2004 Draft Redux: Mavs Still Take Harris?

by hubcityraider on Mar 7, 2007 10:00 PM CST

AJM made a comment on lonestarball.com thinking Dallas would trade Devin Harris in the next couple years. So I got to thinking about what guys Dallas missed out on by taking DH at #5 in the 2004 draft.

IMO, there's no reason to think DH may get shipped just because his minutes are limited lately. He's nearly as valuable a piece as Terry is right now and will factor more heavily into the future.

So who would Dallas take if the draft could be redone today?

From NBA.com:
http://www.nba.com/draft2004/board.html

Dwight Howard | F | 6-11 | 240 (ORL)
Emeka Okafor | F-C | 6-10 | 252 (CHA)
Ben Gordon | G | 6-3 | 200 (CHI)
Shaun Livingston | G | 6-7 | 175 (LAC)
Devin Harris | G | 6-3 | 185 (DAL)
Josh Childress | F | 6-8 | 210 (ATL)
Luol Deng | F | 6-8 | 220 (CHI)
Rafael Araujo | C | 6-11 | 290 (Tor)
Andre Iguodala | F | 6-6 | 207 (Phi)
Luke Jackson | F | 6-7 | 215 (CLE)
Andris Biedrins | F | 6-11 | 240 (GS)
Robert Swift | C | 7-0 | 245 (SEA)
Sebastian Telfair | G | 6-0 | 165 (Por)
Kris Humphries | F | 6-9 | 235 (UT)
Al Jefferson | F | 6-10 | 265 (Bos)
Kirk Snyder | G | 6-6 | 225 (UT)
Josh Smith | F | 6-9 | 210 (ATL)
J.R. Smith | G | 6-6 | 220 (NO)
Dorell Wright | F | 6-7 | 210 (MIA)
Jameer Nelson | G | 6-0 | 190 (ORL)
Pavel Podkolzin | C | 7-5 | 260 (Dal)
Viktor Khryapa | F | 6-9 | 210 (Por)
Sergei Monia | F | 6-8 | 220 (Por)
Delonte West | G | 6-4 | 180 (Bos)
Tony Allen | G | 6-4 | 213 (Bos)
Kevin Martin | G | 6-7 | 185 (Sac)
Sasha Vujacic | G | 6-7 | 193 (LAL)
Beno Udrih | G | 6-3 | 203 (SA)
David Harrison | C | 7-0 | 250 (Ind)

Considering the team needs at the time and even now, Devin appears to be the best PG of the bunch.
I wouldn't trade his D for many other PG's in the league. Josh Howard fills the role that most of the best alternatives in this draft would have had with Dallas. But what could Deng or Iguadala have been traded for? Probably Devin plus a 1st round pick. Maybe I'm wrong.

Poll

Who would you take?

Devin Harris

39 votes

Luol Deng

16 votes

Andre Iguodala

12 votes

Al Jefferson

4 votes

Delonte West

0 votes

Kevin Martin

5 votes

Other

3 votes

79 votes | Poll has closed

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Comments

I think Deng

is the best player of that group, but Devin makes the most sense for the Mavs.

If we'd kept Steve Nash, then I would have liked for us to have gone with Igoudala.

A 4-man rotation in the back court of Nash/Iggy/JoHo/Terry would be nigh unstoppable.

"I think Phoenix is fairly obviously the best team in the league right now." -John Hollinger, on January 24th

by thedirkatron on Mar 7, 2007 10:23 PM CST reply actions

odd

that draft has more than a few players better than harris but besides howard, i don't think anybody else would be fully utilized playing along side dirk and josh howard. iguodola maybe but you can't really be a dunking machine on this team.

by ab03 @ Mavs Moneyball on Mar 7, 2007 11:38 PM CST up reply actions

2004 draft

About the 2004 draft, I don't really think it was weak at all.

It had one superstar (Dwight), one sure thing ('Meka) and a lot of question marks.

Devin Harris, Luol Deng, Igoudala, Al Jefferson, Andris Biedrins, Ben Gordon and Kevin Martin have all shown they have potential to become all-stars.

Jameer Nelson, Delonte West, Josh Smith and Josh Childress have had their moments.

This draft has really been hurt by injuries to Shaun Livingston (probably the second most talented player in this draft behind Dwight) and Robert Swift (another high=ceiling high school pick who I thought was headed for a breakout this year before his injury).

Really it seems like a pretty decent draft in retrospect. It's not '03, but very few drafts are.

"I think Phoenix is fairly obviously the best team in the league right now." -John Hollinger, on January 24th

by thedirkatron on Mar 7, 2007 10:30 PM CST reply actions

Fair Enough

It's really surprising to me at how well the teams did at evaluating talent. Those first 4 picks were on the money and there's only a couple busts in the top 10.

Dwight Howard is a beast, Ben Gordon is excellent as is Deng, Iguadala, Harris, Jefferson and several others.

This draft does look stronger than the 2005 draft while being worse than 03 and 02 years (http://www.nbadraft.net/history.asp).

So I probably misspoke by calling it "very very weak." Just seems to be filled with a lot of good players that generate very little buzz.

by hubcityraider on Mar 7, 2007 10:41 PM CST up reply actions

Do you think

That we could trade Podkolzin straight up for Kevin Martin? I thought that was stupid, even at the time. Although you have to give Donnie some benefit of the doubt...

Deng, Jefferson, Iguodala, Kevin Martin... Those guys may end up being bigger "name" players than Harris, but Harris is much more valuable to the Mavs than any one of them would be. Harris plays such a different game than the other Mavs guards (JET, Stack, Buck, George) that he doesn't take anything away from them. You can put him on the court with any of those four guys, and you don't duplicate effort. Jefferson would be stuck behind Dirk, Martin would be behind JET, Iguodala behind Howard, George behind Deng...

Deng is the only one that I think would be a clear upgrade over the current Mav playing the same position. Even then it's hard to judge because George isn't always the starter, and only averaging 21 minutes a game. Could the Mavs find 37+ minutes a game for Deng in the current rotation? It would put lots of pressure on Howards minutes, or force Dirk to play center more.

Of the players in the first round, Kevin Martin is the only one that I really see as filling the same sort of role and actually fitting into the Mavs system in a complementary way. Den would be an upgrade over George (if only for age) and Jefferson an upgrade over Croshere. But Croshere and George were brought in partly because of their playoff experience. Also, they're averaging 10 and 21 minutes per game, respectively. They're pretty low maintinence guys.

It is amazing that the GMs did a such a good job with that draft, considering what a butchery most of them are. Podkolzin is really the only "WTF were they thinking!" pick, and it's a little more excusable as a reach since Dallas had 2 first round picks. But Tony Allen or Kevin Martin would have been nice to have.

by BrodyV on Mar 8, 2007 12:02 AM CST reply actions