The Armor added nine players to the training camp roster from the D-League draft.
Armor coach Bob MacKinnon said he was pleased with who the team drafted on Friday.
SPRINGFIELD - The Springfield Armor selected nine “best available players” in the NBA D-League’s draft Friday, sticking by their plan to build the roster with talent, not positions.
The Armor went big with their first pick, drafting 6-foot-11 center Tim Ohlbrecht from Germany. He’s one of four players 6-9 or bigger drafted by the Armor.
Ohlbrecht last played for Fraport SKY in Germany as well as for the German national team.
“I thought it was great, I think we got athleticism up and down the board, I thought we got depth at every position, adding on to the people like James Mays and Carleton Scott,” Armor coach Bob MacKinnon said. “With the picks that we have, we legitimately have five or six guys who can get NBA call-ups this year.
Working out of their offices in the Sheraton, the Armor hosted a draft party at the MVP Pub around the corner and MacKinnon along with Nets general manager of minor league operations Milton Lee and assistant coach Chris Carrawell made numerous appearances to announce each pick to the fans.
On Thursday the Armor announced they signed eight players to the training-camp roster, including the two affiliated players who were cut by the Brooklyn Nets, Scott and Mays.
Only 6-10 forward/center Jamar Brown is back from last year’s team, although 2011-12 second-round pick Jonathan Thomas will be in camp for a second time.
Center Chas McFarland, who played 26 games for the Armor two years ago, has also re-signed with Springfield. He played in Japan and Uruguay last year.
The other eight players signed before the draft were Reginald Delk and DeAndre Taylor out of the team’s open tryout in New Jersey, as well as Louie McCroskey from the open tryout in Springfield last month.
With Scott and Mays at the forward spots, the Armor were looking for a shooter in the second round and found him in Christian Polk out of the University of Texas-El Paso.
The 6-3 guard, who began his college career at Arizona State, can stroke it from the perimeter, shooting 45 percent on 3-pointers as a senior and 41 percent for his two years at UTEP.
“I’m extremely excited,” Polk said. “I’ve heard good things about the city and the team.”
Polk, who went to the Santa Cruz Warriors open tryout, said he can play some point guard, shoot from the perimeter and create his own shot, and he can also play defense.
“(UTEP coach) Tim Floyd coming in my last year (of college) really elevated my defense,” Polk said. “Because if you didn’t play defense for Tim Floyd, you didn’t play.”
The selection of Polk, 29th overall, came from a trade last year with Santa Cruz. The Armor also selected at 30 and picked St. Louis forward Willie Reed.
“We were surprised and elated because we actually had him in the top five of our draft board,” MacKinnon said of Reed. “We got great reports from the NBA teams. We feel like he is a guy who is a very talented player and we’ll see if we can coach him to his abilities.”
Springfield drafted point guards Shawn Vanzant (fourth round out of Butler), Stefan Bonneau (sixth round, CW Post) and Nate Brown (eighth round, St. Peter’s), looking for someone who could run the offense.
Cliff Tucker, a 6-5 swingman out of Maryland, was drafted in the third round, 46th overall. Shawn Taggart (sixth round, Memphis) and Chaz Crawford (7th round, Drexel) give the Armor plenty of big men to choose from.
“The affiliation with the Nets is so key because we had Matt Riccardi and Scott Saturday and Matt Agustin helping Milton Lee out with myself and Chris Carrawell,” MacKinnon said.