Sim League Nirvana

DMorrell’s alarm rings. It rings again. He checks his phone, checks the calendar, checks the 12-foot-wide digital atomic clock he projects onto the ceiling of his bedroom 24/7, showing the countdown to the ‘03 draft. It’s here. It’s finally fucking here.

2003, the scene is set. Ugg boots are still cool because Tom Brady hasn’t started wearing them yet. 50 Cent’s In Da Club has all the 7th graders grinding at their bar mitzvahs every weekend. A bunch of dumbass British governors will remember this year as the first time they ALMOST caught Captain Jack Sparrow.

The biggest buzz, however, is out of Akron, Ohio, where basketball’s top young prospect is busy DEFINITELY reading tons of books cover to cover, listening to Migos before their first mixtape ever dropped, and FOR SURE watching his favorite movie, the Godfather II multiple times. What a putz. Let’s do a Big Board.


1. Lebron James SF 6'9'' 250 19 A- C B+ C+ C+ A

“The best player to enter the draft to date.” Ashes made The Decision to drop this decidedly NSFW bomb about 12 seconds after the confetti came down in Milwaukee’s stadium, so you gotta believe he’s been looking forward to this as much as the rest of us…which only makes me even more petrified. Lebron’s box scores are going to be a legitimate circus. Teams in his division will have to build their rosters specifically to try to contain him, with every GM scouring the NDL to find a PG Beef’s size when Lebron starts running point. Every team will drop a panic DC the sim before they play him. Every day is going to be Taco fucking Tuesday. Please God in heaven let him end up in the Western Conference. If he doesn’t, at least he’ll normalize getting hair plugs in the East so Boozer doesn’t have to paint his head black anymore.


2. Dwyane Wade SG 6'4'' 220 22 B C B B C A

Let’s move one seat down the banana boat to our spelling-challenged friend Dwyane. Holy cow, are these some muhfuggin' ratings. Wade looks like some terrifying combination of Steve Francis and Jeff McInnis. While the wing position might be deep in SLN, Wade is going to be an elite scoring wing that does two things that will set him apart from the pack: get to the free throw line and swat shots on defense. The only wings to crack the top 10 in FTAs this past year were Jamison, Marion and Pierce – expect Wade to the be the first true SG to make that list (led the league in FTA per 48 multiple times while Shaq still existed). As if you needed another reason to pick him second, sounds like his stip is going to make him sign some kind of sweetheart deal with the team that drafts him. OP!


3. Chris Bosh PF 6'11'' 235 19 B C D+ B B- A

Somebody call Jeff Goldblum – straight out of the late Cretaceous, this 6’11 velociraptor is going to prove that the two-way big man is far from extinct in FBB. The good news is that if Toronto drafts him, they won’t have to pay a guy to dress up as the mascot. The Boshtrich is a lanky, chinless ball of efficiency – inside and outside scoring, stocks and low TOs with likely good volume and a high FT% on a good number of attempts. One might think Melo is the easy pick here, but I like Bosh because of the positional scarcity and the weirdly similar notes to Rasheed Wallace. Take note – Bosh is probably only 3 Defense Pickem Camps away from being the best big in the league!


4. Carmelo Anthony SF 6'7'' 238 19 B B C C C+ A

Let’s just hope this young Orangeman doesn’t have to miss any games with broken fingers after repeatedly jamming the last three into his skull after every made deepball. Melo is going to be electric offensively – Nav’s going to need some new undies when I say this, but Anthony has the best chance of any of these guys to be the first A/A scorer we’ve had since his Airness. As an A potential teenager there’s a chance his defense becomes serviceable and his rebounding reaches elite positional levels as well. The inevitably low stocks and relatively shaky handle may keep him from being as perfectly balanced a superstar as Mash or Ray Ray, but this guy’s worst case scenario is some kind of Super-saiyan Jerry Stackhouse. Stay Melo!


