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By Trevor, Section NBA
"The two sides are, on the one hand, the old scouts and, on the other, Billy Beane. The old scouts are like a Greek chorus, it is their job to underscore the eternal themes of baseball. The eternal themes are precisely what Billy Beane wants to exploit for profit - by ignoring them."
For some time, NBA General Managers and scouting departments have made an almost concerted effort to disregard statistics when making decisions on what basketball players should be drafted. This idiocy has not only been enabled but also furthered by empty NBA Draft analysts like ESPN's Chad Ford. This is how college stars ranging from Tayshaun Prince to Josh Howard to Jameer Nelson fell to the lower half of the first round. This is how Darko Milicic got drafted ahead of Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade, T.J. Ford and Kirk Hinrich. This has always puzzled me due to the place college basketball occupies in the American sports atmosphere. There are two events each year, which captivate an entire nation and rope in people who normally could not care less about sports. They are the Super Bowl and the NCAA Tournament. You can make an outstanding argument that when basketball players graduate from college they actually move down a level in terms of stage. As I was surfing a few NBA draft sites, I looked for one name that I knew would be undervalued and sure enough it was. On the two major draft sites (www.nbadraft.net and www.draftexpress.com) he was ranked in the low first round and in the high second round. Let me tell you that if he does in fact slip this far, it will be the ultimate in terms of mindlessness. The player I am referring to is Nick Fazekas and all he has been is a star since the moment he started playing college basketball for the University of Nevada. "If Billy had the first pick in the entire draft he'd take Swisher with it." If Nick Fazekas' name was Nick Fazekovich and he was 20 years old from Croatia, is there any doubt that he would be ranked in the top five of every single mock draft. When you watch Nick Fazekas play the game there is an ease to it. He just dominates the opposition. This domination is reflected in the gaudy statistics he has put up over his four years of college.
2003-2004 12.6 pts 7.6 rebs. 52.8% FG percentage Those numbers alone do not reflect the development of Fazekas or the fact that he will be an extremely good NBA player. Fazekas shoots 42.9% from three-point range! And he's 6'11" 240 pounds! So in summary, we have a guy who is a walking double-double that can also step out and shoot the ball at an extremely proficient rate. "The idea had led Billy Beane to take action, and his actions had consequences. He had changed the lives of ballplayers whose hidden virtues otherwise might never have been seen." There is one last set of statistics that cannot be quantified but should be entered in as an exhibit for the prosecution. Nevada is currently ranked fifteenth in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches poll. Nevada has also qualified for the NCAA Tournament every season Nick Fazekas has been in school. Not only will they qualify again this year, but Nevada is a real Final Four sleeper. There is no one man more important to this team's success over the past four years than Mr. Fazekas. Foolish is Britney Spears showing off her "cameltoe" to the paparazzi or CBS greenlighting "Armed and Famous". Stupidity is Tank Johnson owning more weaponry than Luxembourg. The overlooking of Nick Fazekas should be categorized as blindness. Let's just hope that there is a basketball version of Billy Beane out there who can capitalize on a system that needs to be repaired. If you have any questions or comments feel free to e-mail me at trevor.freeman@realityfanforum.com.
----- #24. Nick Fazekas #34. Nick Fazekas http://www.draftexpress.com/mock.php?y=2007
---- Applying Common Sense To The NBA Draft-Part I http://www.sportscolumn.com/story/2006/5/28/16404/2413 Applying Common Sense To The NBA Draft-Part II
http://www.sportscolumn.com/story/2006/6/4/174117/0857 Story writing contestLog in or create an account to vote for this story!
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