I’ve seen mock drafts that have Brook Lopez going as high as number three to the Minnesota Timberwolves and as low as number eleven to the Indiana Pacers.

I really have no idea—this has been one of the tougher drafts to suss out. I’ll tell you one thing, in April, I never would have guessed that Russell could get taken in ahead of Kevin, but now I think he might. Bayless, too, is a total wild card.

Here’s my guess at the order:

Mayo
Westbrook
Bayless
Love
Lopez

The middle three are the toughest, the second two really tough, I could easily have gone Bayless/Westbrook instead of Westbrook, Bayless.

I’m pretty confident that Mayo gets taken first and Lopez last.

Picking the teams is harder—the Miami Heat are screwing things up by preferring Mayo to Michael Beasley, though who knows what they’ll do. But I think Minnesota takes Mayo three if they can. Lots of teams trying to trade up for him, too, like the Clippers.

Picking the teams is too hard because trades might happen. Westbrook to the Knicks would be a good guess and Love to either Memphis or Charlotte, depending what other teams do.

What do you all think?

1. Chicago – Derrick Rose, PG, Memphis
2. Seattle (via trade w/ Miami) – Michael Beasley, PF, Kansas State
3. Milwaukee (via trade w/ Minnesota) – O.J. Mayo, PG, U$C
4. Miami (via trade w/ Seattle) – Jerred Bayless, PG, Arizona
5. Memphis – Kevin Love, C/PF, UCLA
6. New York – Russell Westbrook, PG, UCLA
7. LA Clippers – Eric Gordon, SG, Indiana
8. Minnesota (via trade w/ Milwaukee) – Brook Lopez, C/PF, Stanford

mock draft chat:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/draft2008/columns/story?page=DraftDebate-080624

It’s a fun read with some good analysis. In case you’re interested, Simmons loves Kevin Love, both guys love Russell Westbrook.

Here it goes…

Mayo goes to Miami
Bayless goes to Seattle (because the Sonics have to screw this up as much as possible.)
Love goes to Memphis
RW goes to NY
Lopez goes to Charlotte

(Remember this is what I think will happen, not what should happen, right?)

Love My Bruins

My picks:
Bayless
Westbrook
Love
Mayo
Lopez

My wag is:

Mayo
Westbrook
Love
Lopez
Bayless

It is interesting the work ethic that has become the culture of Ben Howland players. We hammer on Love about his conditioning last year, but his improvement from high school to UCLA was good and this year his improvement is off the charts. Westbrook the same. You can see that work ethic translate to the draft.

Westbrook to Seattle
KLove to Memphis
Mayo to the Clippers
Lopez to Charlotte
Bayless to Indiana

Lorenzo Mata-Real.

We can dream, can’t we?