- May 23, 2012
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Well, it's unlucky Week 13, which probably means we're all back at work now and forced to watch games surreptitiously on phones or spare monitors for, ahem, research purposes. Hey, how else are these threads going to get done?
Of course the NBA never sleeps, no holiday seasons off for these guys. Life as a professional hooper is a never ending circus of cross-country flights, back to backs, hold-me-back physicality and of course absolutely no load management under new league guidelines. Cough. Oh, and it also means lots and lots of work for the refs who keep the gameand the Lakers humming. Shout out to those overworked, underappreciated bastions of integrity.
Sorry Fizdale, but this is now my favourite all-time rant
All this got me to thinking - how is it that the NBA's veterans manage to keep doing this, year after year? To that end, I've travelled back in time across a decade of NBA drafts to see which old timers have survived the carnage and lived to fight another day. In some cases (hello Draymond) quite literally.
Class of 2012
Unsurprisingly given this was just (and I use this word loosely given I still vividly remember celebrating the first pick despite it feeling like a lifetime ago) eleven and a half years ago, there are plenty of survivors from the Class of 2012.
Perennial All-stars Anthony Davis, Damian Lillard and Brad Beal lead the way, while fellow top-10 picks Harrison Barnes and Andre Drummond are still around. Even Fournier is still technically active too, although he sees less action than Thibs' bottle of shampoo in the shower.
Weirdly enough teams struck gold early in the second round of this draft, meaning Draymond, Khris Middleton and Jae Crowder round out our list of survivors, giving us a grand total of 9 current alumni from this class.
Class of 2011
The preceding Draft class is perhaps faring even better, with a whopping 16 players still active. Like Baby Boomers they're not just surviving, but thriving.
Heading the list are stars Kyrie Irving, Klay Thompson, Kawhi Leonard and Jimmy Butler - a fair bit of eccentricity there to go with all that talent. That's far from it however, as Jonas Valanciunas, Nik Vucevic, Tobias Harris, Reggie Jackson and Bojan Bogdanovic are all still playing integral roles for their respective teams.
Meanwhile Tristan Thompson, Bismack Biyombo, Alec Burks, the Morrii twins, Cory Joseph and Davis Bertans are just about hanging on, although one suspects not for much longer in some cases. Anyone remember Jan Vesely?
Class of 2010
Father Time has not been kind to the somewhat star-crossed class of 2010. Only Paul George and Gordon Hayward survive from this list, and the latter has hardly enjoyed a normal NBA career in the last 6-7 years.
John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Derrick Favors, Eric Bledsoe, Hassan Whiteside and Nemanja Bjelica are some of the notable draftees who have said goodbye to the league of late. Fair to say between Wall, Cousins and Hayward there have been some hard luck with injuries. Also fair to say that between Cousins, Bledsoe, Whiteside, Larry Sanders and Lance Stephenson, there were some... interesting.. characters in this class too.
Also as an added aside, drafts like these make you wonder why teams bother collecting late first round draft picks sometimes.
Kaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahn!
Class of 2009
Just like 2010 vis-a-vis 2011, weirdly the class of 2009 has more survivors than the 2010 lot.
There are seven players still active from this Draft, beginning with legendary stars Harden and Curry, plus the consistently excellent DeMar DeRozan and Jrue Holiday. Rounding out the seven are Pat Bev, our very own Patty and James Johnson, who was technically added recently to Indy's roster, albeit it seemingly more for his MMA prowess than his basketball skills.
The class of '09 just this month said goodbye to a couple of long-timers in Ricky Rubio and Taj Gibson (in his 58th tour of a Tom Thibodeau team), while Blake Griffin and Danny Green aren't long removed either. The ranks are certainly thinning out, but the class of '09 ain't done quite yet it would seem.
Also, this draft will never not be amusing for Hasheem Thabeet and Johnny Flynn.
Class of 2008
Alrighty, now we're really reaching far back into the depths of history.
Amazingly six of the top 10 from the 2008 draft - Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, Kevin Love, Danilo Gallinari, Eric Gordon and Brook Lopez - are still with us, albeit (Lopez aside) in much reduced supporting bench roles compared to their halcyon days.
Meanwhile the other Lopez, JaVale McGee, Nic Batum and DeAndre Jordan are just about hanging around, bringing the commendable number to survivors from the '08 class to ten. A few notable recent departees - Serge Ibaka, George Hill and Goran Dragic - also had very lengthy and successful NBA careers.
