Francisco Garcia is a paradox. We remember fondly his game-winning threes and his tough defense and savvy play at times while trying to forget some of the bonehead plays and pedestrian efforts he has also offered up with regularity. Excuses abound: he’s banged up, the team sucks, etc.

Some see him as a piece of our future. Others wouldn’t hesitate to move him, except that his recent contract extension doesn’t make it easy or desirable or possible to trade him until July 2010, as Pookey has explained here and here and here.

Which brings me to the 2005 draft. In Geoff Petrie, Draft Guru, we discussed some of the past drafts since Petrie took over. I said I would go back at some point and analyze draft by draft to see how Petrie did, using career win shares as the measuring stick. Naturally you could use other criteria, but let’s take a look at how it works in this case:

Of the 60 players taken in the 2005 draft, 36 are playing in the NBA this year. I may have missed a scrub or two, and naturally there are foreigners on the list like Fran Vasquez who haven’t showed up to play here or have played a bit and then been placed with a foreign club to get additional seasoning.

Anyway, here’s the ranking of players from that draft, listed with rank, name, win shares and original draft position:

1. Chris Paul, 46.2, drafted 4th.

2. Deron Williams, 25.7, 3rd.

3. Danny Granger, 25.2, 17th.

4. David Lee, 23.1, 30th.

5. Andrew Bogut, 17.2, 1st.

6. Marvin Williams, 15.7, 2nd.

7. Andrew Bynum, 14.6, 10th.

8. Monta Ellis, 14.0, 40th.

9. Ryan Gomes, 13.9, 50th.

10. Luther Head, 12.7, 24th.

11. Linas Kleiza, 12.1, 27th.

12. Charley Villanueva, 11.5, 7th.

13. Nate Robinson, 11.4, 21st.

14. Raymond Felton, 10.6, 5th.

15. Hakim Warrick, 10.6,19th.

16. Jarrett Jack, 10.1, 22nd.

17. Rony Turiaf, 10.1, 37th.

18. Jason Maxiell, 9.6, 26th.

19. FRANCISCO GARCIA, 9.4, 23rd.

20. Channing Frye, 7.8, 8th.

21. Louis Williams, 7.1, 45th.

22. Joey Graham, 6.5, 16th.

23. Brandon Bass, 6.4, 33rd.

24. Amir Johnson, 5.5, 56th.

25. Martell Webster, 5.4, 6th.

26. Ike Diogu, 5.1, 9th.

27. Travis Diener, 4.9, 38th.

28. Andray Blatche, 4.6, 49th.

29. C.J. Miles, 3.9, 34th.

30. Johan Petro, 3.1, 25th.

31. Rashad McCants, 2.9, 14th.

32. Sean May, 2.5, 13th.

33. Antoine Wright, 2.2, 15th.

34. Gerald Green, 1.7, 18th.

35. Marcin Gortat, 1.5, 57th.

36. Von Wafer, 0.6, 39th.

So Cisco ranks in the middle of the pack, the 19th best player chosen with the 23rd pick. So I guess Petrie gets a passing grade in that year. His pick has performed slightly above the position from where he was chosen. Based on that previous draft thread, some here might be easier to please and will consider it a victory that he is not a total bust.

One thing about this list based on a cold, calculating number is that it shows us how easy it is to fall in love with a guy because he’s “our guy” while undervaluing the guys with similar or better numbers toiling in other cities. Exhibit G captured this tendency well recently in This Is How You Remind Me.

Every year we over-analyze.  Around here, we step it up a notch and over-analyze on a daily basis.  Through this abundance of regurgitated information and micro-analysis of every tiny detail, we overvalue some players and undervalue others.  This is natural.  And I think that, to an extent, it gets worse the more you follow a player.  Case in point: Jason Thompson.

Quick sidenote: I am a huge fan of JT.  But he is a classic example of how we may overvalue a guy based on watching him every day.  We imagine what could be.  We see that magical potential.  Nothing has ruined more drafts that the idea of potential.  That moment when you suddenly forget that the forest is made up of the individual, proverbial trees.  Suddenly we're vehemently opposed to including a rookie in a deal for a proven all-star.

Stats are stats, and you can certainly make a case if you want that Cisco is better than some of the guys ranked above him. After all, he’s our guy.

At the same time, you can also make the case that there are guys ranked below him who you’d consider dealing Cisco for even up if money and trade restrictions weren’t factors. Guys like Brandon Bass, for instance. Gortat, near the very bottom of the list, backs up Dwight Howard and has some fans who see him as a great prospect if he could get playing time on another team.

Let’s not fall in love with our guys as we rebuild, and let’s not be unrealistic as we propose trades. It takes two to tango, and we have to give up value to get value, or the other teams are simply going to move on to the next prospective suitor.

We have some compelling assets. Let’s take a look at any deal put on the table and be cold and calcuating and see if we think it adds up to a better Kings team in the future, whether or not it includes our favorites wearing another jersey.

I will wrap up this Sunday hodgepodge by quoting from the Michael Lewis article that has drawn so much interest this weekend:

When Morey came to the Rockets, a huge chunk of the team’s allotted payroll — the N.B.A. caps payrolls and taxes teams that exceed them — was committed, for many years to come, to two superstars: Tracy ­McGrady and Yao Ming. Morey had to find ways to improve the Rockets without spending money. “We couldn’t afford another superstar,” he says, “so we went looking for nonsuperstars that we thought were undervalued.” He went looking, essentially, for underpaid players. “That’s the scarce resource in the N.B.A.,” he says. “Not the superstar but the undervalued player.”

If there is any blemish on the Petrie record that has allowed the team to sink to its current depths, it is his signing of mediocre players like Mikki Moore, Francisco Garcia and Beno Udrih to MLE contracts.

While other GMs are concentrating on freeing up money to pay for the necessary superstars by looking for value to fill out the roster, it seems Petrie has avoided adding superstars and instead has overpaid for what would be roster filler on other squads but ends up starting for ours. Let’s hope we’ve seen the last of that.