PLEASE LET O.J. MAYO FALL TO MEMPHIS

by Scott Sargent, Waiting For Next Year

By now, you all know the story of how O.J. Mayo recruited himself to play at the University of Southern California. He wouldn't give out his number - he made the calls. Mayo plays, team goes to the NCAA Tournament, gets bounced. Rumors circulate of the thousands of dollars that were sent Mayo's way. No one is surprised.

Along the same lines of being unsurprised, a recent post over at DraftExpress lays out the latest in terms of Mayo's tryouts. Or, lack of tryouts, would be more like it.

Mayo has reportedly yet to schedule even a single workout, and will probably do so after he officially hires his new agent. We’ve been told by several sources that Mayo may try to pull a Yi Jianlian and only work out for Chicago, Miami, New York and Los Angeles, while shunning the smaller market teams such as Minnesota, Seattle and Memphis.

How convenient. The nerve of the NBA! How dare they place franchises within cities that are not among the largest, most-poplated in the world!

Obviously, the Clippers would be the team out of Los Angeles that has a chance at selecting Mayo. Unless the Bulls or Heat trade down, O.J. looks to be this year's version of Al Horford. You know, the guy who isn't quite in the "Top 2," but is among the "Best of the rest." One way or the other, Derrick Rose and Michael Beasley will be going to one of the black and red teams.

Mayo may be in luck in regard to Minnesota. Kevin McHale is obviously in no hurry to rebuild this team, and is looking to move the third pick. If not, he'll likely be adding another big man to the roster (you know, since Al Jefferson's 20 and 12 isn't good enough) in the form of either Kevin Love or Brooke Lopez.

Seattle/Oklahoma City appears to have a thing for Jerryd Bayless or even Eric Gordon. Of course, they could always go with Mayo, but the team is leaning on Kevin Durant to be the face of the franchise for years to come. Drafting Mayo would only lead to conflict of the PR nature.

Which leaves us with Memphis. A team that just traded away its best player for next to nothing. A team that has had trouble even getting players to come and try out for the possible draft selection; a team that is more known for the college that plays right down the street from their home court. Some of these guys would rather pass up the money of the fifth player overall than play for Memphis - which would make it that much better if they were to draft Mayo; a player who thinks he'll have the league by the balls from day one.

I mean, can they not sell the allure of playing along side Brian Cardinal!? This thing should sell itself.

Even better would be the look on O.J.'s face when New York is one pick away, while he's handed a powder blue and yellow jersey with the #1 on it.

At this point, the only thing better than Memphis drafting Mayo would be Memphis drafting Mayo, and then moving the franchise back to Vancouver. Hey, at least it's a big city.