Suggested Rosters, 2007 Portsmouth Invitational Tournament

The Portsmouth Invitational Tournament is one of only two pre-draft camps, although it is locally organized and not officially run by the NBA. PIT is traditionally held in the weekend following the NCAA Final Four in Portsmouth, Virginia, and is usually well attended by every NBA team, at least for the first few days. It is also a popular destination for European teams to get a first look at some of the best American players who might be starring in their leagues over the next few years. If you ever felt the urge to see what it would look like if every agent and runner in America came together in one gym for four days, this would be your spot. The organizers attempt to assemble the 64 best NCAA senior draft prospects in the country for an 8 team, 12 game tournament held over a four day period. The 55th edition of the tournament will be conducted this year from April 4th to April 7th.

The official website of the PIT can be found here.

Notes on the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament

-10 players from last year’s tournament made an NBA roster, including the #32 (Steve Novak), #33 (Solomon Jones), #37 (Bobby Jones) and #39 (David Noel) picks from the 2006 draft.

-Jason Maxiell, the #26 pick in the 2005 draft, was our MVP of the PIT that year, the first first rounder to come out of here in quite some time.

-Although some players quickly dismiss having to play in such a setting—which is by nature more geared towards 2nd round picks and undrafted players—the sheer depth of this year’s draft makes PIT more important than ever. No one would be surprised if a flood of underclassmen decided to enter the draft this year, something that traditionally will first and foremost squeeze out this year’s senior class.

-Furthermore, the new rules (discussed in depth in the following article) regarding restricting private NBA workouts before the pre-draft camp is ultimately intended to force more players (particularly underclassmen) to participate in the pre-draft camp. This again will squeeze out even more seniors, who may not have any way to showcase themselves to the NBA if they decline Portsmouth, are subsequently not invited to Orlando, and then have only 23 days in the month of June to conduct private NBA workouts. Most teams will now be more inclined to invite top tier lottery prospects for the newly restricted number of workouts they’ll be holding, so some players will be playing with fire if they decide to put all their eggs in one basket (the pre-draft camp) by turning down PIT. Seniors need to take that into consideration before they decide to pass up an invite.

- From what we saw last year, some of the best players at the Orlando pre-draft camp (Kenny Adeleke, Justin Williams for example) were seniors who gained some valuable experience playing at Portsmouth first. Having one tournament to help familiarize themselves with the pre-draft camp atmosphere and get the monkey off their back so to speak seemed to have helped. Players who know they are good enough to dominate can certainly not hurt themselves by going to Portsmouth and playing well, but as our PIT MVP from last year, Jose Juan Barea, found out, dominating the competition in April doesn’t necessarily guarantee an invite to the pre-draft camp in June.

-Making a successful basketball career is all about having options. Chris Hernandez for example had an excellent career at Stanford and decided to go show his stuff at the PIT last year. Even though he ended up not making the NBA, his play in front of a large group of European teams ended up landing him a very nice contract in the 2nd best league in the world, the ACB in Spain.

-To dispel some of the concerns people once had about certain players only getting two games (rather than three) to showcase themselves—if they were to lose both of their first two games—an additional 7th place consolation game has been added on the last day of the camp between the two teams that started 0-2. This essentially means that all players at PIT will be playing three games no matter what, nullifying a valid complaint we personally heard a few times from critics of the tournament.

Notes on the list:

-This is not the official list made by the committee, but rather our own personal suggestions and observations of who will or should be invited, based on the large amount of games we’ve watched this year as well as our own conversations with NBA personnel, some of whom have input in who gets invited. With this being the 4th draft we are covering, this group of seniors has been watched closer by DraftExpress than any class ever since the moment they stepped on campus as college freshman.

• The official list should come out sometime around March 31st, the Friday before the tournament kicks off. Currently, about 45-50 invites have been sent out, although some were known to be long-shots when they were sent, meaning those players who have not yet been invited shouldn’t be panicking yet. Three players who've already been announced as having accepted their invites are Reyshawn Terry, Zabian Dowdell and Derek Raivio.

• The team names listed are identical to the ones used at Portsmouth last year.

