Who Should the Wizards Draft? Version 1 - March 25, 2012

As we are witnessing in this year's NCAA Tournament, many of the prospects that the Wizards are in position to draft are on display. I currently have the 2012 NBA Draft top 5 for the Wizards as follows:

1. Anthony Davis - Just...I'm slightly fearful of another freakish athlete type, but you can't look at guys in a vacuum that way. Just appears to be a great kid who's still growing into his body. If I didn't know any better, I'd think the kid was a blossoming guard, who almost overnight had a dramatic growth spurt and is now learning to be a big man while still having some of the skillset of a guard. Oh..that IS what happened?
2. Michael Kidd-Gilchrist - My friend Hue RAVES about this guy. He has prototypical size for a 3, all the intangibles you want out of a player, and just seems to always be where he needs to be. An absolute hound on defense, and appears to have the work ethic and want to improve his jump shot.
3. Bradley Beal - Color me impressed with what little I've seen of him. He's a short 2, but when "Ray Allen meets Eric Gordon" is the description that Chad Ford gives him, I'm too excited to care.
4. Thomas Robinson - Local product, cold monster on the glass. Intent on learning and excelling at his craft. He and Davis are power forwards, which would compromise Booker, but I think you have to take the chance.
5. Harrison Barnes - Despite his horrible performance against Ohio, he still projects to be a 3 in the NBA that can put the ball in the hoop, which is by the way a glaring need for this team.

These all appear to be good kids, and their work ethic and desire have been among the superlatives attached to each at some point. This draft seems so loaded that you almost can't go wrong if you have a top 5 pick, which we project to have. Thought: Would you trade Booker for an additional lottery pick?

Does 1 - 2 = Positive?

I fought it until the bitter end. I did. I went all the way to the wire with JaVale McGee. As a fan, I can admit to being guilty of putting on blinders to things. Sometimes, even if we KNOW the truth, we deny it or keep ourselves from admitting it just because we WANT to believe otherwise. It started to get difficult. I definitely began to waver over the course of the season though, you HAVE to give me that. You know what? I'm not even going to get into it. Let's move forward.

Ranking the Wizards

So today has been an interesting day for Wizards fans. First, the Marc Stein report that the Wiz were among teams expressing strong interest in Andrew Bogut, which implies, as Mike Lee reported, that there is a willingness to trade JaVale McGee. Then the tweet by Mike Lee that the Wizards are so desperate to trade Andray Blatche that they'd be willing to trade anybody on the roster not named John Wall to get rid of him. Upon following this all day, and reading Bill Simmons' annual trade value column, I decided to group our roster categories based on my willingness to trade them.