FanPost

The Hindsight Cavaliers: Drafting for James

Last time in my post, I showed who the Cavaliers might have had by the time we drafted LeBron James. I know that it would be impossible to get the first overall pick with a team we could have had, but I will suspend reality for this series. I may do a third like a this or this, by projecting where we'd have picked if we had drafted the best way possible

So far, the team is this:

Joe Johnson

Amar'e Stoudemire

LeBron James

2004: This is the draft directly after we drafted LeBron James, so let's take a look. With the tenth pick the Cavaliers selected Luke Jackson. They missed out on Al Jefferson, Josh Smith, JR Smith, Jameer Nelson, Kevin Martin, and Trevor Ariza. Wow that is a lot, but if you see our current picks so far, all at filled positions. So here it is a toss up. Good bench production out of Kevin Martin, or a solid and adequate starter at PG. I choose to go with Jameer Nelson, to fill out the positions more.

Team so far:

Joe Johnson

Amar'e Stoudemire

LeBron James

Jameer Nelson

2005: Funny thing about 2005. We missed out on no one. Not because we drafted the best player, we had no picks. So, two years after taking LeBron to start a rebuild, you traded your picks already? Terrible GMing. Andrew Bynum, Chris Paul and Monta Ellis are among the players drafted in 2005. There were maybe ten quality players from that draft.

2006: The Cavaliers had the 25th pick in 2006. Selected Shannon Brown. Big mistake. Guess who was there that missed out on TWICE. The great, almighty, superior and dominant.... RYAN HOLLINS!!! What?!?! We'd have had four championships by now if we took Hollins! Okay, I can't keep this up. We really only missed Millsap. We took Gibson. I'll keep this as is.

Team up till now:

Joe Johnson

Amar'e Stoudemire

LeBron James

Jameer Nelson

Daniel Gibson

2007: Again another no pick year. What was whoever was our GM then thinking? Among the draftees were Kevin Durant, Al Horford, and Marc Gasol. Gasol would have been a great addition.

2008: In 2008 with the 19th pick, the Cavaliers selected JJ Hickson, missing out on Ibaka, Courtney Lee and Nic Batum. I would trade Hickson for Ibaka any day

Team so far:

Joe Johnson

Amar'e Stoudemire

LeBron James

Jameer Nelson

Daniel Gibson

Serge Ibaka

2009: The last one. With the 30th pick, the Cavaliers drafted Christian Eyenga. We missed really nothing, but I'd rather have Marcus Thornton instead of Skyenga.

Final team:

PG: Nelson, Gibson

SG: Johnson, Thornton

SF: James

PF: Ibaka

C: Stoudemire

I didn't include the whole team or what we would have had also, because I don't know what draftings had affected other players we drafted to trade to other teams. Example, I skipped Shannon Brown, but we traded him for someone else, so I can't include whoever that was. I decided as of writing this, I will go into the next part, and see if you'd rather have had LeBron's teams or the alternatives. I will try and make the predictions as accurate as possible and will include all the players. Basically playing GM while knowing the best pick to make. It should be fun.

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