Los Angeles Clippers Win NBA Draft Lottery

Yup, that's right the Los Angeles Clippers have won this year's draft lottery and the right to draft Blake Griffin as the #1 overall pick in the NBA Draft.

My first thoughts are that the Clippers are going to have to move one of their big men. If it was me I would be giving away Zach Randolph for anything useful that another team offered me ASAP. Since it's the Clippers, who the hell knows what they'll do with all those big men.

My second thought is that Blake Griffin is screwed because the Clippers are dysfunctional, but actually if you look at the talent around him, it's not all that bad of a situation for him. He has an All-Star PG in Baron Davis and possibly Marcus Camby or Chris Kaman behind him on defense to help him out on that end. They also have Eric Gordon at the SG position, who I feel is going to a beast along side Baron Davis on both ends of the floor for the Clippers. Al Thornton at the SF runs hot and cold, but he is also a capable scoring threat, so Griffin will have plenty of talent around him on offense, and most likely won't have pressure on himself to score 20 points a game for the Clippers as a rookie.

However, I'm not sure how much he will improve under coach Mike Dunleavy overall, especially on defense. The Clippers, even with Camby, were 26 out of 30 teams in defensive effeciency and it seems like Dunleavy's teams have always been in the Phoenix Suns mode of high octane offense and not much defense. I don't think this is going to benefit Griffin and he may have to either develop under a different coach or with another team before we see his full potential.

Here is the complete draft order and possible picks, via DraftExpress:

1. Los Angeles Clippers: Blake Griffin
2. Memphis Grizzlies: Ricky Rubio
3. Oklahoma City Thunder: Hasheem Thabeet
4. Sacramento Kings: Brandon Jennings
5. Washington Wizards: Jordan Hill
6. Minnesota Timberwolves: James Harden
7. Golden State Warriors: Tyreke Evans
8. New York Knicks: Demar DeRozan
9. Toronto Raptors: Stephen Curry
10. Milwaukee Bucks: DeJuan Blair
11. New Jersey Nets: Ty Lawson
12. Charlotte Bobcats: Gerald Henderson
13. Indiana Pacers: Jonny Flynn
14. Phoenix Suns: Earl Clark

I'm not saying these players aren't good, but I think almost all of them except Blake Griffin have some major question marks about them. My guess is that there will be some other players moving into the lottery as this process goes on. Either way I think this draft is weak in the sense that I don't think many big time stars will emerge from it. Most of these guys could be strong rotation players though.