By the way, would you believe me if I told you that a guy named Joe Alexander was drafted at #8 in this draft?
Class of 2007
This was so long ago that Seattle had the second pick in this draft. Come back soon, Sonics.
Unsurprisingly only five survivors here, but four of them - Durant, Horford, Conley and Jeff Green - were picked within the first five spots in the draft, suggesting that the scouts at least did their homework that year. Of course the Blazers and Greg Oden had to be the exception.
Thad Young (#12) is the only other survivor from this class. Actually the five survivors have significantly outlasted the rest: only Marc Gasol stands out as a relatively recent departure from the league. Gasol aside, we have to harken back to the days of Jo Noah and Swaggy P - that seems a lifetime ago now.
Who would have guessed that Florida would end up as a final resting home for senior citizens?
Class of 2006
Talk about an underdog class - just two individuals have survived from 2006 and they were drafted at #24 and #35 respectively. Take a bow - or perhaps doff your cap if your aging backs won't allow it - Kyle Lowry and P.J. Tucker.
The way those two, especially Tucker, are faring at the moment, this class may actually be on the brink of extinction. What a way for a Draft that started with the announcement of Andrea Bargnani as its top pick to finish up.
LaMarcus Aldridge, Rudy Gay, JJ Redick, Rajon Rondo and Paul Millsap were some relatively recent retirements from this class. Also, the streets will remember Brandon Roy. And Adam Morrison, albeit for entirely different reasons.
Class of 2005
CP3 keeps on trucking on, albeit with a few more pit stops than he used to. Good thing too, because as the sole remaining survivor the class of '05 would have died out a long time ago otherwise.
Lou Williams, Andrew Bogut, Marvin Williams, Channing Frye and CJ Miles were still around in relatively recent memory, but the glory days of the likes of Deron Williams, Andrew Bynum, Danny Granger, David Lee and Monta Ellis seems a long, long time ago now.
Charlotte getting the legendary Ray Felton right after Williams and CP3 were off the board was the most Bobcats thing ever.
Class of 2004
With Dwight Howard, Andre Igoudala and Trevor Ariza having ridden off into the sunset, the class of '04 is officially no more.
While the careers of the likes of Rafael Araujo, Luke Jackson, Robert Swift and Kirk Snyder will almost certainly be forgotten even after reading this sentence, we mustn't forget the 2004 Draft also provided us with Luol Deng, Al Jefferson, the immortal Josh Smith, the pipe-wielding JR Smith and the guy who gave us the funkiest jumpshot ever recreated on an NBA2K game, Kevin Martin.
And with that, we've surely reached the end of the road, right? This has to be the cutoff...
LeBron back when he used to play for the Cavaliers - well, one of the times. Also back when he had authentic hair.
Class of 2003
Well, no. Would you believe the 39-year old LeBron James, who has spent more than half his life in the league and has a SON who is about to be draft eligible, is officially the longest surviving geezer in the entire league.
It's actually remarkable when you read through a list of his accomplished draftmates - and famously this draft provided a very substantial list - and realise how long ago many of them hung up their sneakers. Carmelo, D-Wade and Kyle Korver held on as long as they could, but the likes of Chris Bosh, David West, Kirk Hinrich, Boris Diaw, Nick Collison and Mo Williams all enjoyed significant careers than spanned far above the average NBA career length... yet they all retired what seems like ages ago!
People have their theories about how LeBron does it, ranging from the laudatory to the sinister. It's probably fair to say that The King doesn't exactly expend a lot of energy at the defensive end these days, but regardless - putting up the numbers he is in his TWENTY-FIRST pro season is still a staggering feat.
Bonus Bit
Apropos of nothing, but if you were trying to choose the most consistent player in the NBA at present, I'd suggest you could hardly look farther than Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Without further commentary, here are his scoring numbers since mid-November, a period covering two months and 26 games.
