If you've read my Chargers comments in the past, you know the drill. I think the Bolts need improvement on the offensive line. GM AJ Smith doesn't seem to hold that unit with the highest of priorities, ever. In this particular year, the defensive line appears to need help, too.
So, when the Chargers pick 16th in the first round of Saturday's draft -- barring trade -- should they go for an offensive lineman? Maybe. Those halfway-through-the-round selections are tough. In good, deep drafts, there's game-changing talent still available. However, by the time your selection comes, you've just about run out of the impact guys. It's highly unlikely the remaining potential superstars are going to be in your area of need. So I say take the game-changer.
From there, however, there's no question that the lines need help. More so than a ball-carrier to groom as LT's replacement, more so than inside linebacker and more so than safety. The Chargers currently have nothing at right guard, very little at tackle and while Nick Hardwick is popular at center, even he can be improved upon. The draft gurus who talk tackle always focus on left tackles who protect a passer's blind side. I'm willing to try Marcus McNeill another year. They need a solid blocker on the right side of the offensive line more than anything.
The defensive line is a problem across the board. Jamal Williams is getting old, Luis Castillo was revealed to be pretty average last season and Ryon Bingham is a career backup. This is a group that's going to get flattened in 2009.
Despite brilliant skill talent, the Chargers have are trying to support them with mediocrity. No matter what happens in the first round of the 2009 draft, upgrades are necessary up front or the Bolts will not reach .500 this fall.
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The seamy underside of basketball was never demonstrated so well as the story of San Diego High School basketball star Jeremy Tyler leaving for Europe to play his senior season before entering the NBA draft. By doing so, he will void his scholarship to Louisville and be ineligible to play college basketball.
Tyler is quoted as saying he won't get any better playing for a team without a coach and against San Diego County hoops "talent" that is regressing to traditional levels. Both points are valid and are good reasons to either return home to Eastlake HS where he should have stayed in the first place, or move to either LA to battle the superior talent or somewhere in Kentucky where he'll be close to what might have been his future coach.
The trouble is Tyler bit from the apple several years ago, when he ditched Eastlake for San Diego High's brighter lights. I'm sure he had no idea, certainly no intention, of the trouble that joined him, but his initial transfer set in motion the reasons why he can't simply move to another school now. Any change now would be for pure basketball reasons, which are against the same rules that made three other SDHS transfers ineligible. If none of that happened, he could have quietly transferred this year and none would be the wiser.
It's a shame. I hope Tyler makes it in the NBA and gets his millions. He appears to come from a solid family. Unfortunately, he's learning some awful lessons along the way -- courtesy of supposed grown-ups -- which won't help him become a mature adult. If there's anything the game of basketball needs right now, at any level, its a mature adult.
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