5. Darko Milicic C 7'0'' 250 18 C+ D+ D B- C+ A

An enigma as impenetrable and opaque as his first name might indicate, Milicic is the great question mark of this draft class: a man shrouded in a mystery as frosty as his tips. If Matt and Kipke are to be believed, the higher this guy is taken, the higher his potential may be; which means there’s an argument that he should go top three, and if he doesn’t get grabbed early he might plummet down draft boards. The points against him: his defense is low B-, his rebounding low C+, the rest of his ratings are meh, and he was a bigger bust than Jamarcus Russell. The points for him: he’s 18, has A potential, and ashes is a devious motherfucker. If it’s me, I’m taking a swing on this guy real high - that stipulation has made it difficult for me to Serb my Enthusiasm.


6. Kirk Hinrich PG 6'4'' 190 23 C B B C+ C- A

Any GM who beams up Captain Kirk will surely live long and prosper. Absolutely delectable draft notes for Hinrich, who is basically already strong in all of the things you would normally camp a PG in – outside, handles, quickness and steals. He will be SLN ready before many of his A-Potential draftmates, and is the best prospect in the draft at the thinnest position we have. With his extremely low C inside, he’s probably not going to be the explosive scorer that you might want to have at PG in FBB, but he was a white guy playing the 1 in 2003, let’s get real.


7. David West PF 6'9'' 250 23 B- C C C+ B- A

Quietly one of the baddest MFs of this era, David West should easily elbow his way into the top 10 of this draft and continue to put opponents in the hospital year in and year out. I think of West as a quicker version of Carlos Boozer with A potential instead of B, and the possibility of evolving into something like Joe Smith with a worse attitude. He’s got basically no weaknesses and should be able to fit into an inside or outside offense alike. The father of one of the better NBA meme formats we’ve seen:




8. Chris Kaman C 7'0'' 265 21 B- C- C- B B- B

The first prototypical Big Butt on our Big Board, Kaman’s midwestern ass is as cornfed as they come (he literally grew up on a farm eating corn). Generally regarded as a national traitor and general krautburger, this ginger troll decided to get German citizenship in 2008 so he could play for a national basketball team while he wasn’t good enough to make Team USA. Still, Nike was kind enough to bless his with a pair of custom “Air Sasquatches” for his lone All-Star Game appearance. The Caveman has the highest defensive rating of any big in the draft and should be an elite stock man, and should do a better job cleaning the glass than he does his greasy hair. I don’t particularly love the combination of mediocre handles and tendency to take a decent number of shots, but there’s no doubt that this should be a safe pick for a team in need of a defensive big.


9. Josh Howard SF 6'7'' 210 23 B- B- C B- C+ B

No draft profile, no problem. If Howard can lay off the jazz cabbage for five minutes, he’s sure to be an absolute stud. His draft notes are electric – good inside, good outside, good handle, good steals, good positional defense, good rebounding…and he’s slinging that loud on the cheap cheap?? What’s not to love? *Nick and Heimer scribble furiously in their scouting notebooks* His B- inside and B- defense are at the HIGH end of the draft range (nice), so I expect this guy to have a productive first camp. Unlikely he’ll end up eligible for the NDL, but with those draft notes, I don’t think it’s a risk that he’ll drop out of the lotto anyway.


10. Boris Diaw PF 6'8'' 250 21 C+ C B C+ C+ A

Poor Bobo. A potential and strong starting ratings are all well and good, but his death sentence was…well, it was the literal sentence Ashes wrote about him being in the mold of Lamar Odom, who has been a dud of Kardashian-ass proportions through his first few seasons. Let’s hope Diaw’s similarities are just an addiction to candy and crack and not a severe turnover problem. There’s definitely a place in SLN for stocky (literally and figuratively) SFs who don’t do a ton of scoring – after all, some guy named Kit Kat is perhaps the most important player on league’s best team – but I think Diaw’s high passing could be his downfall, as his stocks will be negated by his tendency to pass to the other team. Greg Pop-a-bitch might have been able to get the most out of this doughy Frenchman, but it might take a GM of equally legendary caliber to figure out how to make Diaw a star. How bout we lay off the foie gras, big fella.