18/11/23 - 40 points, 18/29 shooting
19/11/23 - 28 points, 10/13 shooting
22/11/23 - 40 points, 11/19 shooting
25/11/23 - 31 points, 10/21 shooting
28/11/23 - 32 points, 13/22 shooting
30/11/23 - 33 points, 11/18 shooting
2/12/23 - 17 points, 6/13 shooting
6/12/23 - 33 points, 13/18 shooting
8/12/23 - 38 points, 15/30 shooting
11/12/23 - 30 points, 12/17 shooting
14/12/23 - 43 points, 13/27 shooting
16/12/23 - 25 points, 9/20 shooting
18/12/23 - 30 points, 8/18 shooting
21/12/23 - 31 points, 11/25 shooting
23/12/23 - 34 points, 12/21 shooting
26/12/23 - 34 points, 14/19 shooting
27/12/23 - 36 points, 13/23 shooting
29/12/23 - 40 points, 14/20 shooting
31/12/23 - 24 points, 7/15 shooting
2/1/24 - 36 points, 14/22 shooting
3/1/24 - 33 points, 11/24 shooting
5/1/24 - 34 points, 11/19 shooting
8/1/24 - 32 points, 11/17 shooting
10/1/24 - 28 points, 11/17 shooting
11/1/24 - 31 points, 11/15 shooting
13/1/24 - 37 points, 13/20 shooting
26 games, 32.7 ppg, 302/522 shooting (58%).
For a perimeter scorer, those are some staggering numbers, even by modern inflated standards.
Vote 1 for most consistent. Also, the Pels drafted his cousin - spoiler alert, he didn't turn out as well.
Coming Up
Monday - GOTD is in Minny, where the Wolves host the Clips with top-4 permutations on the line. The Bucks host the Kings - we could crack 300 points.
Tuesday - I dunno if the Wiz hosting the Pistons is GOTD, but it could be funny. Another Mavs/Pels game in Dallas, plus the Morey Cup in Philly.
Wednesday - if there's only going to be 3 games, they may as well be good ones. Clips/Thunder, Sixers/Nuggets (MVP hype) and Suns/Kings all look juicy.
Thursday - A Central derby as the Cavs host the Bucks. The shaky Lakers and Mavs square off, while the Jazz/Dubs game is intriguing for many reasons.
Friday - Jazz/Thunder is probably the pick here. Haliburton may miss the win/win trade homecoming to Sactown, while Bulls vs Raps could be close.
Saturday - Possible tasty Finals preview as Boston hosts Denver. Philly visits the injury-hit Magic, while the Pels host the Suns.
Sunday - Minny and OKC do battle for top seed in the West. Jazz and Rockets will battle for playoff position, while it's a big Knicks/Raps reunion party.
Have an outrageous week, fellas.
Of course the NBA never sleeps, no holiday seasons off for these guys. Life as a professional hooper is a never ending circus of cross-country flights, back to backs, hold-me-back physicality and of course absolutely no load management under new league guidelines. Cough. Oh, and it also means lots and lots of work for the refs who keep the game
Sorry Fizdale, but this is now my favourite all-time rant
All this got me to thinking - how is it that the NBA's veterans manage to keep doing this, year after year? To that end, I've travelled back in time across a decade of NBA drafts to see which old timers have survived the carnage and lived to fight another day. In some cases (hello Draymond) quite literally.
Class of 2012
Unsurprisingly given this was just (and I use this word loosely given I still vividly remember celebrating the first pick despite it feeling like a lifetime ago) eleven and a half years ago, there are plenty of survivors from the Class of 2012.
Perennial All-stars Anthony Davis, Damian Lillard and Brad Beal lead the way, while fellow top-10 picks Harrison Barnes and Andre Drummond are still around. Even Fournier is still technically active too, although he sees less action than Thibs' bottle of shampoo in the shower.
Weirdly enough teams struck gold early in the second round of this draft, meaning Draymond, Khris Middleton and Jae Crowder round out our list of survivors, giving us a grand total of 9 current alumni from this class.
Class of 2011
The preceding Draft class is perhaps faring even better, with a whopping 16 players still active. Like Baby Boomers they're not just surviving, but thriving.
Heading the list are stars Kyrie Irving, Klay Thompson, Kawhi Leonard and Jimmy Butler - a fair bit of eccentricity there to go with all that talent. That's far from it however, as Jonas Valanciunas, Nik Vucevic, Tobias Harris, Reggie Jackson and Bojan Bogdanovic are all still playing integral roles for their respective teams.
Meanwhile Tristan Thompson, Bismack Biyombo, Alec Burks, the Morrii twins, Cory Joseph and Davis Bertans are just about hanging on, although one suspects not for much longer in some cases. Anyone remember Jan Vesely?
