Dominique Jones

Another bright spot this season is fellow guard Tony Wroten, picked up dirt cheap from the Grizzlies (for the cost of only a second rounder) and averaging 13.9 points and 3.4 assists as one of the league's best sixth men. But despite head coach Brett Brown's stated intent, it seems unlikely that Wroten can co-exist with Carter-Williams either. Wroten is productive as a fairly one-dimensional but highly effective slasher to the basket, both in the half court and in transition. His mid-range game is non-existent, his jumpshot poor, his defense guilty of the same lapses as Carter-Williams’, and his mistake quotient high. Wroten brings duplicative strengths and weaknesses to the team-leading MCW, thus making them more of a point guard duo than a backcourt pairing. If Wroten is to have a future in Philadelphia – and he ought – then this pairing needs to work. If it cannot, perhaps his much increased trade value ought be capitalised upon.

It no longer matters, but, for point of reference, four year 120% contracts for [Xavier] Henry and [Greivis] Vasquez will total a combined $15,167,563. Contrastly, 100% scale contracts for the two of them would have totalled a combined $12,639,636. That is a difference of $2,527,927, over four years, for a combined eight years of service between the two players. That total amount is less than they just sold Dominique Jones for, less than they just gave Tony Allen, less than they got for taking on Steven Hunter's deal last year, and less than 40% of what they're still paying Marko Jaric, a man currently without a job. Worse still, Henry and Vasquez would probably have met those minute incentives - if not in year one, then through the remainder of the contract. The savings, therefore, would have been even less. Yet that comparatively trivial amount was deemed enough to risk everything.

Henry was the right pick, and Vasquez was OK, but a team ostensibly designed (if not mandated) to build through the draft decided to sell a first rounder (Dominique Jones, #25) for $3 million, which seems like a hypocrisy and a grave misallocation of assets. (It's an even graver error when that $3 million is instantly invested in Tony Allen, who will earn that much just to play 1,500 minutes at backup shooting guard next year. In a role Dominique Jones could easily have played. For less money. And for four years.)

Dominique Jones

Dallas bought Memphis's draft rights from Memphis on draft night, despite Memphis's supposed designs on being a team that builds through the draft. It gives Dallas a younger and better replacement for DeShawn Stevenson. This probably wasn't their highest priority of the summer, but it's a welcome bonus nonetheless.

Pick 25: Memphis drafts Dominique Jones, their second shooting guard of the draft. Orange Juice Mayonnaise really is moving to point guard, then. The pick is consummated by a camera shot of a Grizzlies fan, who shrugs like Nostradamus and openly mouths to the camera "I don't know who that is." Good times. I've felt that pain, brother.

Always willing to pass along some biological field notes, Bilas remarks that Jones is "not a run and jump athlete", but can "get into your body, absorb a bump, and still score." Oh, and he also points out his good wingspan.

Better still, "His father Norman is a plumber" is a sentence that hasn't been used on an NBA draft night broadcast since 1964.