The 7 Footer Fever

If I had to write an NBA horror movie, it would be starring Darko Milicic, Kwame Brown, Hasheem Thabeet, Greg Oden, Andrew Bynum, Nikoloz Tskitishvili, Eddy Curry, DeSagana Diop, Andrea Bargnani and every NBA scout who ever succumbed to the 7 footer fever. Symptoms are: unealistic expectations, paranoia, unexpected bleeding of the eyes and hallucinations of Dikembe Mutombo and Hakeem Olajuwon.

Catch my drift? Ex-player turned ESPN analyst Jalen Rose said it best: ''If you're 7 foot tall, you can get a job playing basketball.'' He's right, but why is it so and why do 7 footers keep failing to meet expectations over an over again? There's a gold rush going on in the NBA. A treasure hunt with a prize that doesn't quite exist : The next great NBA center. In that evanescent pursuit, several teams botched their draft and handicapped their lineups. So let's examine the question : is that extra inch worth eschewing skills?

The Hoops Nerd's 1st Official 2014 NBA Mock Draft

This is it! The Hoops Nerd's 1st Official 2014 NBA Mock Draft. There will be one now, one after March Madness (one round) and one a week before the actual draft (two rounds). Here are the ground rules. 

1) The drafting ranks are based on the standings of December 17th, 2013. I didn't do any lottery. Too complicated. 

2) I ranked the lottery teams first, then playoff teams second, based on actual winning percentages. Based on that methodology, weird things happened, like Toronto being in the playoffs for example.

3) Everybody declares until players say otherwise.

Are you ready? Forget everything you know about mock drafts.