SLAMonline Mock Draft: Jeff Pendergraph, No. 29

The champs welcome a new member to their versatile frontcourt.

by Nima Zarrabi

With the 29th pick in the 2009 SLAMonline Mock Draft, the Los Angeles Lakers select…

Jeff Pendergraph. We are extremely pleased to welcome Jeff to the Laker family. He is a physical and athletic big man that will add depth to our frontcourt. We had a chance to watch Jeff play several times this year, including during the Pac-10 tournament which is held at our arena, Staples Center.

He is a good rebounder and defender and showed improvement on the offensive end each year while at Arizona State. Furthermore, we were very impressed with the fact that he understood his role for his team and never wavered from it. In watching him play this season, I believed he deserved more opportunities offensively but ASU’s offense went through James Harden. He still managed to average over 16 ppg and nearly 9 rebounds.

Another key for us was the fact that Jeff is a high character individual. Our team has incredible chemistry right now. We have a group of guys that truly enjoys being around each other and we must keep that in mind whenever we consider adding a new player to the fold. Jeff is going to fit in nicely with this team.

He is a high energy player, similar to a player we drafted a few years back, Ronny Turiaf. We’re hoping Jeff can make a similar type impact as a backup to Pau and Andrew. Bynum is still growing into his body and injuries have limited him during the past two seasons. We’re hoping he can have a healthy season this year.

Both Josh Powell and DJ Mbenga will be free agents and we would like to re-sign them but we will have to wait and see what their correct market value is before proceeding. Dr. Buss has every intention of re-signing Lamar Odom and Trevor Ariza. That is our No. 1 priority. They were a crucial component to our success this year and have indicated that they would like to come back. Both men consider Los Angeles to be home.

Another player we gave strong consideration to was Chase Budinger of Arizona. He’s very versatile and someone who could have a strong upside. However, we feel like we may have a somewhat similar player in Adam Morrison and are interested to see what an off-season and training camp in the triangle offense can do for him.

Point guard is another position we looked at but the players we liked at the position were not going to be there at our pick. Jordan Farmar was really coming on prior to his knee injury last year. He still finished strong for us and we feel comfortable with him and Derek Fisher. We would like to re-sign Shannon Brown. He did a nice job in the short amount of time he was with us. He has also indicated that he wants to come back. We will be speaking with him and his agent and will take it from there.