Sim League Nirvana

Ah yes, Y2K, the year when our computers miraculously didn’t fail us but the NBA draft certainly did. Widely regarded as perhaps the worst class of the modern era, these 58 bums managed 3 total All-Star appearances across all of their careers combined. But our Lord Ashes was in the giving spirit this Christmas, and he finished up the draft file right around the same time, so (between that fact and his cryptic offhand references to this class) I would be extremely surprised if he didn’t hide quite a few spicy diamonds in the rough. I can’t wait until someone absolutely nails a pick in the mid-first they bought for 800RP and then never lets us forget it for 15 seasons. That said, it’s never a great when a guy like Marko Jaric has his own draft profile thread, even if he did make a name for himself plowing through Victoria’s Secret models the way Tractor Traylor plows through a stack of McRibs.


Editors note after the fact: This big board was about 50 times harder to make than the last couple and took me twice as long, and I’m still pretty sure I got it very wrong. I even had to add a few bonus picks after the lotto just to make sure I covered my bases, because who knows. Good luck lottery teams! This draft is going to be super interesting.


1. Michael Redd SG 6'6'' 220 21 C B+ C- C C A

Aaaand we’re off to a PIPING hot start with a guy whose draft notes include the word “putrid.” But who the fuck am I supposed to put up here? Look, Redd did one thing in the league, and that’s get buckets – he’s definitely the only guy on this list who averaged over 25 a game for multiple seasons. As it sounds like he’s a strong inside player and we know he could shoot the piss out of the ball, I’m picturing his upside as a B/A inside/outside scorer, and we know how overpowered those guys can be in FBB – “similar mold with some of the top SGs” feels to me like best case he could be a fat Ray Allen. Buffet Allen, if you will. Weigh Allen. Pick your nickname. The other joke option here was "he looks like Voshon Lenard under the hood? Do you mean he looks like he literally ate Voshon Lenard?" I love that he’s strong and can play both wing positions, I love that he doesn’t turn it over, but obviously you’re going to be giving something up on D. Hopefully he gets that steal a game and makes himself serviceable defensively given his good handle.


2. Kenyon Martin PF 6'9'' 234 23 B- D+ C- B+ B- B

Absolutely all-time draft notes for my man Kenyon. I like his rating profile, although he may have some decent volume paired with a jumpshot rating as hideous as that lips tattoo on his neck he had covered up. But in FBB, defense matters for bigs, and he seems to have it in spades – the best defense rating of any big in the draft, and a top 10 rebounder in this class, and a combination of strength and quickness that’s pretty rare in frontcourt players – most are one or the other. He’s got good positional defense AND stocks, so no major weaknesses that you would have to dump a supercamp into aside from MAYBE handling if it turns out to be a major issue. Might only be B potential, but he seems like an immediate contributor for any team.


3. Jamal Crawford SG 6'5'' 185 20 C+ B C+ C D+ A

At this point, I think you all know how I feel about this guy, but I figured if I put him higher than 3, no one would take the rest of the Big Board seriously. I always felt like Jamal Crawford could see basketball the way Neo could see the Matrix code while he was inside the simulation, and then just bend the rules of physics whenever he wanted. There is not a single night where this guy couldn't go out and a drop a 50-burger, take your mother out to a lovely dinner and then never call her again. The lack of defense is always going to be an issue, but I think there’s a substantial chance he looks like Rip Hamilton on offense pretty quickly based on his notes. The reason he goes this high for me (outside of THIS) is his stipulation. If his handles are high enough that he can eat a -10 and still be a viable PG (they should be!), then EITHER he’s going to be one of the most efficient SGs in the league TO-wise or he’ll be overpowered as a scorer at the 1, and we all know how dangerous A outside guys are at the 1 (Kerr, Nash, etc.). Hidden stip: one of his teammates will go out with an ankle fracture every year as a result of guarding him in practice.


4. Joel Przybilla C 7'1'' 255 21 C D+ D B B B

This Vanilla Gorilla is one chunky monkey. In addition to perhaps having the greatest nickname of all time, this guy is exactly what you want out of a traditionally-shaped FBB big, and probably the safest pick that we will see in the top 7 or so. Super strong, doesn’t shoot, gets rebound and blocks, and hopefully doesn’t turn it over (with that handle rating I have to believe his passing is dreadful). He also profiles as a guy who will re-sign for cheap, which is always nice. The only downside we can sometimes see with guys who are slow is that they can’t play a ton of minutes, particularly in a fast or very fast offense. This 260lb sack of potatoes is going to be huffin’ and puffin’ and stumblin’ and bumblin’ if he’s asked to be out there more than 27 minutes, I bet.


