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Weāre really going to miss these guys!
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Hard to watch those Livers highlights. Want it so bad for him in the NBA. Brutal end to his brilliant career here.
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Note how many of Liversā threes were well behind the college line, i.e. the NBA line shouldnāt effect him much.
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Itās really hard for me to even read about Livers nowadays.
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Franz checking in at #7.
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Also has Livers at 54
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Pistons picking out of top 4-5 would be a disaster for the Pistons. Luckily, they lost(won) in an important game against the Wolves. I think a loss would clinch them a #5 overall pick at worst but we need them to lose to Denver and Miami to clinch the bottom 3 odds. I want Cade the worst way for the Pistons.
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My board would look completely different than most mocks or ranking Iām seeing. The guys ranked in the 8-20 range seem too high for me in most mocks and guys going late 1st to early second are too low.
Guys like Todd, Cooper, Christopher ,sharpe, Shannon, Thomas, Boston ect. Iād all take higher than projected.
This is a draft Iād try and pick 3-4 times if I was a young team. Crazy depth.
I like some of the guys you referenced there, but I would add Kai Jones. Seems like the kind of guy with the right traits who wasnāt in an ideal college situation to showcase his abilities. Youāre probably not getting a star outside of the lottery, but if thereās one in this draft, I think itās Jones.
I donāt necessarily agree with this statement, but the narrative out there that this is a 5 person draft is really dumb.
I think thereās a drop off after the Top 4. Then another drop off in the early second round. Between those two points, thereās not as much separation between prospects.
If Iām drafting early second round Iām pretty excited because some high upside players are going to drop.
Thereās a significant drop off after top 4-5 depending on how teams view Kuminga which is why Pistons fans all want them to get bottom 3 or at least clinch the 2nd worst record to guarantee themselves a #5 overall pick.
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2nd worst (which is our best case scenario now) would still have an opportunity to fall to pick #6. The lottery recently switched to drawing picks 1-4.
Speaking of thisā¦ Has the NBA changes to the draft lottery accomplished anything? Feels like tanking has only accelerated (but now better teams are gonna get those top picks).
Iād say between the lotto changes and the play in there were fewer teams trying to tank this year than normal. The only teams outright tanking heading into the season were the Pistons, Thunder, Cavs. In-season Rockets obviously crashed that party. But if youāre gonna be bad it will always be beneficial to be the worst team as opposed to the 4th worst team so that incentive will always be there in some ways
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I donāt know. I definitely disagree with this. I feel like more teams were openly tanking than usual. Did you see the lineups some of these teams were putting out at the end of the year? Rockets, Pistons, Thunder, Magic and Cavs all had quite a few guys sitting out for bogus reasons like rest or soreness for the last two months. No one was even pretending they were trying to win.
I think giving the third worst team the best odds at the #1 pick incentivized even more teams to openly tank. Most of those teams knew they were never catching Houston, but they didnāt need to in order to have the best odds at #1. There are 1-2 games separating teams #2-6 so there are a lot of teams that could end up in that top 3, and if youāre 3rd you donāt need to be the worst to get the most lottery balls. I feel like most years the 5th or 6th worst teams arenāt blatantly obviously tanking.
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This is nitpicky but I feel like the players are almost always trying to win. Thatās certainly been the case with the Pistons. Management is the one whoās keeping guys out. As far as tanking goes, I like what the Pistons have done (for the most part) by keeping their rookies and young players going. It may have cost them in the race for the bottom with Houston but I think it may pay off in the long run.
Regarding the bottom teams, OKC has the worst active roster that I can ever recall. SGA, whoās still only 22, was expected back about a month ago but they shelved him. They were 16-19 with him this season, so they were somewhat in the mix for a while before they did their nosedive. They shelved Al Horford too, back in March.
Aside from Lugenz Dort, whoās been in and out of the line-up for the last several weeks, Iām not sure they are playing anyone who they expect to be around two seasons from now. I guess they have hopes for Poku but heās far from being a good player right now.
This is the one team that Iām sure would lose to the G-League Elite team. I believe I read that over the last 25 games, theyāve been outscored by 490 points. This is a new record over that kind of stretch.
If the basketball gods are being fair, they should smile for once on the Pistons for tanking the right way (playing young guys and staying in most games) and let OKC dropā¦but not so they take Franz.
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