Westbrook a building block for defense

By Berry Tramel

Published: June 27, 2008

Your Sonics need a point guard, and with Derrick Rose, Deron Williams and Sir Chris Paul unavailable for selection about 15 minutes into the NBA draft Thursday night, Sam Presti did the next best thing.

Presti picked a point guard who just might be able to defend all those pesky dribblers who wreak havoc among the redwoods in NBA lanes.

UCLA's Russell Westbrook is the newest Sonic, and it's too early to tell if he will follow in Paul's path: point guard picked fourth overall, immediately handed a beleaguered team's reins, plays his maiden NBA season in Oklahoma City.

We don't know yet about that Ford Center stuff, or even the reins.

But it's not too early to figure out what Presti is thinking. He's thinking like the Spur that he used to be.

Sonics chairman Clay Bennett always has adored everything San Antonio basketball. Structure, management, style. Can't blame him; the Spurs have been winning and thriving in a small market for a very long time.

And much of that success is built around defense. The Spurs guard you.

From what everyone says, so does Westbrook.

The Sonics had the fourth pick in a three-star draft, so it was a crapshoot after the Bulls grabbed Rose, the Heat claimed Michael Beasley and the T-Wolves took O.J. Mayo.

Westbrook? Arizona combo guard Jerryd Bayless? Stanford center Brook Lopez? Indiana sharpshooter Eric Gordon?

Presti went with Westbrook, a 6-foot-3 thoroughbred who admits to playing out of control at times but was the best individual defender in the draft, according to ESPN's Jay Bilas, who may or may not know.

Presti tipped his hand with this selection. He had his pick of offensive point guards. Bayless, who ended up going 11th, much lower than expected, or Texas' D.J. Augustin, who went ninth, much higher.

Instead, Presti went with defense. While Westbrook won't sell many tickets in Seattle or Oklahoma City, if his defense matches its reputation, the Sonics have a winning ballplayer.

Championships still are won by defense. The Spurs, the Pistons, these '08 Celtics. The roadrunner teams — Dallas a few years ago, Phoenix still — keep chasing the NBA title.

These Sonics are a long way from even talking about a title, much less winning one, but defense is a good second step, after the first step of the 2007 draft, which gave the Sonics cornerstones Kevin Durant and Jeff Green.

Presti drew rave reviews for that draft and all the picks he collected for this draft, which came via a series of trades in which he scattered ex-Sonics and fat contracts all over the league.

These selections — namely Westbrook and 7-foot project Serge Ibaka of the Congo — will not earn him draftsman of the day. This will be a wait-and-see project. The drafting of Ibaka is another old San Antonio ploy; grab an international player, let him simmer overseas, then bring him to the NBA under the radar.

Say this for Presti. Previous Sonic general managers kept picking center stiffs much earlier in the draft than the 24th slot in which commissioner David Stern called Ibaka's name.

So I'm still big on Presti. He seems like he knows what he's doing, even if we didn't know he was going to do it.

Comments