Class of 2010
Father Time has not been kind to the somewhat star-crossed class of 2010. Only Paul George and Gordon Hayward survive from this list, and the latter has hardly enjoyed a normal NBA career in the last 6-7 years.
John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Derrick Favors, Eric Bledsoe, Hassan Whiteside and Nemanja Bjelica are some of the notable draftees who have said goodbye to the league of late. Fair to say between Wall, Cousins and Hayward there have been some hard luck with injuries. Also fair to say that between Cousins, Bledsoe, Whiteside, Larry Sanders and Lance Stephenson, there were some... interesting.. characters in this class too.
Also as an added aside, drafts like these make you wonder why teams bother collecting late first round draft picks sometimes.
Kaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahn!
Class of 2009
Just like 2010 vis-a-vis 2011, weirdly the class of 2009 has more survivors than the 2010 lot.
There are seven players still active from this Draft, beginning with legendary stars Harden and Curry, plus the consistently excellent DeMar DeRozan and Jrue Holiday. Rounding out the seven are Pat Bev, our very own Patty and James Johnson, who was technically added recently to Indy's roster, albeit it seemingly more for his MMA prowess than his basketball skills.
The class of '09 just this month said goodbye to a couple of long-timers in Ricky Rubio and Taj Gibson (in his 58th tour of a Tom Thibodeau team), while Blake Griffin and Danny Green aren't long removed either. The ranks are certainly thinning out, but the class of '09 ain't done quite yet it would seem.
Also, this draft will never not be amusing for Hasheem Thabeet and Johnny Flynn.
Class of 2008
Alrighty, now we're really reaching far back into the depths of history.
Amazingly six of the top 10 from the 2008 draft - Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, Kevin Love, Danilo Gallinari, Eric Gordon and Brook Lopez - are still with us, albeit (Lopez aside) in much reduced supporting bench roles compared to their halcyon days.
Meanwhile the other Lopez, JaVale McGee, Nic Batum and DeAndre Jordan are just about hanging around, bringing the commendable number to survivors from the '08 class to ten. A few notable recent departees - Serge Ibaka, George Hill and Goran Dragic - also had very lengthy and successful NBA careers.
By the way, would you believe me if I told you that a guy named Joe Alexander was drafted at #8 in this draft?
Class of 2007
This was so long ago that Seattle had the second pick in this draft. Come back soon, Sonics.
Unsurprisingly only five survivors here, but four of them - Durant, Horford, Conley and Jeff Green - were picked within the first five spots in the draft, suggesting that the scouts at least did their homework that year. Of course the Blazers and Greg Oden had to be the exception.
Thad Young (#12) is the only other survivor from this class. Actually the five survivors have significantly outlasted the rest: only Marc Gasol stands out as a relatively recent departure from the league. Gasol aside, we have to harken back to the days of Jo Noah and Swaggy P - that seems a lifetime ago now.
Who would have guessed that Florida would end up as a final resting home for senior citizens?
Class of 2006
Talk about an underdog class - just two individuals have survived from 2006 and they were drafted at #24 and #35 respectively. Take a bow - or perhaps doff your cap if your aging backs won't allow it - Kyle Lowry and P.J. Tucker.
The way those two, especially Tucker, are faring at the moment, this class may actually be on the brink of extinction. What a way for a Draft that started with the announcement of Andrea Bargnani as its top pick to finish up.
LaMarcus Aldridge, Rudy Gay, JJ Redick, Rajon Rondo and Paul Millsap were some relatively recent retirements from this class. Also, the streets will remember Brandon Roy. And Adam Morrison, albeit for entirely different reasons.
Class of 2005
CP3 keeps on trucking on, albeit with a few more pit stops than he used to. Good thing too, because as the sole remaining survivor the class of '05 would have died out a long time ago otherwise.
Lou Williams, Andrew Bogut, Marvin Williams, Channing Frye and CJ Miles were still around in relatively recent memory, but the glory days of the likes of Deron Williams, Andrew Bynum, Danny Granger, David Lee and Monta Ellis seems a long, long time ago now.
Charlotte getting the legendary Ray Felton right after Williams and CP3 were off the board was the most Bobcats thing ever.
Class of 2004
With Dwight Howard, Andre Igoudala and Trevor Ariza having ridden off into the sunset, the class of '04 is officially no more.
