Darrell Arthur is not sick.
And it turns out I'm clairvoyant or something. That last post I "blogged" this afternoon--the one about how disappointing (and financially costly) it can be when a player falls to a lower draft order than he anticipated--couldn't have set the stage more perfectly for a story emerging today about a player, Darrell Arthur, who plummeted from his projected spot in the early teens to the 27th pick. This nosedive down the draft board could have cost the Arthur family as much as a million dollars per year.
The really crappy thing is that this sudden devaluation was fomented by a false rumor of a mysterious kidney ailment. Arthur's coach at Kansas, Bill Self, worked the phones to try to quash the misinformation as he watched one team after another pass on the talented 6-9 Forward who helped the Jayhawks win last year's NCAA Championship. (view the entire AP article here).
Watching the draft with his players at his home in Lawrence, Self wound up making frantic calls trying to help Arthur get things straightened out.
"I was scrambling around trying to get information myself because this was unknown to me until [Wednesday night] and apparently was unknown to many of the NBA teams until the very end.
"They said one minute before the draft, 'Can't take him. Doctors won't let us take him,' which is sad because then somebody really dropped the ball. I don't know what the reasoning was, but hopefully they had a valid reason."
Arthur was drafted by the New Orleans Hornets and eventually traded to the Memphis Grizzlies. From a Spurs perspective, it is worth noting that we were the last team to pass on Arthur at the 26th pick. If he ends up being a monster in the league for years to come--perhaps motivated to even greater heights by the injustice served to him yesterday--the Spurs will be one of about 15 teams who will lament this Kidney prank even more than he does.
3 comments:
We haven't made a splash in the draft in a while. I hope this latest choice isn't an omen of the end of the R.C. and Pop draft dominance.
Yeah, exactly. It seems like it's a crucial time for the Spurs. If Tim and Manu can transition into playing supporting roles to Tony and a new young star or two in the next few years, then the good times could keep on rolling. But if we don't get a draft jewel or a great free agent, we might be in for some mediocre years.
I wouldn't be surprised if Pop is, as usual, a step ahead of everyone and pretty soon unveils the next young Manu Ginobili out of Durkidurkistan or some little corner of the world nobody thought to look.
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