Don’t think anyone mentioned Brandon Miller or Jabari Smith. Those are recent top 3 picks with size and shooting with requisite upside.
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SGA and Dort are Team 
Canada.
Yeah that’s why they’re not on the plot. But there are 3 Thunder that are on the plot and I’m referring to them.
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From the last two drafts among guys that are actually young, the list of those that pop to me in DARKO/BPM is something like:
2023
- Amen Thompson
- Cason Wallace
- Cam Whitmore
- Jarace Walker
- Brandin Podziemski
2022
- Chet
- Jalen Williams
- Kessler
- Paolo
- Keegan
Ausar maybe wasn’t quite good enough to get a spot but he was hardly bad and hey he’s a Piston.
The advanced stats I think are kind of misleading bc the stuff that’s easiest to measure (blocks and steals) is also the least likely to improve a lot 4 years from now. E.g. Kessler is a guy I wouldn’t be shocked if he just kind of plateaus.
But it’s not a bad idea to bet on guys you know will defend if you like their O at all and I think other than Kessler these guys fit that.
Jarace barely played but I happen to have seen his pretty sick G League stats where he shot shockingly well on legit volume so he’s kind of my secret That Guy.
Miller def made his 3s at least but for whatever reason the advanced stats aren’t convinced yet. Same w Smith. Hardly something to be very worried about. It’s more just that there’s a huge bucket of guys who will improve their offense a ton over this next 4 years and it’s pretty tough to tell which ones will really go nuclear and which will merely be average-ish NBA players.
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you obviously know a ridiculous amount about basketball but imagine how much you’d know if you watched the games too
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I mentioned Brandon Miller in my post, but I forgot about Jabari Smith.
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I know he’ll never be considered but Trae Young should be in the pool of consideration. Out of the potential '28 Olympians, Trae is the best passer of the bunch.
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I just think unless you run the whole O thru Trae you’re getting all of his downside without the upside and the upside of doing that isn’t that high.
I can imagine there’s a FIBA WC we hand the team over to him? I’m not sure how players will treat that now that it’s a year before the Olympics.
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Ah. I had to Google Cason Wallace. He hadn’t really hit my radar yet.
Trae Young stinks
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Cason is my guy going back to watching him roast Jaden Bradley in some rando AAU game. He got kind of overwhelmed in that Mavs series but overall his ceiling I think is somewhere between All Star and All NBA? kind of a shooting guard Jrue Holliday, let’s say.
He also obviously is the guy AK should’ve targeted for Caruso instead of Giddey but that guy is incompetent so.
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not as much as your poo does
100% agree. Empty calories guy.
Eh disagree on it being empty calories. I watched a lot of Hawks game and thinks he’s one of the best offensive player in the league.
He is one of the best offensive players in the league but he’s also never gonna be on Team USA for a number of reasons
Impact metrics agree he’s an excellent offensive player that definitely significantly improves team play on that end. They also agree he’s arguably the worst high minute defensive player in the league. I would t call that empty calories…maybe more like a big steak - you get all that protein and iron, but also may be giving yourself heart disease!.
I know Turnip hates this stuff, but he’s been dragged anonymously by opposition and teammates enough that I just don’t think he’s a logical take for a national team. Also, to Colin’s point, regardless of whether people “like” him I just think you’ll have a hard time getting stars to sign up to play with a guy who will be that ball dominant. Our teams have definitely had hierarchies but are also generally pretty egalitarian.
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There’s other things going on here (like Murray carrying larger offensive loads arguably draining his D) but yeah
His usage actually went down from his last year with the Spurs to his first with the Hawks. Can see he’s trading off D for O as his role on O w the Spurs increases and then he takes a bump w the Hawks while his D just steadily falls to pieces.
By the end, playing with Trae turned Dejounte from a team-first high effort guy into a mini-Trae.
I’m not a Hawks close watcher and I kinda just think this is grimly funny so I wouldn’t say I’m 100% serious about this lil narrative? But it’s a pretty rough look. I’d be trying to get out of the Trae business if I was the Hawks.
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Regardless of the cause there is some grim humor in the idea that they could acquire an elite PG defender to mitigate Trae’s shortcomings and instead they basically just re-created the Gandalf/Balrog scene in Moria
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