A lot has been said about the draft, we've been through the roller coaster, everyone's coming to terms with where we are going as a team.  There have been dozens of opinions posted; we should have taken Rubio, Evans will be John Salmons, Evans will be the Big O.  Cutting through all the opinions, there's only one thing we actually know:

Given the chance, Petrie selected Evans over Rubio.

So why'd he do it?  Is there a plausible case GP selected Evans over Rubio for non-basketball reasons?  Clearly, Rubio's got some issues, the buyout, whether he'd come over or not.  We don't know, but all of the available speculation says Rubio wanted to come here, and the buyout was manageable in the right situation.  I think its tough to make a case Rubio wasn't selected because of these reasons.

That leaves us with this, GP actually thinks Evans will be a better NBA player than Rubio.  Think about it, do you guys think GP was excited to pass on Rubio if he's going to be the next great point guard?  Now, of course Petrie could be wrong, but we have to give some credit to his opinion right?  There are some great contributors to this site, and other sites do great work too, but Petrie's the pro, we need to at least give some credit to his opinion.  He thinks Evans is going to be good, if he is, what's it mean for our team?

A lot has been said on this site (all bad) about our defense, and rightfully so.  Assuming the major pieces on the team already are the foundation (Martin, Hawes, JT), drafting Evans is a huge step towards having a competant defensive team eventually.  I think Hawes and JT will eventually be a competant defensive duo.  Competant is a long ways from imposing.  If our defense is going to be decent, the perimeter guys have to do a good job denying easy penetration to the basket.  Evans is the first perimeter defender for this team we don't need to make apologies for, he's a first rate, athletic defender.  There is legitmate hope when matching up 3 years from now, we're going to be able to put him on a solid scorer on another team and have confidence that scorer is going to be slowed down.  I think we need two good perimeter defenders if we're ever going to be a decent defensive team.  Evans is #1, I hope a Small Forward to be identified is #2 and if Martin is our worst perimeter defender we'll be in good shape, because he's going to be better on a better team also, and not many teams roll 3 heavy scorers out there for their wings and PG anyway.

On offense, of course we've hung our hat on the Princeton since the Adelman days.  Evans seems like a bad fit in the Princeton; reportedly he's a ball hog, he's not an accomplished shooter.  I don't think its in Petrie's blood to go away from a motion offense entirely; it just doesn't seem possible we're going to be clearing one side of the floor and running endless pick and rolls.  Presuming we do run some type of motion offense, I think Evans is going to fit in better than people think.  A motion offense isn't just about long jump shots, its about getting the ball to a player with a slight advantage.  Evans is going to be very good in those situations.

Is Evans the right pick?  Honestly, we don't know.  What I will say to defend it is: Petrie thinks he's better than Rubio.

I have three main questions about the guy:

1) Does he want to be a good defender?

2) Does he want to be a good teammate (not evil-Salmons)?

3) Does he believe the hype or is he going to work to be better?

If the answer to those three questions are good ones, there's a reasonable chance Evans was the right pick for this team.