San Francisco Optx Draft Report Card

Of all the drafts, Kat Hunter's most resembles a lit fuse with a boat full of dynamite at the end.

That doesn't mean they're on a one-way trip to destruction. Any number of things could defuse the situation. But once the season's over, we're going to look back at the draft and think "wow, look at all the shrapnel that pick caused", or they're going to sail off into the sunset. There isn't a middle option.

To be honest, I think she was the gutsiest general manager of the group. She had the fourth pick, a team that nearly made the World Finals, the most dominant individual player in the CGS, a charismatic FIFA player, a decent DoA 4 Male, and the second-best CS team. Skittles and Beisbol were the only PGR team to beat ch0mpr and JasonX when they pulled off a clutch T-bone against the 10-0 Chimera duo. It was such a stunning move that thecgs.com published a whole article about that one facet of the match.

Essentially, Hunter had a lot of reasons to play it safe. Take back the CS players, get by in DoA 4 Male and FIFA, and hope to upgrade in racing with a top Forza pick (Beisbol didn't attend the second Combine) or two.

Instead, even when she could have brought back old teammates, she elected for new blood.

I'm not in love with the specific choices but I think she had the right general philosophy. GMs shouldn't stick with "good enough" when they think "better" is available.  Put another way, in a choice between "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" and "I know this is daring, but I believe it'll help our team", I'll take the second choice every day of the week.

We won't know whether she was right until after the season, but I'd rather have six general managers that are willing to take risks to make the leap from above-average to great than six GMs that are willing to be merely good season after season.

Bring me championships, or bring me death.

(For the record, I prefer championships.)

Starter's Draft

Round 1 (#4): Chris "NinjaCW" Harris
Round 2 (#10): Garett "grt" Bambrough
Round 1 (#16): Kevin "Sackamonjaro" Uribe
Round 4 (#22): Chad "Miximup" Neil
Round 5 (#2: Mike "paradox" Stanowski

Taxi Draft

1. Brandon "WildChild906" Childress (Forza)
2. Jared "Cali Jared" Reyes (DoA M)
3. Grant "Griff" Hall (Source)
4. Nathan "Nate" Bachus  (FIFA)
5. Lauren "L337Lauren" Berggren (DoA F)
6. Trevor "p0s" Randolph (Source) 

- Chris "NinjaCW" Harris

Hunter went into the draft needing a DoA 4 Male, two CS players, and two Forza drivers. The fourth pick was too early for Source because one player doesn't account for that many points. Valuable, sure, but not as much as DoA or Forza.

Of those two, I can't fathom why she chose DoA 4 Male.

If NinjaCW was still available in the second or third round, go crazy. I don't disagree with her evaluation of the player. He was a good choice, it was just way too early. There were potentially great racers available in Nic "Darkstorm" Brownrigg and Eric "General E Live" Earley, and moto (the only GM that still needed a DoA 4 Male) probably wasn't going to pick DoA until late in the draft. He was committed to rebuilding his CS team, which has the same meaning to New York that compLexity's Source team does to Los Angeles.

The worst part is that NinjaCW probably won't come in and destroy his competition. There's a good chance he'll finish in fifth place with something like a 4-8 or 5-7 record, and a minus-X point differential. That's not a knock on his skill; it's a testament to the strength of the other players. The top four players in DoA Male are a step above everybody else, and if you need proof of that, NinjaCW is coming off a 0-10 performance against
Perfect Legend in the Combine Finals. Not so good.

Again, Harris is a good player and he deserves to be in the CGS, but you need early draft picks to be rock-solid, not risky.

She could have waited until the last round and picked up a similar player, or even the same one if she got lucky, at a much lower price. Worst case scenario she ends up with DaveCheppelle, a fan favorite and former Optx player, who puts up a slightly worse record but still hangs tough against the big opponents as he's proven he can do.

Grade: C

- Kevin "SACKAMONJARO" Uribe, Chad "miximup" Neil

Despite choosing DoA Male in the first round, Hunter still ended up with two decent racers. I don't think they're on the same level as Darkstorm or GEL, but they should be able to keep the matches close at the very least, and she only used her third and fourth-round picks to get them.

One interesting thing about her draft is that it seems almost predetermined after she chose Harris in the first round.

Breaking it down, in the second round she had to choose "grt" because Chicago would have redrafted him two picks later.

That set up a huge need for Forza, and Lake still had two spots open. If she didn't take a driver with the third pick, she might have lost out. Hence, Sackamonjaro.

