Good GMs also find talent in the second round and with undrafted non-roster players.  I'm not sure that there's evidence that the late first round, where you've got a guaranteed contract in hand really has a higher success rate than the 2nd round or non-roster invitees.  

Would Minn really be better off with a guy taken at 25 who gets a contract no matter what over bringing in several guys who weren't drafted?  I'm not saying I know the answer, but the overall rate of success of late first rounders suggests that a) luck is important and b) if you can spot talent, you can spot it elsewhere too.  Other than Garnett (again, luck is important) who has McHale spotted?  

Losing Garnett is going to be a tough sell to the fans in Minn.  A 25th overall pick won't win much love at the box office.

This might be a last ditch effort seeing as how it is higly likely that Minny has already agreed to send him elsewhere. Although this is all unconfirmed mumbo jumbo. although i have been hearing similar things on two different boards by two different posters.

August 6th--we will see if something happens.

I'm already sad to see Brandon go.

I'm not disputing that there are good late round picks.  I'm saying that most of them aren't good.  Throw as many names as you can find.  I'm certain I can come up with twice as many flops picked in the same slot.  The list of names doesn't prove that late first round picks are going to be good.  It just says that they aren't all flops.

There are always good players at the back of the draft.  There's usually good players in the second round and as non-roster invitees.  But odds don't favor a late first round pick being any good and odds are important  (unless one is a fool who doesn't understand statistics, 'invests' in lottery tickets and decides that putting the deed to the ranch on the roulette wheel is sound financial management).  I tend to think that talent evaluation has a bunch to do with it, but so does luck, and, based on the number of flops to success stories, luck probably has as much to do with it as anything.  MOST late first round picks don't wind up being any good.  Is this because the talent scouts are all terrible, or because there's luck involved?  

If a team is banking on late round draft picks improving them, they're taking a big gamble.  Sure, someone wins the lottery.  Sure, a particular number comes up on the roulette wheel, slot machines pay out big every so often, but they're still the fool's bet.  

It might not hurt (much--you do have to pay a guaranteed salary) to have a late first round pick, but it probably doesn't help much.  In the business of basketball, teams want to make money, and having Thomas around for a year at $8million has a real cost ($8million!) to the Sonics, an amount more than what they made in profit last year.  Is it worth turning a loss for a late first rounder?  Maybe you think it is.  Maybe you feel that a team's net profits are worth what's probably a ten to one shot of getting a guy who can actually get off the bench in the Association.  Personally, were I a GM, it wouldn't be worth nearly that much, but hey, that's just me )(and my burden of understanding statistics and probability).

Nelson traded three future firsts to get Webber because he believed with Webber those picks would be late first rounders and he believed he could find equal talent in the CBA or elsewhere.  Based on his record for non-roster invitees, I'd say he's probably right.  The nice thing about those guys is that you're not waiting to see who is out there with one shot at it.  You don't have to risk a guaranteed contract if they suck, can't make the team in camp, whatever.  He certainly wasn't going to pay $8 million for something he thought he could get for nothing.