There’s plenty of people of all types – insiders, basement dwellers, the average Joe – who will tell you exactly what will and will not happen at the draft. They will tell you what teams are thinking, and who is going to go where. And as soon as they are wrong, you won’t hear from them until the next prediction is ready. I’ve been asked who certain teams will take, and to tell you the truth, I have no idea.
With the Avalanche, they have stated they with take Nathan MacKinnon first overall, and the best I can do is analyze that. The next question is will they or won’t they, and I can only look towards the trust in their statement. I can’t predict the future.
In the end, it doesn’t matter. Tomorrow, we will find out what has happened, and all the wasted time and ink guessing what will happen will become even more useless than it already was. We will find know what direction the teams have gone, and we can analyze, praise, grouse, or whatever we feel like.
Predictions of this sort are fools gold. If someone tells you they know what a team is going to do, they are full of it. I quoted Elliotte Friedman earlier this week. It’s worth doing again. From his excellent 30 Thoughts column:
9. Back when I first started as a radio reporter covering the Toronto Raptors, then-GM Isiah Thomas warned me, “Never believe anything anyone tells you about the draft. At draft time, everyone lies.” One year later, Thomas gave me the scoop he was going to take Marcus Camby. I didn’t believe him. He did take Camby and laughed, “This time, I was telling the truth.” I couldn’t help but remember that conversation upon hearing the Colorado Avalanche’s newfound openness. Joe Sakic picking up the phone to tell a reporter his team’s plans “certainly goes against ‘The [Pierre] Lacroix Principle,’” an opposing executive said.
If a smart and experienced guy like Friedman doesn’t know, chances are very few people know.
And it really doesn’t matter in the end. Right, wrong, win or lose, we are waiting for the future. Let the waiting be fun.