Thompson pick puts an end to basketball season
COUGARS
I would think you could say the 2010-11 Washington State University basketball season is officially over now that Klay Thompson's NBA draft saga is complete. But wait, there are still some loose ends. Read on.
••••••••••
• Washington State: Or a loose end. In the past couple weeks, WSU coach Ken Bone received quite a few calls from NBA teams about another Cougar early entry, DeAngelo Casto. Enough that Bone thought there was a good chance Casto would be picked in the last 10 or so players in the draft. NBAdraft.net even included Casto in its final predraft mockup, listing him as Sacramento's 60th pick. Instead the Kings took UW's Isaiah Thomas to end the draft. But expect Casto to find a home somewhere, either as a NBA free agent or overseas. He and Thompson have one thing in common: They both raised their stock with professional evaluators over the last month or so. ... When Thompson was thinking about coming out, there was some thought he would be a late first-round selection with a chance to move up some. But as an old scout once told me, all you really have to do in a situation like this is convince one guy. And Thompson convinced Jerry West (a Golden State consultant) - and plenty of others. By the end of his trek around the country, Thompson made himself a lot of money. ... Here's our story about Thompson's pick, 11th overall to Golden State. ... The San Francisco Chronicle had this story on the selection. ... The Mercury News in San Jose went deep into the pick, with a story, a Monte Poole column (which included a comparison to Reggie Miller) and a blog post from Tim Kawakami on coach Mark Jackson's comments. ... And that's about it from the newspapers. ... CougCenter has a post on Thompson's selection.
•••
• Around the Pac-10: The News Tribune covered Thomas' selection with this story, while the Seattle Times had this piece on Thomas' selection (and Thompson's). Down in LA, the Times put together this story on the two UCLA early entry players picked in the second round. (And don't miss this Steve Kelley column on UW coach Lorenzo Romar.) From Tucson, Derrick Williams joined Mike Bibby as the highest pick from UA when he went second to Minnesota. ... No one from Oregon was selected (not even former Duck Michael Dunigan), but this George Schroeder column on the on-going football investigation is worth reading.
•••
• That's it for this morning. Covering Hoopfest (really, one of the more cool things Spokane does each year) over the weekend, so I should have a nice tan come Monday. We'll be back when events warrant. Until then ...
