While most people know about Blake Griffin, Hasheem Thabeet and the rest of the guys expected to go at the top of Thursday’s NBA draft, what about those likely to be taken later on but who could still offer their new teams plenty of value.
There has been a long list of much-hyped picks who have failed to produce – in recent seasons the likes of Darko Milicic and Danilo Gallinari – so many teams have become wary about believing college and European form too much.
This year’s draft seems to lack a little bit in depth and the second round could see teams taking risks on some deep projects, either to store in Europe for a couple of years while they develop or perhaps in the D-League.
Chief among them could well be Eric Maynor, whose stock has been rising over the last couple of weeks and may see him lift towards the back edge of the lottery if a team decides it wants a pure point guard.
Although the hype surrounding Ricky Rubio has been deafening at times, you can expect him to struggle to adapt to the pro game early on, and it might be Maynor who produces sooner.
Maynor flew under the radar for much of his college career because of the relative lack of exposure his Virginia Commonwealth Rams received nationally, but he got plenty of recognition when putting up 21 points and seven assists against UCLA in the tournament in March.
He constantly gave the star-studded Bruins trouble and certainly did his pro prospects no harm despite reports that his lack of bulk (Maynor weighs in at only 165lbs) and poor defensive skills could even see him go undrafted.
While that seems unlikely now, anywhere from pick 20 expect a team lacking in passing skills to take a gamble when it comes to basketball betting on the Ram and hope he can have the sort of impact Rajon Rondo had on the Boston Celtics.
