Sonics Look For Depth With Second-Round Picks
The Seattle SuperSonics, a team that doesn’t think it needs much more to win an NBA championship, selected Arizona’s Joe Blair, Colorado State’s Joe Vogel and Georgia Tech’s Drew Barry in the second round of the draft Wednesday night.
With a fourth second-round selection, the Sonics picked Arizona State’s Ron Riley and then shipped him to Detroit for a 1997 second-round pick. The trade will be announced today, team president Wally Walker said.
Ten days after losing the NBA Finals to the Chicago Bulls, Seattle got the 6-foot-10, 251-pound Blair with the 35th pick, the 6-11, 255-pound Vogel with the 45th selection and Barry, the youngest son of former pro basketball great Rick Barry, with the 57th choice. Barry is a shooting guard.
Riley, also a shooting guard, was picked with the 47th selection.
On Tuesday, the Sonics sent their late first-round pick - No. 28 - to Atlanta for the Hawks’ 45th and 47th choices. Seattle already had the 35th and 57th picks.
Walker said following the draft that the Sonics actually considered making NBA history by passing the 28th pick if they couldn’t trade it.
Under the league’s new collective bargaining agreement, first-round selections must be given three-year guaranteed contracts worth a total of at least $1.56 million.
Second-round selections can be offered one-year contracts, not guaranteed, of about $225,000. With a veteran roster headed by All-Stars Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp, the Sonics aren’t expecting much help from Wednesday’s draft. If one of the three players makes their roster in October, they would be happy.
“Blair is more of a rebounder and Vogel is more of a runner and a shooter,” coach George Karl said.
Billy McKinney, the Sonics’ vice president of basketball operations, saw Vogel play in the Western Athletic Conference postseason tournament and liked what he saw.
“He has a chance to be a backup center in this league,” McKinney said. Blair also is a potential Sonics’ center.
“With three of our big guys being free agents and not knowing when they’ll sign, it might be interesting to see how he plays early in the summer league,” Karl said.
The Sonics have six free agents.
xxxx Sonics draft profiles (35th pick): Joe Blair, 6-10, 251, Arizona. Big, strong, muscular player who averaged 10.4 points in four-year college career, including 14.7 in 14 games as a senior before being ruled academically ineligible. (45th): Joe Vogel, 6-11, 255, Colorado State. As a senior, started 27 games and averaged 10.6 points, 6.6 rebounds, 2.3 blocks and 27.9 minutes. (57th): Drew Barry, 6-5, 191, Georgia Tech. The fourth of Rick Barry’s sons to play NCAA Division I basketball. Averaged 10.5 points for his four-year career, including 13.3 points as a senior.