calkins's Blog

Shaking and stirring while recommending the Elephant Room in Austin for quality liquid refreshment and the best basement tunes outside of NYC.

 

Enjoy with a discerning friend.  Or an attractive stranger.

Perhaps D.J. Augustin will stop in on his way out of town.  A.J Abrams will have ample opportunity for future frequent dates over the next year.

UT's backcourt of dribble-drivers and sharp-shooters will split for the next rodeo.  Both claim to test their NBA draft status.  Just to see.  Without securing agents.  Just to keep their college options open.  Forget the press release.  D.J. is done as a campus kid barring a workout sort of injury/calamity that makes him undraftable.  A.J. is as sure a bet to re-enroll and rip again for his senior season.

Augustin is an All-American on and off court.  And his decision to leave after two seasons indicates he's just as savy on the street as he is smart in the study hall.

Augustin's stock in the eyes of the Association will not only never be higher than right now, his projection will never be higher, period.  He's mid-to-lower first round.  Now and forever.

Even if Augustin would to lead and take a solid returning nucleus of 'Horns past the Great Eight and into the Final Four, into the championship final (think Derek Rose), even to a first-ever Texas title, Augustin will never measure, literally and figuratively, above and beyond his current slot.

So why stick and stay?  Augustin can prove nothing more to the scouts. The skeptics will always question his size and strength to penetrate and defend, his less-than-blur on the break quickness.  His model is more Jameer Nelson than Chris Paul.  Sort of.  If, for instance, Augustin would to go to the Suns at the bottom of round one, he could provide 20:00 per game relief of Steve Nash next season.  It's that kind of perfect fit.  Another team, with a different style, with lesser able-bodies, or in a less comfortable stable, he's not as first-season ready.  Or any season, for that matter.

More to the point, so to speak.  Here's why Augustin is so smart.  If he goes in the first round, he's banking roughly $1.5m over the next two years.  Any where in first round, one-point-million dollars, guaranteed.  And that income starts in 2008 rather a year later when the coin will be roughly the same.

Stop right now and calculate your lifetime earnings.  If not at $1.5m yet, consider your present salary, project raises/bonues in the forseeable future and determine when you will tilt.

Go ahead, The Bloggorrhea will wait.

Check the math.

See, his bolt is a no-brainer.  Augustin should kick the campus life and start the earning cycle.  And the NBA outfit that values his skills as a player and looks past the so-called measurables will have true value at their selection.  He can play for The Bloggorrhea any time any day despite the pre-draft evaluation that will only emphasize what he can't do.  Supposedly.

As far as his future former mate, A.J Abrams' early entry is, in a kind word, ambitious.   He really is small.  As in tiny.  As in a tiny one-trick catch-and-shoot pony with no-chance whatsover to be tabbed in an ever-increasing stacked draft.  Abrams is a no-round selection.  And his workouts against legit pro prospects will expose him as such.

Dreaming and soon to be rudely awaken.

So Abrams is back, along with the solid parts from UT's winningest-ever season, but minus the difference-maker catalyst who could have placed Texas in the preseason top five, maybe tip top, perhaps eventual promised land.  Rick Barnes now must find a way to compensate and replace the most irreplacable player in an elite program for the next season.  Tougher to replace Augustin in '08 than Durant in '07 given the particulars.

Sorry, Rick, but you have to earn those multiple millions some way.