In the Disney character draft, the Dallas Mavericks select...

Last week, the good men and women who run various SB Nation NBA sites gathered together to conduct a Disney character draft. The goal was to select a character who’d fit with a given team and it only included the 22 teams who are going to Orlando to finish out the 2019-20 NBA season. A pick could be any Disney or Pixar character in the entire universe of intellectual property (no Marvel characters or Star Wars characters though).

Draft order was completely random and in typical Dallas Mavericks fashion, our pick fell all the way to 21.

That’s right, the second to the last pick of the draft. For a day and a half as the draft painstakingly played out, I watched nearly all character I’d put together on my Disney Big Board taken: Genie from Aladdin, Maui from Moana, Tarzan from, well, Tarzan, Mr. Incredible, James P. Sullivan, even Air Bud.

But one character, my super-sleeper, remained until my chance finally arrived. With the 21st pick in the first and likely only SB Nation NBA Disney character draft, the Dallas Mavericks select:

That’s right, Kronk, from the criminally underrated film, the Emperor’s New Groove.

Why Kronk you ask? Well, for one, the Mavericks could use some size. With Willie Cauley-Stein opting out of Orlando for personal reasons, Dallas has a thin front court. Though he should be considered an emergency option in Orlando, Dallas needs a banger, a guy who will play hard and do the dirty work and not need recognition and the spotlight.

Will he be able to understand Rick Carlisle’s system? It’s a good question we should let Kronk address directly:

But he’s a known hard worker, toiling for years under the task master and evil sorceress Yzma. He should excel under the demanding coaching of Rick Carlisle. What he lacks in common sense, he makes up with grit and hard work.

Per the Disney Wikipedia:

Kronk’s capable of incredible superhuman athletics, such as running from a school to his house and back in mere seconds, and running up a mountain (while having a seat tied to his body with Yzma riding atop). Through the series, it’s learned that Kronk comes from a family of athletic health and fitness advocates... Kronk’s greatest skill however is his talent as a chef, able to pickup whatever recipe is required at the time. He takes particular pride in his spinach puffs

There may have been other potential players available with the second to last pick, but Kronk’s the type of guy to earn his place if given the chance. Despite potential criticism, this is a strong pick for the Dallas Mavericks.