Notebook: Moritz Wagner trending toward first round, NBA Draft Combine, more

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I can’t understand why Robert Williams would ever go ahead of Wagner.

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NBA personnel and “draft experts” think he is Clint Capela and Mo is Frank Kaminsky.

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That three ball will be money ball! Too many teams struggling to keep pace in the league with the three.

Don’t follow NBA closely. Is Kaminsky terrible? His stats are ok.

I think of Wagner as more agile, more athletic than Kaminsky, but smaller and not nearly as good down low.

If the Nets indeed draft Mo, they’ll have him, Stauskas, and Caris. That gets me excited.

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If you are looking for someone to just screen, catch lobs and rebound, Williams could be ok.
If you want someone to crank threes, Mo could be serviceable.

If Wagner could only play offense, he’d be a can’t miss prospect. I think the biggest question is going to be how he survives defensively in the league.

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With Burke, THJ and Zach at the Kicks…

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Kaminsky isn’t terrible but his ceiling isn’t high because of his lack of athleticism. He’s a 4 but can’t cover a new age 4 and probably couldn’t cover a 5 for 82 games.

Williams seems to be the classic guy that doesn’t really love basketball but has all the physical tools that you would expect for a modern day 5.

Would be nice for Irvin to make it to the Knicks, but his G League stint wasn’t exactly big league material.

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Agreed…he’s certainly a stretch but he is in NY with his pals! It will be much easier for Mo to adapt with former teammates. I feel like the three ball players will get some type of multiple to their game. Not sure it’s as high as 1.5 but the NBA covets that scoring impact.

This is extremely accurate. If you guys heard the stories I’ve heard about him working out in the off-season this statement would make a ton of sense to everyone too. But he’s got raw abilities that if he harnesses, he could be a freak. Absolutely not saying he will become this, but stylistically he’s a bit reminiscint of Dwight Howard. Athletic, physically strong and very athletic. Can punish on the block. Modern day ball generally fades away from these types now but they are still pretty valuable for certain teams.

Care to share a story? You piqued my interest.

In terms of fit, I like Orlando at 35 since they have Isaac and Gordon in the frontcourt to protect the rim a bit and guard tougher assignments and could definitely use some more shooting. Boston at 27 is maybe a bit high, but they did well in the regular season with Horford and Baynes playing together as bigs and Wagner could replace Baynes and give them more shooting and skill when they want 2 bigs out there.

Why would 27 be too high?

If you look at the 4 teams left in the playoffs, I think the only players with comparable foot speed to Wagner that is getting minutes would be Love and Baynes. The Rockets are switching everything and the isolation after a switch has been a devastating tactic for players like Lebron and Harden. Embiid just got played off the floor basically.

DJ Wilson went a bit “too high” because of this shift and Wagner will go a bit “too low”.

I love Wagner’s offensive game, but the starting 5s left right now are Capela, Horford, Draymond Green and Kevin Love. Wagner projects as Love if he was a much worse rebounder who tried harder on D. That’s useful player for sure, but if Wagner goes as high as 27 it will be because some team thinks they can really improve his lateral quickness.

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Typically teams aren’t drafting starters at the end of round 1, so no need to compare Moe to the starting 5s left in the playoffs. Moe can play a role off the bench on a good team

That I do agree with. There’s no real reason he shouldn’t be a good stretch 5 option off the bench that sometimes starts, like how Indiana went to Sabonis over Turner in the Cleveland series. Also I’d add that Markannen just showed that sometimes a stretch big can look laterally quicker in the NBA than in college, and if a team thinks there’s room for improvement there, I would say even low 20s is possible.

For instance Williams could play the role of Capela if he is lured away. The price would be right and Harden is the driving force behind Clints success. Swap him out for Williams with his athleticism and viola, it works (probably).