Everybody has the opportunity every year of trading draft picks and/or players before and during the NBA Draft, but most often all of the rumors never come to fruition.

If I had to make a guess on this year, however, I would guess that there will be lots of trading.

Call it a gut instinct, but it doesn’t seem that anyone this year is happy where they are drafting.

The Toronto Raptors seemed like it would be plenty happy picking 5th since the guy they wanted to pick would be available with the 5th pick.  Suddenly awarded the 1st pick in the lottery, Toronto doesn’t seem any too happy to have the pick.  They don’t want to pick Bargnani at #1, but they really don’t want to pick anybody else but Bargnani.  You’d think they would be in an enviable position, but it seems like now they have more choices than they want and if they go with their gut, their #1 pick could go down in the history books as one of the worst #1 picks.  Add to that the fact that high picks are more pressured (e.g. Kwame Brown, Darko Milicic) to perform right away, and Toronto seems like they are in a hurry to trade back down to where they wanted to pick to begin with.  Unfortunately, but they also don’t want the deal to go down in history as a poor choice trading down (e.g. Portland trading away the pick that could have gotten them Chris Paul).

Most other teams seem to be in similar boats.

The Boston Celtics realize that they need to get a little more experience, and adding another youngster is hardly the way to do that.  None of their guys are developing very well because none of them have any role models, except for Paul Pierce.

The Chicago Bulls are in the same boat, with too many youngsters, but they just don’t realize it.  And two picks in the top 16 certainly isn’t going to help them get more experienced.  I think they do actually realize it, but, like Toronto, they have a similarly difficult time justifying trading the #2 pick away.

I don’t know what the Portland Trailblazers should really do.  Drafting the ’stache probably won’t save them, but what they really need to do, cutting and/or trading every player on the team, probably isn’t feasible.  Can they get Adam Morrison with the fourth pick?  Maybe.  Will he sell tickets?  Probably.  Will they be able to save the team?  Not without some significant off-season trading and free agent signings.  I’m glad the Portland fans are riled up about the draft because without significant changes, the current team isn’t going very far.

All the other lottery teams, lumped together, seem like they are collectively uneasy with their picks as well.

Teams selecting players in the top seven want to trade into the 8 to 14 range, perhaps to save themselves from having to pick from the crapshoot at the top.  At least, in the 8 to 14 range or 8 to 20 range, a bad pick would be excusable.  Another obvious reason would be that those teams have been picking in the lottery for the past decade anyway, and the last thing that some of those teams need is another talented 20 year old with no one to teach them.
People in the 8 to 20 range are trying to get into the 1 to 7 range, because those players at the top fit more of what they need.  They also know that those top 7 players are unlikely to drop much below 10 because even though they don’t know who to pick, they have to pick somebody and they won’t dare pick someone too out of the norm (e.g. Charlie Villanueva ended up being a great pick, but Toronto was hounded about it for the whole summer).
The teams beyond 20 know that they really can’t get anything that will help them right away (if ever) and hate to even have a guaranteed first round contract if they really don’t want to pick from among those players to begin with.  Most of those teams have multiple picks beyond 20, which makes it even worse.  Add to that the fact that NEXT year’s draft promises to be a real winner, and you see a bunch of teams hoping to translate their pick into one at the same spot in the next year.  To solve that dilemma they are trying to trade out of the first round, out of this year, or into the lottery.
Pile on all of the big names rumored to be on the trading block, and I think this draft promises to be one of the more noteworthy drafts in recent memory, if only for the trades.

If Mock Drafts are to be believed, which they aren’t, then the consensus picks for the Utah Jazz appear to be sharpshooting guard J.J. Redick or Senegal Center Saer Sene.

J.J. Redick’s recent DWI and bad back have certain hurt his stock with some of the higher teams that were rumored to be interested in him, namely Houston and Orlando.  I don’t think the DWI will hurt his chances of being drafted by the Jazz, but with Utah’s recent problems with drafting injury-prone players, you’ve got to wonder if they should take a chance on Redick’s back.

Saer Sene, on the other hand, is raw, but appears to be very talented.  He is seven feet, and could be a legitimate center in the league for many years to come.  The Jazz recently brought him back for a second workout, which is usually a good sign that they are interested.

If I had the choice of either one of them, I might regret it later on, but I would probably go for Saer Sene just because of Redick’s back.  Then, as I would have enough larger players, and a huge hole at shooting guard, I would trade Carlos Boozer for the best shooting guard I could get, which in my opinion would be Ben Gordon of the Chicago Bulls.

A starting 5 of Deron Williams, Ben Gordon, Andre Kirilenko, Mehmet Okur, and Rafael Araujo could be very productive the first year, and with C.J. Miles, Matt Harpring (if he could be re-signed), and Saer Sene coming off of the bench, they could probably make it into the playoffs.  Obviously, the Jazz would have to hope that in three or four years, Saer Sene would become a top tier center, in the which case, Deron, Ben, Andre, Memo, and Saer Sene would be a monster starting five.

