Where Will Mullens Go?
Where will BJ and his crustache call home this year?As Chris mentioned briefly in his post yesterday, BJ Mullens will hear his name called Thursday night at the 2009 NBA Draft in Madison Square Garden. While it is not a question of if the 7-foot freshman will be drafted, there is a big question of where he will be selected.
Just a year ago, another promising 7-foot Buckeye frosh, Kosta Koufos, left OSU to pursue a career in “The League”. After a strong Big Ten Tournament and NIT Championship run, Kosta seemed to be in prime position to be a lottery selection, and was possibly even mentioned by some to be a top 10 pick. Unfortunately for Koufos he fell to 23rd in the first round out of 30 picks and averaged a mere 4.9 points and 2.7 rebounds per contest while appearing in just 48 out of 82 games (spent some time in the NBDL).
BJ Mullens enters the draft just a year later and while he edges Kosta with an NCAA Tournament appearance, his accolades on the court are far below what everyone’s favorite Greek did in Columbus. Mullens averaged a pedestrian 8.8 points and 4.7 rebounds per game after coming into school as Rivals #1 rated player. You can argue he played just 20.3 minutes per game, but the bottom line is that he never earned more time than that. His play consisted of a familiar routine to OSU fans in which he was inexistent on the defensive end of the court, took plays off throughout the game, failed to make a basket that was not a dunk, and a display of butter fingers underneath the hoop, all contributing to his inability to grab more minutes off the bench, thus stunting his growth as a player.
Clearly Mullens was not ready to leave, but due to his financial situation and his high ceiling of potential it was a no-brainer that he would depart for the NBA. Now that the draft is just a day away, the question is which team will take a chance on BJ’s boom or bust potential? DraftExpress has BJ headed to Phoenix at #14, as the final lottery pick, nbadraft.net and FanHouse have him going #15 to Detroit, RealGM has him #17 to Philadelphia, and BJ himself claims to have a promise to slip no further than #16 to the Bulls. So which of these destinations will actually get to host BJ and his crustache?
I personally think BJ will be selected just outside of the lottery to the Pistons at #15. If you look at Detroit’s make-up and early season move of trading Chauncy Billups to Denver, Joe Dumars is trying to rebuild around the core of players he has drafted and acquired in recent years. He even turned down a trade yesterday that would have brought in Rajon Rondo and Ray Allen in order to preserve guard Rodney Stuckey’s future in Motown. With Stuckey, Aaron Afflalo, Walter Sharpe, and Jason Maxiell, along with Richard Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince, the Pistons have a nice group of players to build around and are only missing a center. Mullens is certainly a player who can fill that void for Joe Dumars and is the only big worth taking in the middle of the first round.
While I wish BJ came back for one more year in Columbus to hone his game and bring OSU back to the elite national level, it seems like he made the right move for him and his family. Whether he is a mid-round pick this year or a top ten selection next year, it won’t affect his future. The only thing that will determine Mullens’ success on the court at the next level is his determination to want to be the best. The talent is there, but will it ever be able to be tapped into? That is a question NBA executives will have to ask themselves before they make their picks on Thursday night.
Good Luck B.J. I hope you work your butt off and make us proud.
Word.
Love your site – grammar nazi time though: Is “inexistent” a word? Nonexistent, right?
Also, “…it won’t effect his future”. Should be “affect”.
No ill will intended, just wanted to give a heads up.
well you may have a point on affect, but inexistent is indeed a word……get your websters out: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/inexistent
http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=l4ftxy
How about it guys?
While your dreaming:
http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=n6a4ut
if you can’t view it, the trade is
Wallace to the Raptors for Bosh, and Pavlovic and JJ Hickson to the Hawks for Josh Smith.
http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=nmsphj
http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=myo7fy
Hollinger says this will add 8 wins to our regular season total…..that would put us at 74 ….isn’t the record 72?
I wonder how the Bulls feel about him saying that. BJ’s not the brightest.
To be fair, isn’t Columbus’ favorite Greek either Apollo or perhaps The Happy variety?
That’s up for your choice….either way they all performed better than BJ
No, the favorite Greek is the Gyro Shoppe on Henderson.
My favorite Greek was/is Gina, a Hooters waitress at the old 161 spot. Man, was she beautiful!
BTW, Frog Bear and Wild Boar is having a draft party tomorrow night and rumor has it that Oden, Conley, Cook and a few others might be in attendance.
http://www.frogbearbar.com/
More fuel to that fire, Oden/Cook are in Dayton right now.
http://www.daytondailynews.com/dayton-sports/daequan-greg-oden-on-nba-life-175003.html
I just dont see BJ as the type to ” work his butt off”, this guy got by on god given gifts alone through HS and got a big wake up call in college.
Id rather have Koufos, and I say the ‘07 team was better than the ‘08 team despite the tourney appearance.
BTW, is anyone looking at the big guy from Northwestern? Or is he even in the draft this year, I think that guy could help a team/
Another good one, Payne is at Cook’s camp talking to Oden, might play for Oak Hill academy.
http://www.daytondailynews.com/dayton-sports/daequan-greg-oden-on-nba-life-175003.html
wow didn’t think everyone would think BJ would slip like Kosta…where do you guys think he will end up?
Europe
I think BJ will live up to his initials in the pros and suck.
good piece on mullens. he didn’t exactly leave columbus unscathed, which i hope is a warning for all other people who think they are good enough to be a one and done…but don’t prove much.
yep, the hype around him before he became a buckeye was warranted because of his stats (which is why rivals hailed him as #1). back in my high school, guys were judged on how tall they were, which is certainly an important quality to have. however, the coaches who evaluated the kids failed to recognize other important qualities like talent, efficiency, effectivness, and attitude. thus, the record was always very poor, and the best record (at least while i was still going there) was a .500 record (and they always did miserable in the tournament as a low seed). i don’t believe i would have recruited bj mullens, but i can’t blame osu (matta) for fawning the young man. matta read into his statistics, thought how bj could help his team, but failed to look at his talent and attitude.
the guy was taller than everybody he faced in high school….and that probably produced a lot of wins for his team…..but again, it does not translate into a good basketball player. he met some competition in college and experienced hardship. lastly, based on what i have heard, he was not exactly an academic all-american. which means, NBA, HERE I COME!
yeah your right from day 1 (literally the first day of class when you stand up and do those stupid ice breakers), BJ literally stood up in front of 20-30 students when asked to give his name and an interesting fact about himself and said “Hi, my name is BJ Mullens and I’m going to the league next year”. Great attitude from the start
as a sixers fan, dear god please no BJ.
Question for any of the people on here that make highlight videos. Specifically the HD vids. How are you getting the HD content onto your PC? I’m looking for a cost effective way to do this.
Looks like Shaq is headed to Cleveland for a one year run at the title.
confirmed:
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=4285489
the Atlanta Hawks for some dumb reason will pick Mullens. gut feeling.