I was reading Raptors HQ a few days ago and came across an interesting comment by Tinmann near the bottom of an Andrea Bargnani article
I will always go back to that ESPN poll with NBA GM’s prior to Bargnani’s draft. The main thing I remember is a question asked
“who would be the best players five years from now” and Bargnani was the first choice of a substantial number of the GM’s.
Another commentator, Assistant GM, recalled the same article + result, except remembered the article was on NBA.com. I had no recollection of the survey myself, but I was intrigued and wanted to see exactly how many GM’s did pick Bargnani as the best player from the draft in five year’s time.
So, I tracked down the article and here are the results:
So, I reckon that 27 GM’s responded to the survey:
- Six of whom named Andrea Bargnani as the best player in five year’s time
- Six of whom named Ty Thomas as the best player in five year’s time
- Five of whom named Randy Foye as the best player in five year’s time
That accounts for 17 of the 27 votes.
- Brandon Roy was the next highest with just three votes — while 12 of the 27 votes picked him correctly as the Rookie of the Year
- The remaining seven votes were split between four players — LaMarcus Aldridge, Rudy Gay, Adam Morrison and Shelden Williams
In conclusion, a fifth of the league picked Bargnani as the best player to come out of the draft with another fifth picking Tyrus Thomas. Only one tenth of the league choose Brandon Roy, who at this point is the consensus best player from that draft class.
Anyway, I just thought it was very interesting to stroll back down memory lane and check out a survey of league GM’s and what their thoughts were about the draft at that time.
nbaroundtable.wordpress.com 
Dave,
Unlike others in the blogosphere, I have always stated my belief that a decent market actually exists should Bryan Colangelo ever decide to move the former 2006 No. 1 [overall] Draft Pick. Assuming that the GM’s polled could not vote for their own players, I’d suggest that Bryan Colangelo have his speed dial set to the numbers for those 6 other practicioners should he finally come to the realization that the MAJOR problem with his team’s increasingly poor performance of the last two seasons has been tied to the shift of Andrea Bargnani into the Center position for the Rapotrs and his increased PT at this Centrifugal Force position, i.e. Defensively, Offensively, and in terms of Rebounding, rather than any deficiencies in the play of either Chris Bosh [who is now playing out of position] and/or Jose Calderon, the actual foundation players for Toronto.
The problem isn’t playing Bosh and Bargnani together, as some others might postulate.
The problem is that Andrea Bargnani just isn’t very good yet as a Center or a Power Forward in the NBA … when you consider his combination of Offensive, Defensive and Rebound skills.
PS. I have always maintained that the bulk of NBA GM’s don’t really have a very high level of Basketball Acumen to begin with, despite the fact that the very best ones obviously do.
Khandor,
Full agreement on just about everything you said there.