Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: NBA Draft 2014 Hangover Edition

Lots of draft commentary today:

• Top undrafted players available - SB Nation

• Winners and losers - CBS Sports

• Winners and losers - Cleveland Plain Dealer

Tweet of the Morning

Happy birthday to @Dhawk_25. I’m so proud of what he’s become and what he’s becoming. One of the most genuine people I’ve ever met.

— John Calipari (@UKCoachCalipari) June 27, 2014

Happy birthday, Dominique Hawkins!

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• Hustle Belt looks at the Ohio Bobcats vs. Kentucky Wildcats. They pick Ohio to win. I beg to differ.

• Kentucky 2015 defensive tackle target George Brown, a member of the Rivals 250, has moved his decision date up to July 25th.

• Kentucky is an early favorite for 2016 defensive end Jonathon Cooper. Hat tip: NextCats.

• Athlon Sports has Braylon Heard at the #20 running back in the SEC, and Jojo Kemp at #23. Hat tip: NextCats.

• Athlon Sports ranks Kentucky's schedule the 4th hardest in the SEC. Hat tip: Saturday Down South.

Kentucky basketball

• John Calipari's son Brad, recovering from knee surgery, will transfer to a school in Massachusetts and reclassify to 2016.

• Silver Screen and Roll looks at the Julius Randle pick. The reviews in the comments are mostly positive, with a few nay-sayers. Nothing new there.

• Celticsblog on the James Young pick:

  The primary concern with Young is his defense. He lacks awareness, misses rotations, and plays occasionally lazy man-to-man defense. However, with solid athleticism, a 7-foot wingspan, and flashes of a "killer attitude," perhaps the Celtics will be able to make him "buy in" on the defensive end.

  Young is capable of playing good defense. Somebody just has to make him want to.

• I agree with John Clay. Young and Randle found perfect landing spots.

• James Young's father on Coach Cal: "Cal is a man of his word." All I can say is, "Word!"

• Only Wildcats selected in the first round, but the SEC had four other players taken later in the draft.

Other Kentucky sports

• Mitch Barnhart has a post up at Cat Scratches lauding Kentucky's fantastic athletics year. Consider:

  We received the news this morning that we came in 11th in the national all-sports standings, far and away our best finish in the 21-year history of the Directors' Cup. In doing so, we achieved our goal of becoming a top-15 athletics department a year ahead of the schedule set forth in our 15 by 15 by 15 Plan.

  We did it with remarkable efforts across the program. Eighteen of our 22 teams contributed to our final point total, with seven finishing in the top 10 in their respective sports and 15 in the top 20. All those moments we'll remember for so long - Aaron Harrison shooting men's basketball to the national championship game, Kelsey Nunley pitching softball to the Women's College World Series and A.J. Reed proving himself the best baseball player in the country - made this happen.

  Impressive. Very impressive.

Links posts

• The Leach Report: Friday Wildcat Links

College football

• Wouldn't it be ironic if the landmark 1984 NCAA v. Oklahoma Board of Regents Supreme Court case that ended the NCAA's control over television for college football ultimately saves it in the O'Bannon case?

• An interesting and true argument by the NCAA that there is no market restraint for some other organization to pay players. The NAIA could, for example. The NCAA does not set a barrier for another athletics association to form and begin to pay players salaries. The NCAA is tacitly admitting this when it talks about forming Division IV — they know that larger schools could simply leave the NCAA and form a new associations with any rules they want to make, including player salaries or stipends.

  Of course, you'll see no rush for schools to do this. Actually, I think O'Bannon might have done better by simply suing UCLA instead of the entire NCAA, and not for anything as complex as antitrust, where arcane arguments can often be successful.

College basketball

• Russ Smith is drafted in the 2nd round — #47 by Philadelphia, who then traded him to the New Orleans Pelicans. He'll be playing with Anthony Davis (assuming he sticks).

• The NCAA is altering the airborne shooter rule back to how it was in the 2012-13 rulebook. A defender must be in legal guarding position before the offensive player leaves the ground. That's good, I think.

• UCLA and Michigan both had three players taken last night, with UCLA having three go in the first round.

• For the first time since 2010, Florida has no player selected in the NBA Draft. Patric Young was not selected, but I suspect he will make a team somewhere. Hat tip: NextCats.

• Michigan an NBA factory? Where's the outrage? Hat tip: NextCats.

• Looking at Kentucky's history of first round picks.

• Alligator Army stunned that Florida had zero players picked in the draft. I'm not surprised at all.

Other sports news

• Even in defeat, this is US Soccer's finest hour.

• Adam Silver explains his rationale behind trying to change the age limit for the NBA Draft. It's pretty much what you'd expect.

  As I've said in the past, the NBA has no incentive to expand the NBADL, because they get it for free from colleges. But he makes the point that as the NCAA entry standards go up, the NBADL could become a more frequently-used entry point for those talents who are not academically qualified to go to college.

• This was a very nice thing Adam Silver did for Isaiah Austin. Kudos.

• I'm wondering what the 76ers drafting of Joel Embiid means for Nerlens Noel. Here's the take by Liberty Ballers:

  When Embiid is healthy, expect him to combine with Nerlens Noel to make a frightening good power forward/center combination. Embiid combines the size of a center with a workable perimeter jumper. The two can play together, I believe, though any combination of two interior-minded bigs needs work to be a usable NBA offense. Hopefully, Noel's development and recovery season results in a truly reformed jumper.

  Hopefully...

• LeBron James gets his point guard. I think Shabazz Napier will help the heat a lot. I think Chalmers or Cole should be dealt.

• Bill Simmons, objective NBA analyst? Not so much, it seems ...

• Five biggest draft night shockers. Gary Harris falling so far was a little hard to understand.

• Lakers get high grades for the draft.

Other news

• The CDC says excessive drinking is responsible for 1 in 10 adult deaths.

• Bad tech habits and how to stop them. I wish people would read this and take it to heart. For example, cell phones in restaurants are absolutely the most annoying thing ever.

• News you can use: The latest wrinkle in hacker-proof passwords. For me, there's only one — Lastpass.