Saturday Six Pack: Reasons to love Anthony Bennett
June 29, 2013MLB News: Indians call up Joe Martinez, send down Matt Langwell
June 29, 2013Reports on draft day indicated that the Cavaliers were down to deciding between taking Alex Len and Nerlens Noel with the first pick, but now that the smoke has cleared it appears the Cavs’ choice was in fact between Len, Ben McLemore, and Anthony Bennett.
According to Terry Pluto of The Plain Dealer, Noel was not one of the final players Chirs Grant and his staff came close to taking with the first overall selection of last Thursday’s draft.
“I’ve heard the Cavs’ final three choices at No. 1 were Ben McLemore, Len and Bennett.” said Pluto in his Friday column.
Chris Grant had been notorious in the previous years for keeping his hand close to the vest leading up the draft, selecting Tristan Thompson and Dion Waiters much to the surprise of everyone in the media, and this year proved no different with the selection of Bennett.
All the reports that the Cavs were desperate for a center in the draft have gone by the wayside as the team came away from Thursday still with Tyler Zeller and Andy Varejao as the only options on the roster at the position.
With the Cavs choosing between McLemore, Len, and Bennett it’s apparent the team was looking to draft the best player available as opposed to drafting based off of need.
[Related: Saturday Six Pack: Reasons to love Anthony Bennett]
6 Comments
So far Grant’s picks have all turned out fine. I believe in the process. I just hope the team makes a leap this year like everyone believes.
Nice final trio you couldn’t have gone wrong with McLemore either IMO. I still think the Cavaliers could have had something really dynamic with Irving-Waiters-McLemore but I’ll gladly take Bennett. Karasev at #19 is what makes things even better though.
I love how people keep relying on “sources” to claim they know what the Cavs’ board looked like, even though all of these same people were completely wrong on draft night. Its time to admit that no one really knows what the Cavs were thinking, and be happy we got Bennett.
I still think Zeller will be a fine bench 5 in the NBA if he starts lifting, bro.
Karasev was the guy that made this draft palatable to me. I wasn’t a big fan of Bennett before I knew that we had the #1. So I’m less fine with it now. I went from “In Grant We Trust” to “Wait and See” pretty quickly. Nothing would please me more to eat crow in regards to Anthony Bennett and what I think he’ll be.
If only someone had mentioned to Grant that the NBA draft has 2 rounds, and some decent players fell there this year.