NBA Draft Lottery 2013: Cleveland Cavaliers Posibilities
By Josh Sanchez
This post was written by Zachary Kolesar of FanSided’s Cleveland Cavaliers website Right Down Euclid.
With the NBA Draft Lottery quickly approaching, thinking about who the Cleveland Cavaliers can snag will fall solely on what pick they receive this coming Tuesday. With Nerlens Noel at the top of most mock draft boards, I would be hard pressed to find a team that doesn’t have the flat top wonder at one or two on their draft boards.
Despite the ACL injury that shortened Noel’s freshman season at Kentucky, teams were able to get a good enough glimpse to know that Nerlens is one of the most athletic physical specimens to come out of the draft in the past few years. His shot-blocking abilities would quickly improve Cleveland’s second-to-last place ranking in that same category. With Anderson Varejao aging and his contract ending in the summer of 2014 and Tyler Zeller’s lanky frame, Nerlens would be perfect in the middle for Cleveland as a big.
If not Nerlens, Otto Porter has to be the next best pick for Cleveland.
He may even be a better pick than Nerlens are far as fitting team needs goes, but they will a top 3 pick if they hope to land their next starting three. Alonzo Gee is a great off-the-ball defender, but he can’t dribble, his three-point shot is lacking for the most part and he doesn’t get too many shots up per game. Porter is the opposite of Gee in regards to his weaknesses, and even adds a rebounding element to his defensive game that Gee also lacks. Porter would fit in with Dion Waiters and Kyrie Irving perfectly, which has me wanting Porter more than Noel in regards to filling the many gaps that this roster needs filled.
Lastly, looking at the second first round pick that Cleveland has, I would like to see my man Tony Mithchell out of North Texas. At the combine last week he may have given the most impressive performance out of any player there. He turned heads with his 38-inch max vertical jump, which was a better mark than what Blake Griffin had in 2009 (37 inches). Watching him throw down athletic dunk after athletic dunk on North Texas practice videos had me extremely excited as to seeing where this young star could land. With the Cavaliers grabbing the Lakers pick due to a last-second playoff berth, Mitchell could be donning the Wine and Gold next season. The one problem teams are having with him is his effort, which could easily be changed by a coach like Mike Brown.