Greg Monroe to play for Team Shaq in Rising Stars Challenge (plus Shaq’s and Barkley’s full draft order)
By Dan Feldman
Greg Monroe and Brandon Knight will both play for Team Shaq in the Rising Stars Challenge. Here’s the complete order of the draft Shaq and Charles Barkley held tonight:
- Shaq: Blake Griffin
- Barkley: Kyrie Irving
- Shaq: Jeremy Lin
- Barkley: DeMarcus Cousins
- Shaq: Ricky Rubio
- Barkley: Paul George
- Shaq: Greg Monroe
- Barkley: Derrick Williams
- Shaq: Markieff Morris
- Barkley: Marshon Brooks
- Shaq: Kemba Walker
- Barkley: John Wall
- Shaq: Landry Fields
- Barkley: Gordon Hayward
- Shaq: Norris Cole
- Barkley: Tiago Splitter
The final four players were randomly assigned to teams. I suppose that makes sense. This game is for fun, and no player should suffer the indignity of being the last pick. Here’s how the last two players were assigned:
- Shaq: Brandon Knight and Tristan Thompson
- Barkley: Kawhi Leonard and Evan Turner
Obviously, Monroe should have gone higher if Shaq and Barkley were both totally concerned about winning this game. Their true motivation is probably just to be entertaining, and given both of their shticks involve being semi-uniformed about the NBA, I’m not going to spend anymore time analyzing the draft order.