The 76ers took Marreese Speights with the sixteenth pick of the 2008 NBA Draft Thursday.

Speights is a 6′10″ power forward from the University of Florida. He averaged 14.5 points and 8.1 rebounds per game for the Gators in the 2007-2008 season.

Speights seems to have a lot of raw talent, its just a question of whether or not he can refine that talent and become a serious NBA player.

According to the website, www.draftexpress.com, the first thing you notice when watching Speights work out is how fundamentally sound he is.

He’s got a natural, flawless stroke, showing small-forward like elevation creating separation from his defender, a high release point, excellent body control on his fade-aways, great technique squaring his shoulders and his hips simultaneously in perfect unison—and not surprisingly, getting unbelievable results in the process.

Speights is big and powerful enough to play the power forward position, but has the skill and agility to play like a shooting forward.

In the post, he has a beautiful hook-shot and an even prettier turn-around jumper, to go along with great hands, length and size for his position and excellent agility finishing around the hoop.

One concern while he was in Florida was his conditioning. According to Draft Express, during his workout, he looked to be in fine physical shape and had no problems finishing up in strong fashion. They were seriously impressed by what they saw.

Needless to say, we came away almost floored at what we saw—telling basically anyone that would listen that we’re talking about a starting NBA power forward any day of the week.

The Sixers made no attempt to hide that they were looking for a big man and that was exactly what they got. There were a number of big men available once the 16th pick came up, so why Speights?

“He was the highest ranked player when our pick came,” said senior vice president and assistant general manager Tony DiLeo.

He went on to list a number of reasons why they liked him at that spot to Andy Schwartz from Comcastsportsnet.com.

▪ “First of all, we’re a running team, and he’s one of the best running big men in the draft.”

▪ “Second of all, we need a post-up presence. Even though he’s not developed fully yet, he can score with both hands around the basket, and he will be, we think, a good post-up player.

▪ “Third, we need some outside shooting. Not only can he score inside, but he can go outside.

▪ “Fourth, we like versatile players. We think eventually he eventually will be able to play both positions – the power forward and the center position.

▪ “Fifth, he’s a good person. He fits in with his character into our team. We’ve done a lot of research on him. He really fits us like a glove.”

The Sixers were the worst three point shooting team in the league last year and are in definite need of a big man in the post and Speights appears to be able to help fill both of those needs. This seems, on its face, to be a pretty good pick.