2012 NBA Mock Draft, 2.0

I'm not sure why I keep calling these "Mock" Drafts. The Mambino way is never to actually predict what these pro teams will do. As I've said word for word in past posts, doing so is an exercise in stupidity. The NBA roundtable knows more basketball than your average fan, but we don't pretend to have access to team war rooms, private prospect workouts, and my favorite, "sources."

So what we do here is put on our GM caps and pretend like we run the basketball operations of a franchise. Below, we will compare our picks to expert mock drafts, which provide the best glimpse of what the teams will actually do tomorrow night in Newark. And by "we," I mean our three regulars, KOBEsh, The CDP, and myself, and contributors El Miz and 6 on Hibbert.

Version 1 of this Draft took a format of alternating picks. For this second and final post on the 2012 NBA Draft, the 5 of us made consensus picks via majority rule. Check it.

We'll start at the #2 selection, currently (but maybe not ultimately) owned by the Charlotte Bobcats. Anthony Davis to the New Orleans Hornets at #1 has been a lock even before Davis declared. Now he spends his time meeting kids in the Bayou and having playdates with head coach Monty Williams, a la Tim Duncan and Gregg Popovich in 1997. "Joining" us will be Chad Ford of ESPN and the heads at NBADraft.net.

Team	MAMBINO	Chad Ford, ESPN	NBADraft.net
CHA	Thomas Robinson	Thomas Robinson	Thomas Robinson
WAS	Michael Kidd-Gilchrist	Bradley Beal	Bradley Beal
CLE	Bradley Beal	Michael Kidd-Gilchrist	Harrison Barnes
SAC	Andre Drummond	Harrison Barnes	Michael Kidd-Gilchrist
POR	Dion Waiters	Damian Lillard	Damian Lillard

After Davis, the draft is wide open, for two reasons. First, the Bobcats have needs at every single position, although I guess you could say point guard is locked up by the disappointing Kemba Walker. Second, because they have so many needs (even after trading for fellow UConn disappointment Ben Gordon), rumors are constantly floating regarding Charlotte trading down in the first round. And why not? Players 2-5 can make the argument that they should go right after Davis, and two of them, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Bradley Beal, may one day be the best player in this class. But for now, Mambino's gonna go with Thomas Robinson, in agreement with Ford and NBADraft.net.

The most eye-opening difference concerns Portland's pick at #6, where the Mambino consensus has selected Syracuse combo guard Dion Waiters instead of traditional point guard Damian Lillard from Weber State. Portland does need a true quarterback, with Raymond Felton's jelly rolls on his way out of town. However, they also need scoring in the backcourt: Wesley Matthews didn't really improve off of a promising season 2 years ago, and Jamal Crawford will definitely be ripping nets elsewhere. Ford himself describes Waiters as a "scoring machine," and at 6'4", Waiters would reach his NBA potential by playing the point. Of course, he could just blitzkrieg the league as a scoring 1 like Russell Westbrook, which would be totally fine as well.

Team	MAMBINO	Ford	NBADraft.net
GS	Harrison Barnes	Andre Drummond	Andre Drummond
TOR	Jeremy Lamb	Dion Waiters	Dion Waiters
DET	John Henson	John Henson	John Henson
NO	Damian Lillard	Austin Rivers	Austin Rivers
POR	Meyers Leonard	Tyler Zeller	Meyers Leonard

Mambino thoroughly enjoys trashing Harrison "The Brand" Barnes, he of the PowerPoint presentation that accompanied his choice to attend North Carolina. While his athleticism pushes the experts to place him in the top 5 without question, they don't value a player's true character like we do. Why waste a high pick on a guy who is obsessed with his individual brand? Didn't work for Cleveland, so it doesn't work for us. Ultimately, Barnes was a unanimous Mambino selection for the Golden State Warriors, which we think is the best landing spot for him. Mark Jackson is a no-nonsense coach, regardless of his knowledge of Xs and Os. He has a great shot of taming Barnes' me-first attitude, or at least, a much better shot than any of the coaches in the top 6 picks.