11. Kendrick Perkins C 6'10'' 270 19 C D+ F+ B B B

This bruising hulk of man meat should make a living patrolling the paint, despite being on the receiving end of one of the more horrific poster dunks / baptisms in NBA history. Perk will always have a special place in my heart as a key member of our 08 championship team, but he is also the owner of some of the worst Shaqtin’ a Fool moments ever, and that’s definitely reflected in his notes around “poor handles and quickness.” That definitely makes me think if I’m looking to draft this frowning refrigerator of a center, but there’s no doubt that he should earn his salary on the defensive end of the floor and hopefully re-sign cheap. Regardless, this compilation is worth a watch. My personal favorite is 0:40.


12. TJ Ford PG 6'0'' 165 20 C+ C B C+ C A

A style icon of the early 2000s, TJ Ford held the impressive league-wide title for the most ludicrously long shorts in an era of hilariously oversized clothing in the NBA . I mean, my mans was hoopin in legitimate JNCOs. Somehow he managed to be one of the fastest cats in the league despite wearing cargo pants, and his outstanding quickness should be of value in SLN. However, a guy who’s listed at C outside with the notes “great jumpshot” surely has next to zero 3PT; Jwoo hit the nail on the head, this guy’s upside might be Brevin Knight, and that’s IF he can get his turnovers under control. At a position that needs to drive scoring volume in an outside-focused offense, Ford will probably never be a star but might be a serviceable starter with some good dice rolls in camp.


13. Leandro Barbosa PG 6'3'' 194 21 C B C+ C D+ A

Perhaps the only guy in the draft faster than #12 on this list, I think Barbosa could have skipped ahead of Fancypants Ford in my Big Board if it weren’t for TJ’s draft profile. I love his top-tier quickness, I love his A potential, and the fact that he doesn’t look to pass much should be to his benefit, in the mold of Chauncey Billups (note for the new guys: assists don’t really matter much in FBB when it comes to winning – but a high passing rating can mean high turnovers). Startable point guards are simply hard to come by in SLN, and in a draft that boasts a plethora of options, Barbosa figures to be firmly in the second tier alongside Ford behind Hinrich. For what it’s worth, I always thought his eyes were too close together.


14. Mike Sweetney C 6'8'' 275 21 B- C- D- C+ B B

One of the best parts of writing Sweetney’s blurb was googling him and finding out that he’s now the assistant coach at Yeshiva University and the head girls basketball coach at NY Jewish Day School Ramaz, a rival high school to my own...can’t make this shit up. The cafeteria better be setting some extra blintzes aside when Big Mike comes in for lunch; this lumbering load of lard makes Tractor Traylor look like a mere lawnmower. The Knicks were stupid for reaching on this fatty in the lotto in real life, but if a shrewd SLN GM manages to snag him in the later teens, he could be an absolute monster in the NDL and get some overpowered boosts. His notes are literally only positive things (good inside scoring, post defense, rebounding, handles, strength) and he’s the fourth best rebounder in the draft and has the 3rd highest inside among bigs after Bosh and West. Only downside is he’s probably not going to get much in the way of stocks, but this behemoth could end up being one of the steals of the first round.


15. Maciej Lampe C 6'11'' 275 18 C D D- C+ C+ A

We’re getting down into “take a swing” territory, and this guy is as lottery a ticket as they come. I honestly wouldn’t even put much stock by his starting ratings (although C+/C+ defense and rebounding aren’t bad for a guy his age)…All I see is 18 years old, 275 lbs, A potential, and the word “upside” in his draft notes. Sure, he might have played in a total of 64 games in his NBA career, but a guy that size probably wasn’t a fantastic fit for D’Antoni’s “Gone in 60 seconds” Suns, so maybe he just wasn’t in the right situation! I said it before and I’ll say it again, I love Lampe.


There's a ton of value in picks 14-23 IMO, but I'm still sick and running out of steam on these blurbs. Some of the other guys I like down in this area are Steve Blake, Jarvis Hayes, Mickeal Peitrus, Kyle Korver, and Nick Collison. IDK, figure it out.