• The format of our list and teams was created as follow:

I. 8 teams, consisting of 8 players each.

II. A pool of approximately the 100 best senior draft prospects (not best senior players) in America was created.

III. The top 15 seniors on our senior rankings were taken off immediately, assuming that they will either not attend any of the two draft camps, or prefer to wait for the Orlando (formerly Chicago) pre-draft camp. History shows that in the case of Portsmouth, this is usually what happens. If you are wondering why players like Jared Dudley, Nick Fazekas or Acie Law for example are not “invited”, that is your answer.

IV. Since we are ranking the best "senior draft prospects," and not necessarily the "best seniors," NBA upside is at a premium over great production at times. Ideally we like to see both, but a player who has good size and athleticism for his position, and shows at least some of the coveted skills to play his NBA position, even inconsistently, will often garner an invite to see what they can do in a new setting against better competition.

• The pool of remaining players was distributed into 6 categories, and then split up evenly amongst the teams.

Centers: A rare commodity and the easiest position to get selected at, size, some athleticism and any resemblance of either a back to the basket game or advanced defensive and rebounding skills garners an invite. (ex: Darryl Watkins, Lamont Hamilton, Courtney Sims. Total invited: 12)

Undersized Centers/Power Forwards: Mostly made up of back to the basket college centers who are undersized for the position and/or need to show some kind of potential/skills to play power forward, their natural position in the NBA because of their size. (ex: Mario Boggan, Stephane Lasme, Ekene Ibewke. Total Invited: 12)

Combo Forwards: Players who played power forward or center in college, but who likely need to move down a position or two and play at least some small forward to make it in the NBA. (ex: Curtis Sumpter, Reyshawn Terry, Cartier Martin. Total invited: 8)

Swingmen: Players who played either shooting guard or small forward in college and display most of the characteristics the NBA looks for in that position. (ex:, Derrick Byars, Trey Johnson, Ron Lewis. Total invited: 12)

Combo Guards: The toughest position to get invited from, these players are mostly college shooting guards who either did not play much point in their NCAA career, did not do a very good job convincing of their playmaking skills when they did, or show intriguing point guard skills to go along with shooting guard size. (ex: Jarrius Jackson, Brandon Heath, Sammy Mejia. Total invited: 10)

Point Guards: The committee’s favorite, these are the guys that make everyone around them better and help the scouts out in separating the cream from the crop. Would Jason Maxiell have went in the 1st round two years ago without Will Conroy on his team? Would CJ Watson’s squad have won any games at all without him steering their ship? This is what makes the PIT both viable and watchable, and therefore is extremely important. (ex: Jared Jordan, Zabian Dowdell, Engin Atsur. Total invited: 10)

Suggested Rosters

-Keep in mind that the committee tries to keep a good balance between big men and guards, which means that sometimes players who are deserving of being invited will be left out to fulfill positional requirements. By nature, it's tougher to find big men than it is guards.

HOLIDAY INN PORTSMOUTH

Darryl Watkins, C, 6' 11", Syracuse
Rashaun Freeman, PF, 6' 9", UMass
Avis Wyatt, PF, 6’10”, Virginia State
Sean Marshall, SF/PF, 6’6”, Boston College
Derrick Byars, SG/SF, 6' 7", Vanderbilt
Mike Jones, SG, 6' 5", Maryland
Jamaal Tatum, PG/SG, 6’2”, Southern Illinois
Jamon Gordon, PG, 6’3”, Virginia Tech

SALES SYSTEMS LTD

Antanas Kavaliauskas, 6’10”, C, Texas A&M
Mario Boggan, PF, 6' 7", Oklahoma State
Grant Stout, PF, 6' 8", Northern Iowa
Justin Doellman, SF/PF, 6’9”, Xavier
Adam Haluska, SG, 6' 5", Iowa
De'Angelo Alexander, SG, 6' 4", Charlotte
Jamar Wilson, PG/SG, 6' 1", Albany
Kammron Taylor, PG/SG, 6’2”, Wisconsin


CHERRY, BEKAERT & HOLLAND, L.L.P

Ian Vouyoukas, C, 6' 10", St. Louis
Ryvon Covile,PF/C, 6’9”, Detroit
Caleb Green, PF, 6' 8", Oral Roberts
McHugh Mattis, SF/PF, 6’6”, South Florida
Trey Johnson, SG, 6' 5", Jackson State
Russell Carter, SG, 6' 4", Notre Dame
Ibrahim Jaaber, PG, 6' 2", Penn
Jarrius Jackson, PG, 6’0”, Texas Tech

