By Marty Blake

Dallas, Texas, July 3 – The annual Global Games started here July 1 with an exhibition involving the Chinese National Team vs. Team USA and continues on July 3 before regular tourney play kicks off Thursday, July 5.

Teams from Brazil, Africa, Puerto Rico, Argentina, and Team USA will battle a select Global Games team (comprised of players from Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma State, SMU, and Mississippi State). The USA team, which will be coached by DePaul’s Jerry Wainwright, will represent the US in the U19 World Championship in Serbia later this month. Ryan Blake will represent our office at this event as he picks players of the future throughout the world. But let’s take a step back and look at last week’s draft.

Two teams did not have any selections – Cleveland and Denver. Check out the players who were not drafted and note the makeup of the summer teams that start playing in a few days – 21 of them in Las Vegas and others in Orlando and Salt Lake City.

Let’s play a numbers game:

13 – The number of true international players selected in this year’s draft – 15 if you include Al Horford and Joakim Noah.

8 – The number of international players selected in the second round

3 – The number of Orlando Pre-Draft players taken in the first round

17 – The number of Orlando Pre-Draft players taken in the second round

5 – The number of players who either turned down or pulled out of the Orlando camp – indicating they were first round talent – who went in the second round.

5 – The number of players from the University of Florida (Noah, Brewer, Horford, Green and Richard) who were drafted in this year’s draft, three of them in the lottery, joining UCLA (1969 –Lew Alcindor, Lucius Allen, Ken Heitz, Bill Sweet and Lynn Shackelford), Stephen F. Austin State (1970 – George Johnson, Surry Oliver, Erwin Polnick, Marvin Polnick and Narvis Anderson), Minnesota (1973 – Jim Brewer, Ron Behagen, Clyde Turner, Dave Winfield and Corky Taylor), UNLV (1978 – Reggie Theus, Jackie Robinson, Brett Vroman, Tony Smith and Earl Evans), North Carolina (1980 – Mike O’Koren, John Virgil, Rich Yonakor, Jeff Wolf and Dave Colescott), Indiana (1983 – Randy Wittman, Jim Thomas, Ted Kitchel, Steve Bouchie and Tony Brown), Oklahoma (1983 – David Little, Chuck Barnett, Mark Clark, Charles Kraak and Bo Overton), Kentucky (1984 – Sam Bowie, Mel Turpin, Dickie Beal, Jim Master and Tom Heitz) and UCONN (2006 - Rudy Gay, Hilton Armstrong, Marcus Williams, Josh Boone, and Denham Brown.)

22 – The years from the last five selected to last year – 1984 to 2006

4 – The number of first round picks (of five) from the UCONN contingent last year – the most first round picks in the history of the NBA selected from one school.

And keep in mind past groupings were once spread out among as many as nine rounds.

Let’s take a look at some of the highly rated players who were not even drafted. I am sure you’ll be able to watch them in summer league play on NBA TV so check your local listings. A number of undrafted players will make an NBA team come the season.

Here’s my picks of who will get a chance to play post-draft with an NBA team:

CENTERS – Darryl Watkins (Syracuse), Kyle Visser (Wake Forest) and James Hughes (Northern Illinois)

POWER FORWARDS – Coleman Collins (Virginia Tech), Anthony Oliver (Creighton), Ryvon Coville (Detroit Mercy), Justin Doellman, Mario Boggan (Oklahoma State), Ekene Ibekwe (Maryland), Terrence Roberts (Syracuse), Ali Traore (France), and Caleb Green (Oral Roberts).

SMALL FORWARDS – Quinton Hosley (Fresno State), Curtis Sumpter (Villanova), Cartier Martin (Kansas State), Ivan Harris (Ohio State) and Allan Wiggins (San Francisco).

SHOOTING GUARDS – Russell Carter (Notre Dame), Trey Johnson (Jackson State), Mike Jones (Maryland), Blake Schilb (Loyola IL), Brandon Heath (San Diego State), and Coby Karl (Boise State)

POINT GUARDS – Zabian Dowdell (Virginia Tech), J.R. Reynolds (Virginia), Ayinde Ubaka (California), Jamal Tatum (SIU), Derek Raivio (Gonzaga) and Dashaun Wood (Wright State) – the MVP of the Portsmouth Invitational Tourney.

A number of the above players were projected as at least second round picks prior to the draft. What Happened?

13 – the number of international players drafted, leaving 47 picks open to U.S. players

8 – the number of freshmen selected in the first round.

6 – the number of freshmen selected in the lottery

18 – the number of underclassmen taken in the first round (eight freshmen, three sophomores and seven juniors)

Add five international players and you come up with 23, leaving room only for seven seniors. They were: Acie Law IV (11-the first four-year player taken), Al Thornton (14), Sean Williams (17), Jared Dudley (22), Morris Almond (25), Aaron Brooks (26) and Alando Tucker (29).

It got better for seniors in the second half with fifteen (15) seniors tabbed along with five juniors and two sophomores. I hope I am not confusing you.

The new rule that insures that high school players get at least one year of college was helpful. Three of the first four picks (Oden, Durant and Conley) were freshmen.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?

This truly was the best draft in many a year and the numbers don’t lie.