For a player, draft night is the night when your emotions are either at an all-time high or an all-time low. For Raymond Felton I’ll assume that he chose the latter. Maybe not you say, maybe Ray is up to the task, maybe he wants to fend off the young gun that wants to come in and take his place. Maybe, just maybe, he is ready to exorcise those demons who call themselves Chris and Deron. I don’t buy it.

Unless the Bobcats want to carry two top ten picks that play the exact same position (the most important position in the NBA as far as continuity is concerned) then Felton should be and will be traded before the season opener.

As strange as it is, I am not even torn over MJ’s first pick in the ‘08 draft. As a player, I love D.J. Augustine and in the long run I think that Jordan may have made a very good pick…which is long overdue. Up until Derrick Rose became the consensus #1 pick in the draft, I thought that D.J. was the best pure PG in college basketball. He is an incredible slasher with a great outside stroke and a fearlessness that is mandatory for a 5′11 PG in the league. He is the consummate leader that will do whatever it takes to win, a quality that I don’t think Felton possessed after he left UNC. In the long run he will be an upgrade but for the time being we will all have to wait on Augustine to develop.

MJ has delivered one of his best drafts in recent memory, which ironically makes me want to stop rooting for the Bobcats. Why? You ask. Because of two words…Alexis Ajinca. This is the one guy that I didn’t want MJ or Larry to touch beyond a slap on the rear while giving him an ata-boy and sending him on the first flight back to France. Let’s get two things straight…he is a European big man (aka soft) and he is a project. I am not going to act like I have seen the guy play a lot overseas but his numbers speak for themselves, 5.6 points 5 boards. This pick wouldn’t anger me so much if there wasn’t an American project by the name of Deandre Jordan sitting in the green room until the second round. I mean c’mon MJ why do you always insist on making a “fashionable pick?” Show me the last European big man that was hard enough for his team not to have to carry him through the playoffs. I mean isn’t that what we are looking for here? As a first rounder, this guy should either be a contributor soon or a future anchor for years to come. Deandre will be a good NBA player, Alexis Ajinca will end up scarfing down some wine and cheese and calling it a career in 4 years.

Well, hopefully Jordan hit on the guards that he chose. Augustine is a great talent and in my opinion Kyle Weaver is the better half of a once extremely methodical Washington State backcourt. If he was on a good team like the Pistons, Celtics, or the Lakers, I might actually put it out there that he could be this year’s draft steal. He could’ve been a lesser version of what Stuckey was for the Pistons last year. But alas, he plays for the Charlotte Boobcats that are still an up and coming team without a true superstar leader. Hopefully Larry Brown can be that superstar and Weaver can be that steal that we all need..

When it is all said and done I can see Augustine being one of the premier PGs in the NBA. So isn’t that enough to get off of Jordan’s back? If Augustine turns into a great pro or perhaps even an all star shouldn’t that mean that Jordan got over the proverbial wall? I guess…for the future. But for now, until one of Jordan’s draft night prophecies comes to fruition, maybe Raymond Felton is not the only one in this organization that needs to exorcise his draft night demons.

Tags: bobcat, carolina, NBA, Raymond Felton