Sweet Seventeen?

On June 26th Bryan Colangelo and Maurizio Gheradini will sit in a green room in New York, sipping macchiatos, listening to 16 teams draft amateur basketball players. Then it will be their turn. What are their prospects and precedents?

In 2001, the last time the Raptors picked 17th, they chose Michael Bradley who, last I heard, couldn't make a German league team. In 2005, Indiana got Danny Granger, and the year before that the Hawks chose Josh Smith. Rasho Nesterovic (1998) and Doug Christie(1992) were 17s, as was Jermaine O'Neal (1996) and Shawn Kemp (1989). But never forget about former 17s Zarko Cabarkapa (2003) and Leo Rautins ((Pictured above) 1983).

Below are several sources' narrowly educated guesses at who the Raptors will select with their 17th pick. I expect most mock drafts to change over the next month of private workouts and draft camps (All links to player profiles are from Draft Express):

Draft Express, NBADraft.net and Yahoo!: Nicolas Batum, SF, Le Mans Sarthe Basket (France) - 6' 8", 214 lbs, Age: 19

ESPN.com (Chad Ford): Robin Lopez, C, Stanford - 7' 0", 245 lbs, Age: 20

RealGM: Javale McGee, C, Nevada - 7' 0", 237 lbs, Age: 20

Sports Illustrated: Donte Greene, PF/SF, Syracuse - 6' 10", - 220 lbs, Age: 20

And out of nowhere, Anthony Parker had surgery on the middle finger of his right hand.