Here are 13 important questions heading into the draft, along with my big board projecting which players will have the best NBA careers.

- Who will be considered the best player from the 2009 NBA Draft?

There are three potential candidates for me; Blake Griffin, Ricky Rubio and Jrue Holiday.  Griffin clearly has the highest/safest odds to become the best player from this draft; this is why he has been the unwavering pick of the Clippers since the lottery.  But Ricky Rubio can become truly special in a way that I don?t believe Griffin is capable.  

Rubio is such a preternatural passer with remarkably advanced instincts for the game that the true measure of how he is judged will be the improvement of players around him.  This is similar to how Steve Nash and Chris Paul are judged and he is ready to join that rare group of point guards whom players universally love to play with.

Holiday has a lot of similar intangibles as Chris Paul and could essentially become a taller version of him.  He played out of position at UCLA, so we will see a completely different Holiday in the NBA.  If he ends up with the Knicks, Holiday will run the point guard position in the SSOL system in a way where he can become a legend.

- Will there be a Hall of Famer from this draft?

If I were betting on it, I would take the under on uno.

Since Griffin doesn?t get to stay home and win a championship or two with the Thunder, Rubio is the only one I see with a somewhat realistic chance of making the HOF. Griffin is more likely to be the first member of the Clippers to have his number retired.

Holiday could become a Hall of Famer under a few special circumstances.

- Which players would have been top-10 picks had they returned to school and came out in 2010?

My answer to this question last year was Marreese Speights, Donte Greene and Kosta Koufos.  Considering the lack of quality big men in this draft, I feel comfortable with this group 365 days later.

B.J. Mullens, Austin Daye and Jeff Teague would have all improved their stock significantly by staying one more year, similar to Jordan Hill.

- Which players would have been first rounders had they come out this year?

Willie Warren and Greg Monroe almost certainly would have been lottery picks, while Ed Davis, Cole Aldrich and Al-Farouq Aminu could have all comfortably ended up somewhere in the top-25.  

The 2010 NBA Draft, however, will be owned by John Wall and I give him 3-to-1 odds on being a one and done freshman with an NCAA title just as Carmelo Anthony accomplished and Derrick Rose narrowly missed out on.

- Could you build a championship starting five with a player at 1, 7, 14, 21, and 28 from this class?

This is my favorite question and we aren?t far from learning a similar equation in reality with Minnesota.

The number in parenthesis represents each player?s realistic expected draft slot.

PG: Jrue Holiday (7)
SG: Wayne Ellington (28)
SF: Omri Casspi (21)
PF: Blake Griffin (1)
C: B.J. Mullens (14)

Last year I had Derrick Rose (1), Bill Walker (21), Nicolas Batum (28), Speights (14), Brook Lopez (7) as my mythical starting five.  Looking back at the 365 day mark, I should have gone with Courtney Lee over Walker, but I?m still confident with the other four.

- Which player will make the biggest improvement from draft day to his fifth season in the league?

Because he still has so much room to physically mature, Austin Daye.  He is as good of a shooter at his height as we?ve ever seen and just needs to bulk up and not allow himself to be a mismatch on defense.

B.J. Mullens also deserves mention here due to his excellent combination of size, skill and athleticism.

One player that will need to improve significantly to ultimately justify his high draft standing is Demar DeRozan.  He is at an extremely raw stage of his development and needs to reel in many of his skills to eventually capitalize on his explosive athleticism.

- Which players will be All-Stars?

Rubio has the best chance, especially if he ends up on the Thunder with the kind of team they?re constructing.  Griffin will be playing in obscurity with the Clippers and there are still a ton of great forwards in the Western Conference.

I like Holiday?s chances and similar to the HOF question, especially if he ends up on New York.

I don?t see another potential All-Star in the bunch, except for possibly Brandon Jennings.

- Which players will confidently be starters for the duration of their NBA career?

Griffin, Rubio, Holiday, Flynn, Thabeet, Hill, Harden, Evans, Teague, Curry, Jennings.

The next tier are 50/50 chance players such as Blair, DeRozan, Mullens, Casspi, Henderson and Clark.

- Biggest potential sleepers?

I?ve been harking on the sleeper value of Jeff Teague for months now, so I won?t stop now.  If the record hasn?t shown for a million times that I believe he is the superior pick to Stephen Curry for the Knicks, than here it is.

The Tim Thomas syndrome has unfairly plagued Earl Clark and he should have a better career simply by caring.

Rodrigue Beaubois has absolutely scary potential, with a remarkable blend of quickness and a very good perimeter shot.  I tend to avoid comparing players to other players, but since I just did the Clark/Thomas and almost nobody has seen him play, imagine Rajon Rondo with a perimeter jumper that can also finish at the rim.  

If I'm going for parlor trick sleeper to dazzle you five years from now, I'll take Beaubois.

- Biggest potential busts?

Big men always have a high bust rate, so it wouldn?t be fair to anyone, even him, if Hasheem Thabeet wasn?t listed atop this list.  

Curry will only reach his true potential if he plays with a future Hall of Fame player on the wing that commands the ball to setup open jumpers.  This means he needs to go to the Thunder, whatever team LeBron James plays for in 2010, Miami or Portland in order for him to be worthy of a top-10 pick.

I also think Demar DeRozan is closer to the Gerald Green end of the spectrum than he is to the Vince Carter end.

- Is this really the most exciting/important year ever for a 30th overall pick?

Without question.  The Cavaliers pick 30th overall due to their excellent 66-16 regular season record and it will be the final year to make an addition before learning their fate in regards to whether or not LeBron James will re-sign.