In the fourth round, she had a choice between Forza and Source. The only team with a need for Source was Chicago, but I don't think paradox was ever on Flander's radar, as evidenced by the people he was drafting -- old teammates and proven commodities. At that point she might as well take another Forza racer, just in case Lake decides to get one new racer and not redraft both GTO and chavisan.

That left her last pick, which had to be Source.

Essentially, once she made the surprise pick in the first round, there were such big needs or such little demand from other teams that the only logical course of action was the one she took.

As it played out, she managed to nab a racing duo that will keep SF in the matches. I still think the first-round pick will hurt SF in the end, but these guys should return good value on late picks.

Grade: B

- Garett "grt" Bambrough, Mike "paradox" Stanowski

I made references to explosions and shrapnel in the intro.

Meet the potential dynamite.

The other draft choices were essentially moving sideways. NinjaCW should come close to replicating DaveCheppelle's performance from last season. He might have a touch more potential, but it's not a big difference, especially when you factor in the tougher competition for this year's DoA Male division. In terms of expected points, even if he's more talented, he might not bring home more bacon.

The racers should be a slight improvement, but the point system was altered to diminish Forza's impact (the 5-3-1 scoring system was replaced with 4-2-1), and the field is deeper. Again, even if the players are technically better, I'm not sure how many additional points it's worth.

That leaves the Source picks.

The best case
scenario is obvious: grt and paradox step in and dominate. There were chemistry issues with San Francisco last season, and though they didn't show up ingame it needed to be addressed. Even sOnNy, in his blog post that spared nobody from criticism and flaming, admitted that it was a needed change.

On the other hand, the worst case scenario is that their in-game chemistry, which was second-to-none before the Draft, turns to slag when they try to mix in grt and paradox with the existing personalities and styles. Somebody ends up unhappy or uncomfortable, and all of a sudden you've turned the second-best Source team into the fifth-best team because their competition has improved so much.

That, Optx fans, is not good. The only question is figuring out which scenario is more likely.

Personally, I think they're going to be fine. They'll be able to use the two months before the season to iron out the kinks and mesh their styles together. Even though the returning players have a unique style, they've never come off as "my way or the highway" players, to me. If their chemistry ingame or in real life starts to break down, they should be able to recognize what it is and make the decision that's best for the team.

Source will still be a tight game because of the newly improved franchises, but I still see the Optx as one of the stronger squads.

(Plus, they get a little bonus for making one of the most shocking picks of the night when Kat chose grt and stole him from Chicago. As a fan, that was delicious.)

Grade: B

Taxi Draft

Looking back, Kat's best value from the draft might be her last pick: Trevor "p0s" Randolph. He's more valuable to San Francisco than the other franchises because of his playing history with the team. If something goes wrong and the Source team's chemistry falls apart, p0s can step in and bring some stability to the squad. That's a huge bonus.

Griff was also a good choice as a Source backup. People overlook him, and there are limitations to his game. It's no secret that he wouldn't beat fRoD or n0it in an AWP contest, and I'm not sure how many guys he can strictly "out-aim", either.

That being said, he's a player you want on your team. He's basically David Eckstein. You can stick him in the lineup and he's going to practice hard, play smart, and make everybody around him better because of his positioning, communication, and attitude. I wouldn't describe his game as "flashy", but for a Source team that already has plenty of pizzazz, having an option like Griff - somebody who will sacrifice himself and his stats without a second thought - is a nice fallback.

CaliJared was a good pickup in the Taxi draft. He's got experience in the CGS, and he can hold down the fort in DoA Male if NinjaCW wasn't available. WildChild is a solid
racer; if there were two more franchises in the league he would probably be starting. Both solid pickups.

Grade: B+

LD's Overall Draft Grade: B-

Even with the good ending, I just can't get excited about this team. The more I look over the draft, the more I feel like the moves were sidesteps and not improvements, even though Kat brought in new players.

Don't get me wrong, they're all talented guys. But when I look at NinjaCW, Grt, Paradox, SACK, and miximup, I can't envision dominance. That's not a death knell when you have a player like Vanessa on your team, because she's going to do most of the heavy lifting.

Unfortunately, I think you need at least two dominant entities to make a run in the World Finals. They need to complement Vanessa; get a Scottie Pippen to her Michael Jordan.

The most likely candidate is the Source team, and right or wrong I think that's how most people will grade this draft at the end of the season. If they go downhill, people will always question her choices. If they continue to excel, she'll be praised for making the tough decisions and staying ahead of a curve filled with the other (much-improved) teams.

All that's left is to sit back and enjoy the show.