By RICK NOLAND

Assistant Sports Editor Year after year, general managers and player personnel directors think big when it comes to the NBA Draft.

That’s why the biggest mistakes in this extremely overrated shindig always involve the biggest players.

 We’re not talking about Hakeem — he was still Akeem back then — “The Dream” Olajuwon and Sam Bowie being taken ahead of Michael Jordan in 1984. Back then, Dean Smith had managed to limit MJ to a 17.7 scoring averaging in three years at North Carolina, so, as ludicrous as it sounds now, those picks were actually justifiable at the time.

We’re talking Chris Washburn and Steve Stipanovich, Kent Benson and Will Perdue, Vitaly Potapenko and DeSagana Diop, Nikoloz Tskitisvili and Darko Milicic, Tellis Frank and Adonal Foyle, Benoit Benjamin and Stanley Roberts, Jason Collier and Andrew Bogut, Felton Spencer and Yinka Dare, George Zidek and Shawn Bradley.

We could go on, but we won’t. If only it were that easy for NBA general managers.

In a league where size matters way too much, Kansas State’s Michael Beasley, UCLA’s Kevin Love and Stanford’s Brook Lopez will go very high in the first round tonight.

That’s OK, because at least those players are skilled. Where teams run into “big” problems is when they start reaching for size, but that never stops them.

That’s why guys like Darrell Arthur (Kansas), Marreese Speights (Florida), Richard Hendrix (Alabama), J.J. Hickson (North Carolina State), Ryan Anderson (California), DeAndre Jordan (Texas A&M), JaVale McGee (Nevada), Kosta Koufos (Ohio State), Roy Hibbert (Georgetown), Jason Thompson (Rider), Robin Lopez (Stanford) and Alexis Ajinca (France) might all go in the first round.

Some of them — bet on Koufos and Speights — might actually turn out to be good players. The majority, however, will prove to be big stiffs.

There are, after all, a lot more Potapenkos, who was taken by the Cavaliers with the No. 12 pick in 1996, than there are Zydrunas Ilgauskases, who went eight picks later in the same draft.

That’s why Cavaliers fans would be wise to hope their team, though in need of a quality big man, goes after the best available player with the No. 19 pick.

It’s also why Cleveland fans should rejoice every time a big man is taken with one of the first 18 picks. Each time one goes off the board, the odds of the Cavaliers going big lessen.

If all the big men are gone, GM Danny Ferry will have no choice but to look elsewhere, say, at a player like Memphis guard Chris Douglas-Roberts or Western Kentucky’s Courtney Lee.

There’s no guarantee either will be a star, but history tells us taking one of them will greatly reduce the Cavaliers’ chances of making a “big” mistake.

Noland may be reached at rickn@ohio.net or 330-721-4061.