The winning question used to be paramount. That has changed in recent years as scouts and player-personnel people have been confronted with high-school players and inexperienced college players.
When I talk to people in the business, I hear less about winning and more about upside, less about basketball skill and more about potential. It is thinking along those lines that has helped the NBA get into the sorry state it finds itself where the game often looks more ponderous than beautiful.
If it is Horford, I have no complaints. His resume, as do the resumes of Florida teammates Joakim Noah and Corey Brewer, certainly has the required winning. Horford is a low-post player with a game that plays well out to the foul line. When he is on the court, with or without the ball, he makes winning decisions. When your team gets stuck for a few offensive possessions, he will be a reliable scorer. When the Gators got stuck, the ball almost always went to Horford.
I have not heard anybody mention Georgetown's Jeff Green for No. 3. Consider him mentioned. If I am holding No. 3, he is my pick.
Forget Green's statistics. You have to judge them in the context of the slow pace (few possessions) of his team. If you have just seen Green on television, you have not seen him. You need to be in the gym, preferably with a seat near the court, to understand Green's essence.
Everything Green does is subtle and very much old-school. Sometimes, old-school is a stereotype for nonathletic. In addition to a unique understanding of the game, Green is very definitely an NBA-caliber athlete.
When you see Green throw a 5-foot lob pass in traffic that leads to a layup for a player that nobody else even knew was open, you begin to get it. When you see him instantly recognize where the other nine players are in the middle of a fastbreak and then calculate what it means in between dribbles, think a 6-9 forward with the hoops sensibility of Steve Nash.