NORFOLK SPORTS CLUB

Brian Cusworth, C, 7’0, Harvard
Stephane Lasme, PF/C, 6' 8", Massachusetts
Craig Bradshaw, PF, 6' 10", Winthrop
Reyshawn Terry, SF/PF, 6' 8", North Carolina
Dan Nwaelele, SG, 6' 5",Air Force
Jeremy Hunt, SG, 6’5”, Memphis
Ayinde Ubaka, PG/SG, 6' 4", California
Zabian Dowdell, PG, 6’ 2", Virginia Tech


PORTSMOUTH SPORTS CLUB

Yassin Idbihi, C, 6' 10", Buffalo
Ekene Ibekwe, PF, 6’8”, Maryland
Warren Carter, PF, 6’9”, Illinois
Cartier Martin, SF/PF, 6' 8", Kansas State
Torrell Martin, SG, 6' 5", Winthrop
Sammy Mejia, PG/SG, 6' 6", DePaul
Tre Kelley, PG/SG, 6’0”, South Carolina
Derek Raivio, PG, 6' 3", Gonzaga


BEACH BARTON FORD

James Hughes, C, 6' 11", Northern Illinois
Brandon Wallace, PF, 6’9”, South Carolina
Chris Richard, PF, 6' 8", Florida
Quinton Hosley, SF/PF, 6' 6", Fresno State
D.J. Strawberry, SG, 6' 5",Maryland
Jahsha Bluntt, SG, 6' 6", Delaware State
J.R. Reynolds, PG/SG, 6’2”, Virginia
Jared Jordan, PG, 6'2, Marist


TIDEWATER SEALANTS

Courtney Sims, C, 6' 11", Michigan
Rashad Jones-Jennings, PF, 6' 8", Arkansas LR
Carl Landry, PF, 6' 7", Purdue
Curtis Sumpter, SF/PF, 6' 7", Villanova
Gary Neal, SG,6' 4", Towson
Coby Karl, SG, 6’5”, Boise State
Brandon Heath, PG/SG, 6' 3", San Diego State
Carl Elliott, PG, 6' 4", Geo Washington


NORFOLK NAVAL SHIPYARD

Lamont Hamilton, C, 6' 10", St. John's
Coleman Collins, PF, 6' 9", Virginia Tech
Mohamed Abukar, SF/PF, 6' 10" San Diego State
Ron Lewis, SG/SF, 6' 5", Ohio State
Loren Stokes, PG/SG, 6' 3", Hofstra
Blake Schilb, PG/SG, 6' 6", Loyola Chi
Aaron Brooks, PG, 6' 0", Oregon
Engin Atsur, PG, 6' 3", N.C. State

Injured:

Terrence Roberts, PF, 6' 9", Syracuse*
*Is expected to have surgery at the end of the season

Next 20:

Jason Cain, C, 6’10”, Virginia
Alan Wiggins Jr., PF, 6'9", San Francisco
EJ Drayton, PF, 6-9, Charlotte
Ahmet Gueye, PF/C, 6'8", Hawaii
Justin Cage, SG/SF, 6'6", Xavier
Keith Simmons, SG/SF, 6’5”, Holy Cross
Nate Carter, SG, 6’5”, Oklahoma
Colin Falls, SG, 6’5”,Notre Dame
David Teague, SG, 6’5”, Purdue
Quinton Day, PG, 6' 1", UMKC
Martin Samarco, PG/SG, 6’0”, Bowling Green
Roderick Wilmont, SG, 6’4”, Indiana
Vernon Hamilton, PG, 6’0”, Clemson
Lee Humphrey, PG/SG, 6' 2", Florida
Brandon Worthy, PG/SG, 6’2”, Loyola Marymount
Dashaun Wood, PG/SG, 5’11”, Wright St.
Mike Nardi, PG, 6’2”, Villanova
Todd Abernethy, PG, 6’1”, Ole Miss
Dontaye Draper, PG, 5’11”, College of Charleston
Earl Calloway, PG, 6’3”, Indiana
Gil Goodrich, 5’10”, PG, Bowie State