A Tree Will Keep Growing in Palo Alto.

Stanford forward Brook Lopez (the one on the right in the picture, looking on as his team gets shellacked by Louisville last week) has made a decision to stay in Palo Alto for another year with his brother and skip the NBA draft. That's not really newsworthy, as anyone who watched Stanford down the end of the Pac-10 regular season and in the tournament knew neither of the Lopez twins were quite ready for the big time (and that's probably an understatement.)

What makes me laugh is this:

According to ESPN.com's Andy Katz, the 7-foot, 240-pound Lopez would have been a likely lottery pick.

Lopez, whose twin brother Robin also plays for the Cardinal, averaged 12.6 points, six rebounds and 1.7 blocks per game for the Cardinal this season. Stanford's season ended with a loss in the first round of the NCAA Tournament to Louisville.

Mostly because I would very much appreciate a bit of what Andy Katz is smoking in order to figure out how Lopez is a top ten pick to any NBA GM outside of considering size alone at this point. Sure, he gets his dozen, but it's a quiet one, and in a conference where the regular season champs (UCLA) have size issues and there's not exactly a dominant center on the good teams, he and Robin should have been able to tear motherfuckers up, and didn't.

(Tangent: Office bracket pool update -- I am currently in the lead at work by one point over our sports anchor, and we have a few points on the rest of the field. I was in the same spot last year too going into the Sweet 16, until George Mason tore my bracket apart by beating UConn and UCLA lost to Florida. So I expect Kansas and Memphis will fuck me over this year.)