Team	MAMBINO	Ford	NBADraft.net
MIL	Terrence Jones	Terrence Ross	Tyler Zeller
PHO	Kendall Marshall	Jeremy Lamb	Terrence Ross
HOU	Perry Jones	Meyers Leonard	Jeremy Lamb
PHI	Tyler Zeller	Perry Jones	Arnett Moultrie
HOU	Terrence Ross	Moe Harkless	Moe Harkless

Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist were the superstars that headlined Kentucky's championship team this past season, but they wouldn't have made it that far without Terrence Jones. Jones, an elder statesman to the Diaper Dandy-flushed Wildcats as a sophomore, was the glue guy who didn't fill the stat sheet. He grabbed rebounds in traffic, filled out passing lanes on the break, and was a menace on the defensive end. The experts don't think too much of this, apparently, likely because his numbers experienced a drop from his freshman year and because Jones himself admitted that guarding NBA forwards will be a challenge in his rookie year. But have they seen how great he treats his mother!?

Team	MAMBINO	Ford	NBADraft.net
DAL	Austin Rivers	Terrence Jones	Perry Jones
HOU	Quincy Miller	Arnett Moultrie	Marquis Teague
ORL	Marquis Teague	Jared Sullinger	Andrew Nicholson
DEN	Jared Sullinger	Kendall Marshall	Kendall Marshall
BOS	Fab Melo	Royce White	Terrence Jones

Stay in school or go to the pros? Mambino goes back and forth with the question that plagues lottery picks year after year. On one hand, Austin Rivers possesses more potential on the basketball court than most people possess doing anything, his basketball IQ is advanced for his age, and he has the balls of a true cocksman. But other than that incredible buzzer-beating shot to take down rival Carolina, Rivers had a pretty average year, for his standards. He's not strong enough to play 30 minutes at either guard position, and one more year under Coach K could have made him a top 5 pick in 2013.

On the other hand, Jared Sullinger was a surefire top 10 selection last year, but he decided to return to Ohio State, due to several factors, those of which included the possibility of a locked out season. This year, even though Sullinger led the Buckeyes to a Final Four appearance, Sullinger failed to score an invite to the green room, which displays an unwillingness of a team in the top 15 to draft him. NBA doctors have red-flagged his achy back, and that represents the fall of his once-blue chip stock, but I have been lukewarm on Sullinger from day one. He is undersized to play power forward, and too slow to play small forward. People disagree with me wholeheartedly, but I proclaim him as the next Craig Smith. He may have no place in the L in 5 years, as the game has become incredibly fast-paced compared to college.

Team	MAMBINO	Ford
BOS	Royce White	Andrew Nicholson
ATL	Moe Harkless	Tony Wroten
CLE	Will Barton	Fab Melo
MEM	John Jenkins	Marquis Teague
IND	Arnett Moultrie	Draymond Green

NBADraft.net gets penalized for slotting Kentucky's Marquis Teague in front of UNC's Kendall Marshall in the previous section. Unreal. We will not be using their services for the rest of the post. Or maybe I'm just lazy, you decide.

Anyways, I wanted to go big-big with Boston's two consecutive picks, but was overruled by the roundtable, who selected small forward Royce White. Yes, those Twitter rumors about Kevin Garnett's retirement are fake...but only for the moment. If the Big Ticket hangs em up, coupled with the fact that Brandon Bass isn't a lock to return as a free agent, Boston's gotta select two frontline players.

Team	MAMBINO	Ford
MIA	Andrew Nicholson	Jeff Taylor
OC	Draymond Green	Evan Fournier
CHI	Doron Lamb	Will Barton
GS	Evan Fournier	Quincy Miller

Yup, I'm lazy. Hope you enjoyed these picks. KOBEsh, El Miz, and I will be in attendance tomorrow night. YOUR New York Knickerbockers and YOUR Los Angeles Lakers need miracles to help their rosters. Thoughts will be live-tweeted @TheGreatMambino.