Picking at #4, Portland may be out of luck.  A lot of teams are trying to make their way up to the #1 pick to draft Adam Morrison, and Toronto, who prefers Andrea Bargnani to Adam Morrison, if the NBA Draft Rumors are to be believed, and Bargnani is believed to be available at a lower pick, though probably not too low.  And if they keep the pick, Toronto might just choose Morrison over Bargnani, though most rumors have the choice between Aldridge and Bargnani.

At #2, it is unlikely that the Chicago Bulls will pick Morrison.  It also seems unlikely that they would trade the pick, although, in my opinion, they should trade the pick for a veteran that can help them right away.  They have plenty of young players trying to develop, as it is, and they need another young talented player who needs to learn his way around the NBA just about as much as they need a hole in the head.

The biggest problem that Portland might have is that Bernie Bickerstaff of the Charlotte Bobcats appears to like Morrison, though by the sound of it, Michael Jordan actually has the final say in who they draft.  Jordan appears to have had his eye on Brandon Roy, but Roy has dissed Jordan twice rather than try out for his Airness.  After only a few minutes in front of the Bobcats, it is hard to say whether Jordan would pull the trigger on a guy who clearly isn’t interested in being the third pick in the draft.  That might leave them to select the best scorer in the NCAA last year.  It is also likely that Morrison would bring with him a good amount of publicity, and the Bobcats could certainly use that.

The good news for Portland is that at least they have a chance at him, and even if they don’t get him, LaMarcus Aldridge, Andrea Bargnani, or Tyrus Thomas have to be available, and all of them are very likely to become good NBA players, most likely even better than the ‘Stache.

But don’t tell Portland fans that I said that.

If you read all of the guessing about the Toronto Raptors, the idea you get from the papers is that…

The Toronto Raptors are going to draft Andrea Bargnani of Italy with the first overall pick in the draft. Apparently they are also planning on bringing in his current GM, which, if true, lends credence to this scenario.

OR

The Toronto Raptors are going to take Andrea Bargnani with a lower pick, perhaps the Charlotte Bobcats’ pick. Bringing in Andrea’s GM still makes this one plausible. The Charlotte Bobcats want Tyrus Thomas (if you believe the rumors) and the Chicago Bulls, which pick above them, do as well (if you are still in a rumor-believing frame of mind).

OR

The Toronto Raptors are going to draft LaMarcus Aldridge with the first pick in the draft because Chris Bosh is rumored to like him. I’m not sure if it is true, but they certainly come from the same State, Texas, and Toronto desperately needs Bosh to sign the contract extension with them.

OR

The Toronto Raptors are going to draft Adam Morrison with the first overall pick which will help them immensely in the scoring department. Nothing else need be said to justify Adam Morrison as the first overall pick.
I suppose that the rumors don’t include, but could, the option of trading down and picking up Morrison or Aldridge with the Charlotte Bobcats’ pick since obviously one of those would be available, and it would all depend on what the lower team was offering.

If they were willing to drop even lower they could end up with a decent pair of first round picks and a very talented player in his prime, which might not be a bad idea considering that the best players on their roster are still in their rookie contracts and could use a stabilizing influence to teach and lead the younger players.

You may have thought that the rest of the trades leading up to the draft would have more significance than Kris Humphries being traded by the Utah Jazz to the Toronto Raptors for Rafael Araujo.

Well, you would be wrong.

After the Toronto Raptors traded their under-sized and under-performing young center Rafael Araujo to the Utah Jazz, they turned around and traded Matt Bonner and Eric Williams to the San Antonio Spurs for correct-sized but underperforming aging center Rasho Nesterovic and the rest of the three years at $8 million per year that were left on his contract.  The two people that they traded away were in the last years of their contract.

For San Antonio, the trade made perfect sense.  Nesterovic wasn’t getting much playing time, especially after having to share time with Nazr Mohammed.  And neither of them played much because Gregg Popovich was often forced to go with a smaller line-up to match up with other quick teams in the West anyway.

For Toronto, they do get an experienced center to play with a bunch of young players including whoever they choose to pick first in the 2006 NBA Draft coming up.  Paying $8 million per year for the next three years seems a little steep for a center whose best years are behind him, but maybe Colangelo knows something that we don’t — he did well enough at Phoenix, after all.

The other question that this seems to answer, unless we see even more trades, is the type of player that Colangelo is planning on picking up in the draft.  With Nesterovic, Villanueva, Bosh, and Humphries, it seems more likely that Colangelo will go after a guard or small forward than another big man.  With three of the top four projected picks playing power forward and center, it therefore seems likely that Toronto will either trade down a few picks to where the guards are projected to go or pick Adam Morrison with the first pick in the draft.

I guess we’ll see.