5. Hedo Turkoglu SF 6'10'' 220 21 B- B- B C C B

Look, this guy probably doesn’t speak good enough English to be the raisin paste binding your players to one another, but he can certainly be your Turkey Glue, whatever that means. There aren’t many guys in this draft that I would call “well-rounded” – most are either specialists or manage to suck at literally everything – but Hedo is as close as you’re going to get. The good news is that he’s probably ready to contribute as a rookie or second year guy, but he’s just never going to be a star, especially given his limitations on defense. Seems like he has some potential as a fourth or fifth starter.


6. Jamario Moon SF 6'8'' 205 19 B C+ C+ C+ C+ A

If you’re the kind of person that thinks if you get a top 5 pick you should absolutely swing for the fences with the highest upside guy you can, by all means go ahead and pick this guy before #6. He’s definitely got high potential, and good stocks + good handling at the SF is almost always a recipe for [*Borat voice*] GREAT SUCCESS. I also happen to love drafting teenagers because of what we know about how potential works, but I will say it’s been slow going with T-Mac. The downside of this pick is the stip, which is absolutely hilarious. It’s going to cost you an extra 1200RP to camp this guy, and if you’re annoyingly close to the cap down the line and you roll a $5M of random debt due to Moon's attempts to defraud the league's health plan, it could end up spelling enormous problems for your team. The fact that this stip is so overtly negative (as opposed to someone like Big Z’s, which could go either way) actually makes me think that his under-the-hood ratings are even better than we think...or he's just a big piece of shit and whoever drafts is going to end up smelling a little stinky.


7. Mike Miller SF 6'8'' 218 20 C+ B+ C C C+ B

6’8” lesbian Mike Miller finds himself in the #7 spot. IDK, he just always kind of looked like that in photos, including the one Ashes picked for his profile. I could see him sporting a puka shell necklace on the court too. Either way, starting at B+ outside at only 20 years old, Miller is the second best outside shooter in the class behind Redd, and that C+ rebounding only figures to tick up over his first few camps. Given his real-life pedigree, I think that like Redd, there’s a good chance Miller gets all the way up to A outside at the SF position, which is a relative rarity in the league right now. If he ends up backing up the 2/3, his defense shouldn’t matter quite as much and he might be able to overpower SGs with his rebounding.


8. Jamaal Magloire C 6'11'' 259 22 C+ C- C B B- B

The owner of exactly one third of all the All-Star appearances on this list, I’m not sure Magloire is going to be earning any SLN All-Star nods any time soon. However, he does profile a lot like Pryzbilla, meaning that he has a pretty high floor for usefulness in FBB. He might not end up with gaudy rebounding stats because he has low offensive rebounding, but his high defense rebounding should make a difference on any team. Agree with Ashes’ assessment here – probably the 2nd or 3rd best big on a really good team, and will be exactly what you expect him to be. And if you didn't like my Maglorian meme, you can fuck right off - it took me 15 minutes to cut out his stupid picture in Powerpoint.


9. Darius Miles SF 6'9'' 210 19 B D+ D+ B+ C+ B

Darius Miles looks like a poor man’s Andrei Kirilenko. When I say poor man, I’m not talking about one of these San Francisco homeless people that has an iPhone 13 and a Soho House membership, Jayant and Calvin ...I’m talking DIRT poor, covered in soot, no socks or shoes, edge-of-starvation-man’s Andrei Kirilenko. His draft notes are downright comical (“count on him to make the wrong play A LOT”) and I was shitting on him in the O6 groupchat, and then Kipke made a strong counterpoint, which was: “if you were a fan of that era of basketball like Ashes obviously was, there’s no way you don’t make Darius Miles pretty cool.” So I’m going to give this one a positive spin and say that his stocks and rebounding are going to make him a useful player, and his low outside just means he won’t take many 3s but will score in the paint. What’s not to like??


10. Morris Peterson SG 6'7'' 218 23 C+ B C- B- C B

Mo Pete, famously (?) the cousin of recent SLN draftee Jonathan Bender, sports some of the prettiest pre-draft ratings of anyone in this class, including the guys with they own draft profiles. On top of that, his draft notes are pretty much only positive things! There’s an argument to be made that this guy could go higher than 10th, but his upside is going to be relatively limited unless he gets some great scoring volume dice rolls in TC. Remember the formula – good steals + good handles + good rebounding = possession monster, and that’s exactly what this guy is.


