Three takeaways from the Westwood draft

Chris McLaughlin

Westwood held its draft for the fall season last night, and there were some big surprises. Here are my three biggest takeaways from draft night.

Kerry Weldon goes first overall

Easy Money captain, Steph Eusebe, had multiple options to choose from with the first-overall pick. Weldon, Stephen Prescod and Shane Coleman were all viable options, but Eusebe went with Weldon, setting up the identity for Easy Money. Instead of Eusebe partnering up with a perimeter scoring threat, he decided to go with the 6’4” Weldon, setting up the most dynamic frontcourt in the league. Weldon and Eusebe have combined to score 27.9 points on 56.5% shooting and 22.4 rebounds in their UH careers.

This puts two of the best forwards onto the same team, which will give them a leg up on post scoring, post defense and rebounding over every other team. No other team in the league will have an advantage in the paint, making Easy Money a tough team to beat right off the bat. Some captains like to pick a player that’s opposite to them and can complement their game. Eusebe could have done that and picked a ball-dominant guard, but instead he picked someone who fits his strengths, establishing a clear identity for Easy Money.

Shane Coleman falls to third overall

The Weldon pick makes sense for Eusebe, but sometimes you have to go with the best player available. Coleman is an absolute superstar, and there’s really no reason for him to fall all the way to three. Again, I can understand why Eusebe would build his team around Weldon, but I would’ve gone with Coleman. The less defensible pick is Prescod second overall to All Style, who plays a similar position to Coleman.

To be fair, I’ve never seen Prescod play in-person before, so I am biased toward Coleman, but his numbers speak for themselves. Here’s a comparison between Coleman and Prescod’s career numbers (Coleman’s mostly coming in MetroWest, with one season in Westwood, and Prescod’s coming in Burlington and Westwood):

Coleman: 30.7/9.4/3.3 with shooting splits of 53/38/68

Prescod: 18.6/8/4.2 with shooting splits of 45/32/69

There’s no comparison, and I’m sure Jimmie Melton was ecstatic when he saw Coleman fall into his lap at third overall. We’ll see how this decision affects the fate of these teams throughout the season.

Chris McLaughlin falls to 16

This is absurd. McLaughlin has won six championships, including four in Westwood. He has career averages of 18.5/7.8/5.5 while shooting 53/44/77. HOW DID SEVEN GENERAL MANAGERS PASS ON HIM TWICE? That’s straight incompetence.

Not only would McLaughlin help any of the seven other teams that didn’t draft him, but they could’ve at least done it for the petty reason of not letting Easy Money get him. They stacked up on bigs early in the draft and needed to fill out their backcourt. Not only was Eusebe able to get McLaughlin to play point, he turned around into the fourth round and got Jason LaPlanche to play off McLaughlin. Eusebe absolutely crushed the draft and established Easy Money as the favorite to win the fall title.