. It isn't likely that the Bulls, who picked Derrick Rose, got that kind of player, nor did the Heat, who took Michael Beasley. There's no law that every draft yields a franchise player. This is when the long, hard task of rehabilitating a basketball team hits you like an anvil on the head. The Celtics may have proved that it's possible to go from pariah to parade in 12 months, but the more appropriate lesson should be this: Unless you are privy to the kind of perfect storm that allows Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett dominoes to tumble into each other, you have to go another way."
- Michael Hunt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "In keeping with his nature, John Hammond was being tactful Thursday night when he said, 'We inherited a little bit of a salary predicament coming into this job.' Hmmm. That's like saying the Enron stockholders didn't exactly get a solid return on their investment."
- Don Walker of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "The big trade set off hours of reaction on the city's radio sports-talk shows Thursday afternoon, as callers branded the trade brilliant or flawed. But among members of Milwaukee's small Asian-American community, and some prominent members of Milwaukee's business community, there was disappo
intment that Yi, who was welcomed to Milwaukee like a rock star last October at the Bradley Center, was gone." - Tom Sorensen of The Charlotte Observer: "I wrote Thursday that the Bobcats should take Texas point guard D.J. Augustin. Few mock drafts had him going as high. I saw 34 and only six had Augustin going nine or higher. This is why they're called mock drafts. Larry Brown, Michael Jordan and I mock them. The Bobcats need a point guard. Point guard is the sport's essential position. The right one takes all the parts, power forwards and centers, the shooting guards and wings, and links them and leads them. Teammates work harder to get open because they know they'll be rewarded with the ball. Augustin is the right point guard. He'd rather run an offense than shoot, rather pass than shoot, would rather penetrate than shoot. Yet he can shoot effectively off the dribble and hit those soft floaters in the lane."
- Al Iannazzone of The Record: "The Nets underwent a major face-lift Thursday, dealing away the last member of their glory years, and picking up two 7-footers and perhaps a whole new fan base. Almost seven years to the day that Richard Jefferson was acquired in a draft night trade, the Nets sent their small forward to Milwaukee for 20-year-old, 7-foot power forward Yi Jianlian from China and 6-9 forward Bobby Simmons. It was just the start of the reshaping of a Nets' team that now features no players from the back-to-back NBA finalists of 2002 and 2003, has eight players 24 and younger and could have the flexibility to make a run at LeBron James in the summer of 2010."
- Bob Kravitz of The Indianapolis Star: "The craziest thing, though, was that team president Larry Bird couldn't even talk about his moves because both the Toronto and Portland trades involved 'base year compensation' players, which means the deals can't be completed until July 9. The Pacers lobbied the league to tell its fans about the new players, but the NBA shot them down, threatening any mention of players in proposed deals with a fine. Dumb, really dumb. After telling the local media he couldn't talk about the moves, Bird shrugged and said, 'I don't know what the hell you're gonna ask me.'"
- John Canzano of The Oregonian: "Josh McRoberts is gone, too. Also, Jarrett Jack gone. Oh, and Pritchard traded for Ike Diogu. Pritchard also netted Arizona guard Jerryd Bayless, the No. 11 pick. And the Blazers also end up with Nicolas Batum of France, which amounts to a clever use of a Euroleague roster pawn. Also, Portland got four future second-round picks. Before Thursday, maybe you believed the Blazers needed a small forward and a point guard. Today, what they need is roll call. If you're a Blazers fan you have to love all the good action, and the drama, and the fact that the front office of your basketball franchise is playing to win. And as long as Pritchard has the confidence of owner Paul Allen, and the autonomy to work deals, draft day is always going to be more fun in Portland than it is in Chicago, Los Angeles or New York. Or probably anywhere else."
- Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News: "There the Warriors go again, taking an almost identical player to the guy Don Nelson wouldn't play last time or the time before that or before that or before that ... So yes, in a very strange way, that's why Louisiana State's Anthony Randolph is such an intriguing, semi-befuddling, risky and actually quite proper selection for the Warriors. Chris Mullin might as well double-down on the skinny. See if they go double-bust. Just like Brandan Wright last season, Randolph is a tweedy, teenage, left-handed NBA super-project, and Nelson proved with Wright that the coach is happy to let teenage skinniness ride the bench as often as possible. Don, are you going to play Randolph ... ever?"
- Scott Bordow of the East Valley Tribune: "Nothing against Stanford's Robin Lopez and his head of hair -- the guy is channeling Oscar Gamble with that Afro -- but it's hard to feel good about the Suns' draft when, with their highest pick since 2004, they took a guy who never will be more than a backup in the NBA. There's no question Lopez fills a void on the Suns' roster. He's a high-energy player who will rebound, block shots and dive after loose balls. In other words, Lopez is everything Amaré Stoudemire is not."
- Michael Grange of The Globe and Mail: "If Jermaine O'Neal, the former all-star whom the Raptors have reportedly acquired for point guard T.J. Ford, Rasho Nesterovic, the Raptors' No. 17 pick in last night's draft (Toronto obediently took Georgetown centre Roy Hibbert on behalf of the Indiana Pacers) and salary-cap ballast, develops a limp or keeps shooting low-percentage fadeaways from the block, Colangelo might even be downgraded from Midas to mortal. A general manager, even one as resourceful as Colangelo, is in the end just a man. Cut him and he bleeds; analyze his track record with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight and it's inevitably uneven."
- Michael Wilbon of The Washington Post: "I'm not as down on Brendan Haywood as others, but if you don't have one great big man like Dwight Howard, then you'd better have a posse of them. The Wizards took a step in the right direction last night when they used the 18th pick in the draft to select JaVale McGee, 7 feet and 237 pounds. The Wizards didn't take a beanpole, and they didn't take a munchkin. They took a Big Man."
- Michael Rosenberg of the Detroit Free Press: "Like all successful pro teams, the Pistons care about character as it relates to their sport: work ethic, being a good teammate, not punching any refs, etc. They can live with the fact that Sharpe was arrested in September 2007 for disorderly conduct after arguing and fighting at a dance club, according to reports. And they deserve the benefit of the doubt on this. This is the team that drafted Tayshaun Prince and Jason Maxiell late in the first round. They stole Rodney Stuckey last year and picked up Amir Johnson in the second round. Their track record (outside of Darko) is extraordinary."
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