The Philadelphia 76ers select Marreese Speights from the University of Florida.

Speights is a 6′10″ power forward from St. Petersburg, Florida.

According to the website www.draftexpress.com,

We walked away from the first day shaking our head at what we witnessed—a 6-10, 20-year old power forward who is about as skilled a big man facing the basket as you will find in this draft. “He’s really more skilled than anyone knows,“ Joe Abunassar told us. The first thing you notice is how fundamentally sound Speights’ shooting mechanics are. 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. He operates strictly on the balls of his feet as he catches and fires away, draining shot after shot from 16-18 feet with machine-like efficiency, and then proceeding to step-away and knock down college and even NBA 3-pointers with impressive accuracy as well.

Keep posted here at Hot Stove Philly, more information on Speights and the other Sixers’ draft picks still to come.