While the careers of the likes of Rafael Araujo, Luke Jackson, Robert Swift and Kirk Snyder will almost certainly be forgotten even after reading this sentence, we mustn't forget the 2004 Draft also provided us with Luol Deng, Al Jefferson, the immortal Josh Smith, the pipe-wielding JR Smith and the guy who gave us the funkiest jumpshot ever recreated on an NBA2K game, Kevin Martin.
And with that, we've surely reached the end of the road, right? This has to be the cutoff...
LeBron back when he used to play for the Cavaliers - well, one of the times. Also back when he had authentic hair.
Class of 2003
Well, no. Would you believe the 39-year old LeBron James, who has spent more than half his life in the league and has a SON who is about to be draft eligible, is officially the longest surviving geezer in the entire league.
It's actually remarkable when you read through a list of his accomplished draftmates - and famously this draft provided a very substantial list - and realise how long ago many of them hung up their sneakers. Carmelo, D-Wade and Kyle Korver held on as long as they could, but the likes of Chris Bosh, David West, Kirk Hinrich, Boris Diaw, Nick Collison and Mo Williams all enjoyed significant careers than spanned far above the average NBA career length... yet they all retired what seems like ages ago!
People have their theories about how LeBron does it, ranging from the laudatory to the sinister. It's probably fair to say that The King doesn't exactly expend a lot of energy at the defensive end these days, but regardless - putting up the numbers he is in his TWENTY-FIRST pro season is still a staggering feat.
Bonus Bit
Apropos of nothing, but if you were trying to choose the most consistent player in the NBA at present, I'd suggest you could hardly look farther than Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Without further commentary, here are his scoring numbers since mid-November, a period covering two months and 26 games.
18/11/23 - 40 points, 18/29 shooting
19/11/23 - 28 points, 10/13 shooting
22/11/23 - 40 points, 11/19 shooting
25/11/23 - 31 points, 10/21 shooting
28/11/23 - 32 points, 13/22 shooting
30/11/23 - 33 points, 11/18 shooting
2/12/23 - 17 points, 6/13 shooting
6/12/23 - 33 points, 13/18 shooting
8/12/23 - 38 points, 15/30 shooting
11/12/23 - 30 points, 12/17 shooting
14/12/23 - 43 points, 13/27 shooting
16/12/23 - 25 points, 9/20 shooting
18/12/23 - 30 points, 8/18 shooting
21/12/23 - 31 points, 11/25 shooting
23/12/23 - 34 points, 12/21 shooting
26/12/23 - 34 points, 14/19 shooting
27/12/23 - 36 points, 13/23 shooting
29/12/23 - 40 points, 14/20 shooting
31/12/23 - 24 points, 7/15 shooting
2/1/24 - 36 points, 14/22 shooting
3/1/24 - 33 points, 11/24 shooting
5/1/24 - 34 points, 11/19 shooting
8/1/24 - 32 points, 11/17 shooting
10/1/24 - 28 points, 11/17 shooting
11/1/24 - 31 points, 11/15 shooting
13/1/24 - 37 points, 13/20 shooting
26 games, 32.7 ppg, 302/522 shooting (58%).
For a perimeter scorer, those are some staggering numbers, even by modern inflated standards.
Vote 1 for most consistent. Also, the Pels drafted his cousin - spoiler alert, he didn't turn out as well.
Coming Up
Monday - GOTD is in Minny, where the Wolves host the Clips with top-4 permutations on the line. The Bucks host the Kings - we could crack 300 points.
Tuesday - I dunno if the Wiz hosting the Pistons is GOTD, but it could be funny. Another Mavs/Pels game in Dallas, plus the Morey Cup in Philly.
Wednesday - if there's only going to be 3 games, they may as well be good ones. Clips/Thunder, Sixers/Nuggets (MVP hype) and Suns/Kings all look juicy.
Thursday - A Central derby as the Cavs host the Bucks. The shaky Lakers and Mavs square off, while the Jazz/Dubs game is intriguing for many reasons.
Friday - Jazz/Thunder is probably the pick here. Haliburton may miss the win/win trade homecoming to Sactown, while Bulls vs Raps could be close.
Saturday - Possible tasty Finals preview as Boston hosts Denver. Philly visits the injury-hit Magic, while the Pels host the Suns.
Sunday - Minny and OKC do battle for top seed in the West. Jazz and Rockets will battle for playoff position, while it's a big Knicks/Raps reunion party.
Have an outrageous week, fellas.
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