News-Record.com

We're suckers. We love a mock draft the way we love a Larry King interview: Deep in your heart, you know it's not going to meet expectations, but you can't loook away.
Culling the pre-draft predictions of seven analysts, we have discovered the panelists collectively paired only 28.1 percent of first-round draftees with the teams that picked them. (The rate is 22.9 percent if you throw out the first two choices, Portland's Greg Oden and Seattle's Kevin Durant, which an alpaca could have guessed.)
Does this mean the seven experts are morons? Hardly. It means there are so many variables and combinations that nobody can reasonably claim confidence when predicting the machinations of 30 NBA teams. Specifically, 'tis the season for NBA executives to engage in disinformation, a modern euphemism for lying, when speaking with reporters. Float a suggestion that you want a point guard when, in fact, you covet a swing man. Induce somebody else to snatch the point guard you allegedly wanted, thereby freeing you to take the guy you really sought.
As a group, the seven voters (Chad Ford of ESPN; Gary Parrish, Jeff Reynolds and Tony Mejia of CBS Sportsline; Chris Ekstrand of CNNSI; and Jeff Goodman and Peter Schwager of Fox Sports accurately predicted 85 percent of the first-rounders with or without regard to drafting team. That's not bad.
Because this is America and we love awards, here are the Mockies, the citations for the most notable NBA Draft soothsaying:

Best pick (lowest accurate pairing of team and draftee); Jeff Reynolds of The Sports Xchange got it right when he said the Spurs would select Tiago Splitter with the 28th overall choice. That was the only accurate prediction in the bottom five by anybody. Splitter finally stayed in the draft after declaring and splitting in each of the previous 17 years.

Worst pick: Chris Ekstrand of CNNSI said Fresno State guard Dominic McGuire would go to Detroit at 27. McGuire didn’t hear his name called until Washington claimed him at 47.

Unforeseen: None of the seven analysts thought Wisconsin forward Alando Tucker (29th, Suns) or Oregon guard Aaron Brooks (26th to the Rockets) would be first-rounders.

Too foreseen: All seven thought McRoberts would be a first-round choice. He lasted until 37.

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