I was interested in why Bayless went from being a consensus top 5 pick to showing up at 11 for us to snag with a clever trade. Last week, Chad Ford wrote a column about how he comes up with his mock draft.

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/draft2008/insider/columns/story?columnist=ford_chad&page=Tiers-080619

In it, he describes a 'tier' system, whereby he places players in tiers based on where GMs have the players on their draft board. Obviously, Rose and Beasley were alone in tier 1. Interestingly, Mayo and Bayless were alone in tier 2, because

"Virtually every team I spoke with has Mayo and Bayless as the No. 3 and No. 4 picks in the draft, regardless of team need. A few teams argued that Mayo should be in Tier 1, but for now, I left him in Tier 2."

I think this is part of the reason why Bayless fell -- most teams in the lottery had favorites that they talked themselves into valuing over everyone but Rose, Beasley and Mayo. Instead of taking BPA, they either filled a need or chose their individual fave. I don't think Bayless falling has anything to do with Bayless himself, but more to do with how teams manage their draft process and think about who to take. This is an amazing coup for the Blazers -- because of how they acquired him, but also likely because of the disinformation that they spread trying to dampen hype around their targeted player. Exciting stuff.