11. Quentin Richardson SG 6'6'' 223 20 C+ B C- C C B

Q-Rich could easily find himself a lotto selection as the talent pool begins to thin out a bit. His ratings, body type and draft notes make me think that he’s kind of the Charmeleon to Michael Redd’s Charizard, so it feels like mayyyybe he shouldn’t be 10 picks down the list, but I don’t think he’s every going to reach the scoring volume or efficiency that Redd will. That said, we love a HIDDEN STIPULATION – what could it be? Does it have something to do with him and his podcast co-host Darius Miles? Are you going to have to draft BOTH of them to find out??? Oy.


12. Marko Jaric SF 6'7'' 198 19 C+ B- B- B- C- B

This lucky son of a bitch could have quit basketball, dedicated his time to keeping his marriage to Adriana Lima healthy, and been one of the richest stay-at-home dads in the world, but he’s simply got too much DAWG in him. Jaric’s draft notes were pretty much just one extended joke about him running through hot chicks, so let’s take a step back and see if we can look at him objectively. In real life, he was a role player at best, not a fantastic shooter from anywhere but he did get a ton of steals and took care of the ball pretty well. I love that he’s starting with B- defense already at 19, and the rest of his game seems reasonably well balanced. If you’re lucky enough to get this guy all the way down at 14, he seems like a prime candidate to spend 2 seasons in the NDL and come out read-to-go as an above-average starter. If you can’t NDL him, I think he’s going to need some good dice rolls, but he could definitely end up as a defensive specialist on the wing in the mold of Greg “Major” Minor.


13. Eduardo Najera PF 6'8'' 240 24 C+ C- C- C+ B B

Ooh man, the pickin’s are getting SLIM and I am running out of brain juice. I'll tell you who's not slim, though - the Mexican Mammoth Eduardo Najera. Here’s what I’ve got to say about big Eduardo here – he’s the third best rebounder in the entire draft class after Oyedeji and Etan Thomas, both of which are showing lower potential, he has high steals for a big man (which can be even better than having decent blocks, as steals ALWAYS result in a turnover) and doesn’t turn it over. In addition to being a plus possession player, it sounds like he’ll be a reasonably efficient scorer, I’d guess giving you 9 or 10 points a game. Long gone are the days when we thought big men taking shots = very bad always, as Ashes has figured out how to make some bigs low-volume but high efficiency inside scorers. That’s best case for Najera – who knows if he’ll actually be efficient, but defensively he should be nice! Dump another +8 into his blocks and split the rest across rebounding and post D and he should be starting-caliber.



A FEW BONUS POST-LOTTO PICKS BECAUSE I COULDN’T DECIDE:


14. Eddie House SG 6'1'' 180 22 C B C+ C D+ B

First James Posey, now Eddie House?? Two of my all time favorite Celtics in back-to-back drafts, I love it, so I'll stack this pure homer pick right in at #14. Eddie House is going to shoot the ever-loving piss out of the ball from three point land, you can bank on that. Unfortunately, that’s going to be pretty much all he does. He’s undersized at the 2 and D+ rebounding is almost untenable for a wing starter, so I wonder if he’s best place is as a backup 1/2 who gives you some scoring juice off the bench.


15. DeShawn Stevenson SG 6'5'' 210 19 B- C+ C C+ C B

Upside is unknown - what intrigue! With DeShawn, you’re buying a lottery ticket. He’s a teenager with decent ratings and high steals, and athleticism, but the shaky handle that we see a lot in this type of guy. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone wants to swing on him higher, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if he slips to 18 or 20. Low floor, medium ceiling type of guy that will need some TC luck. A good add for a tanking team who plans to tank another year or two.


16. Pete Mickeal SF 6'5'' 230 22 C C+ D+ A- C+ C

Great handles?? Absolute lockdown man defender?? Good rebounder?? No weaknesses listed?? Who the fuck is Pete Mickeal and why haven’t I heard of him?? Well, here are some facts about ol’ Pete. He was the last pick of the entire draft in 2000. He never played a single game in the NBA, but he’s apparently a legend of European basketball, one of the best Americans to ever play over there. After he was waived from the NBA, he went to the ABA where he was promptly named league MVP. He then made his way to the Philippines to play with TNT Tropang Giga, a team who at the time went by the name “Talk ‘N Text Phone Pals,” I shit you not. After his time as a Phone Pal, Pete tore up Russia, Greece and Spain, including winning a title with FC Barcelona and being widely considered one of the best players around. One other known fact about Pete: if he falls to the Kings, The Stockton Kangz will draft him. Click Clack!