Who’s No. 1? Bogut, Williams await big decision by Milwaukee
NEW YORK – All they can do now is wait.
University of Utah center Andrew Bogut and North Carolina forward Marvin Williams have gone through pre-draft workouts with both the Milwaukee Bucks and the Atlanta Hawks, met with team officials and went through draft-eve interviews with reporters Monday at the Westin Hotel in Times Square.
All that is left for the talented young pair of National Basketball Association prospects is to count the hours until, barring a trade, the Bucks make one of them the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA draft tonight at the Theater in Madison Square Garden.
By the sound of it, both were ready to get on with it.
“It’s been like that for the past couple months now … the speculation,” Bogut said. “It’s just one day closer. It will be a good day just to get it out of the way, but it’s definitely exciting.”
Asked about the uncertainty of what might lie ahead, Williams said: “That’s the scary part, to be honest with you. You have no input in where you’re going to go. It could be the fun part, too, but it does make you a little nervous. I’m sure everyone is a little bit nervous now.”
The two words foremost in the minds of Bogut and Williams lately have been “Milwaukee and Atlanta.” The Hawks hold the No. 2 pick and are expected to draft the player not selected by the Bucks.
Bogut and Williams agree on one thing. Neither cares as much about being No. 1 as he does about landing in the right situation. Bogut not only seems to think he would fit in nicely with the Bucks from a basketball perspective, he also believes he could live comfortably in Milwaukee because he is not a big fan of the faster-paced, big-market cities in the league, especially after living the past couple of years in Salt Lake City.
“Milwaukee is a great city, a city I’d settle into pretty easily,” he said.
Williams, on the other hand, is a bit uneasy about what his role would be with the Bucks. He plays both forward positions and is only too aware that the Bucks already have Desmond Mason playing small forward and Joe Smith at power forward. The 19-year-old Williams considers the Hawks to be a team building for the future with players who belong more to his peer group.
“It’s nice to be No. 1,” Williams said. “But I’m more concerned about what team I’m going to and how I fit in with that team. That’s my main concern. Atlanta’s really young so I would definitely be a good fit there. They like to run and I like to run so I would fit playing their style.”
Williams, though, said he had received no assurance from the Hawks that he would end up with them.
For the first time in five years, the No. 1 overall pick this year will have played at least one season of college basketball. Bogut played two seasons at Utah and Williams played one at North Carolina.
Cincinnati’s Kenyon Martin was the last collegiate player to go first, to New Jersey in 2000. The first overall picks since then have been Kwame Brown (Washington), Yao Ming (Houston), LeBron James (Cleveland) and Dwight Howard (Orlando), all but Yao straight out of high school.