Danny Ferry has done a nice job piecing together a quality group of veterans around LeBron and they will have cap space to sign another max guy next season, but in terms of building quality young pieces through the draft?it hasn?t happened.

Much of that blame is on Jim Paxson, the GM that preceded Ferry.  He was responsible for the 2004 draft, losing Carlos Boozer and losing a first round pick in the Jiri Welsch trade.

Since this is a draft-centric article, here is Cleveland?s draft history in the LeBron era.

2004
Luke Jackson, 10th (passed on Andris Biedrins, Al Jefferson, Josh Smith, J.R. Smith, Jameer Nelson)

2005
No pick.  

Pick was transferred to Charlotte via Phoenix from a trade in 1997, which sent Tony Dumas and Wesley Person to Cleveland.  The pick was the 13th overall and Charlotte selected Sean May, but could have had Danny Granger who would have been a dream Scottie Pippen scenario.

2006
Shannon Brown, 25th (traded in Ben Wallace/Wally deal)
Daniel Gibson, 42nd
Ejike Ugoboaja, 55th

2007
No pick.

Cleveland dealt Toronto?s first round pick that acquired several years earlier for Sasha Pavlovic.  Pick was used for Jared Dudley.  Wilson Chandler, Rudy Fernandez, Aaron Brooks and Carl Landry were also available.

The Cavaliers, during Jim Paxson?s final days, traded the 24th overall pick that became Rudy Fernandez to Boston for Jiri Welsch.

2008
J.J. Hickson, 19th  (No complaints since I must have recommended Hickson for the Cavs in articles a dozen times leading up to the draft)

Cleveland dealt a 2008 second round pick in 2002 for Milt Palacio.

The Cavs acquired the draft rights to Darnell Jackson for a 2009 2nd round pick and the 56th pick (Sasha Kaun) for cash.

?While many of these draft-acquired assets were used for veterans and other pieces, Daniel Gibson and J.J. Hickson are the only real players Cleveland has to show from their five-year LBJ draft history.

- Which teams need to improve the most with this draft?

The Knicks need a homerun here because they don?t have enough pieces to entice LeBron in 2010 and Utah owns their first rounder next year.  Throwing aside LeBron?s NYC fetish, both Miami and Chicago are currently lined up to have ample cap space and vastly superior teams in terms of talent, so they still have a lot of work to do.  My NYK top-8 board reads as follows: Griffin, Rubio, Holiday, Harden, Teague, Curry, Jennings, Hill.  Cablevision also needs to buy an additional pick or two to get some young depth into town.

Oklahoma City won?t have a top-3 pick of their own to use for the remainder of Kevin Durant?s career, so getting this pick right (Rubio if he drops) is an absolute must for Sam Presti.  There is, however, no protection on the 2010 first round pick they are owed from Phoenix and that pick is increasing in value by the minute.

Minnesota currently has four picks in the first round and two in the second round.  There will likely be some sort of consolidation package or sell off, but this is a pivotal draft to add numerous pieces around Al Jefferson and Kevin Love.  They will improve no matter what, so they?ll need to get good enough to escape the limbo of just missing out on the playoffs every season and thus getting bad lottery picks.

- Has there been so many significant trades before any other draft?

There have been a few, most notably at least to me, was the Kurt Thomas for Quentin Richardson trade that I reported on the eve of Game 7 of the 2005 NBA Finals.  But this week we?ve seen Richard Jefferson, Shaquille O?Neal, whatever is left of Ben Wallace, Randy Foye, Jamal Crawford, Bruce Bowen, Mike Miller, Amir Johnson and several other less notable players be traded.

But even the picks themselves have been dealt around at an extreme rate.  As of early Thursday morning, 29 of the 60 picks had changed hands at any given point.  Barring a miracle during the draft, more than half of the picks will have been dealt.

Without question, this is a taste of what is to come during this summer of free agency and it won?t really stop through the 2010 trade deadline and the 2010 free agency.

Top-30 Draft Board

The aspect of this process that I like the least is trying to project the order of the draft. There are always so many moving pieces, and every pick is obviously hugely dependent on the selections that come before.

Teams, agents, and players all speak to their own interests, and there are more smokescreens this time of year than in a nice game of Spy Hunter.

I enjoy the scouting part of the draft and talking to these people about which players will be serious contributors in the NBA, who needs to improve certain skills of their games, and also the kind of character and love for the game each holds.

I hope my final mock draft is as accurate as possible, but just like anyone who has ever filled out a March Madness bracket, there are mock busters who ruin just about anyone?s projection.

This is my big board of the 2009 draft class and represents the rankings I believe we will see when analyzing this class down the road.  It represents star potential, safeness, positional value, character, etc. and does not reflect how easy or difficult a player fits into specific systems.

1. Blake Griffin

2. Ricky Rubio

3. Jrue Holiday

4. Hasheem Thabeet

5. Tyreke Evans

6. James Harden

7. Jordan Hill

8. Brandon Jennings

9. Jonny Flynn

10. Earl Clark

11. Jeff Teague

12. Stephen Curry

13. DeJuan Blair

14. Terrence Williams

15. Austin Daye

16. B.J. Mullens

17. DeMar DeRozan

18. Omri Casspi

19. Rodrigue Beaubois

20. James Johnson  

21. Darren Collison

22. Gerald Henderson

23. Ty Lawson

24. DaJuan Summers

25. Eric Maynor

26. Chase Budinger

27. Taj Gibson

28. Nick Calathes

29. Wayne Ellington

30. Tyler Hansbrough

Click here to read full draft reports on many of the players listed above and here to read my final Mock Draft for 2009.