I don’t have strong opinions really but I’m reasonably confident it doesn’t make sense to pick Jarace Walker 5th in this draft. The number of small ball 5s in the league is teeny tiny and his stats aren’t so impressive to make you round that up.
Think I’d be on Hendricks 5th. I dk what to think of the Thompson twins but not confident there are obvious picks ahead of them as much as I think playing OTE is ludicrous. Draft people seem to believe they would’ve produced in CBB or GL so, sure, slot Amen in 6th? I’m pretty into Cason Wallace so maybe he can go between Amen and Ausar.
Oh, I guess I’m reasonably confident Dereck Lively will be drafted too low. I’d probably have him above Ausar as well. Probably above Cason.
he’s got pretty obvious scoring limitations bc he’s probably not a spacer and he adds the most value on O as a ball moving hub at the elbow. and if there’s a 5 in the dunker spot, that mostly doesn’t work. basically, he has everything going for him…except the 2 most important things: making shots efficiently and easily preventing shots from going in. bc his standing reach is probably not enough to let him easily protect the rim.
i loved him as a college player and think he’s probably going to be a productive pro bc he’s smart and athletic and big. but i don’t think he makes a lot of sense in the BPA portion of the draft. which probably lasts, i dk, 10 picks? certainly more than 5.
I will admit that if I landed with picks 3-6 I’d be trying to trade like a madman
I’ll also just note with some amusement that a league that has spent 48 hours in a tizzy about what to do with Ja Morant is going to draft Brandon Miller #3
IMO everybody that’s got picks 1-4 is reasonably happy. I know you’re especially not into Miller and I don’t think you’re exactly off base there tho I’m choosing to mostly not care about his, ahem, extracurriculars. when 5 rolls around, the obvious picks are off the board and it starts to get reeeaaal eye of the beholder.
My sense is that’s where Draft Twitter is headed but as of last updates from what I can tell Vecenie and Givony still have at least one Thompson in front of him. So maybe you have the better read on it as far as front offices are concerned.
Yes, draftniks are really starting to elevate Whitmore. Vecenie said on a recent podcast the more he watches Cam, he might move him ahead of Brandon Miller by the time the draft rolls around and he does his finally rankings. He loves Cam’s game and the fact he’s 2 years younger than Miller is really a big factor. Hollinger today on The Athletic listed his top-20 and had Cam ahead of Miller at 3 on his big board.
Man I am still not over what malarkey it is that the Thompsons played in a fake league where they were as old or older than everybody else they played against. There are so many real leagues to choose from!
Was just dumb listening to Vecenie and Spinella talk about the two having to talk about how good they looked against kids.
The NBA draft projection process has gotten so wild. I have never been a big NBA guy but at this point it is so hard to know who projects to success and who doesn’t. People tend to dismiss guys who struggle in college if they have the basic physical skills. No one knows how to correlate OTE or Ignite performance yet. Age and athleticism seem to the the two keys to getting drafted.
I’m actually curious if there’s data out there showing the typical success rates of NBA draft picks. It feels like the success rate is pretty erratic at best. I don’t think any pro leagues are perfect, but I wonder what the data shows for the NBA these days.
I could see myself happy with Victor (obvi), Scoot, Cam (kind of rooting for this one), Jarace, Miller (w/ reservations), Ausar, Amen and you could talk me into Anthony Black and Hendricks because I don’t know much about them.
I 100% agree with you on OTE and the Thompsons. They are incredible athletes and are highly skilled in a number of areas, but choosing to basically play high school competition and in some cases go up against 16 and 17 year old kids when you’re 20 is a strange choice.
Im not sure who the better player is between them though. I like Scoot but for a guy who will need the ball in his hands 27% behind the arc isn’t going to cut it.
I don’t love this view bc win shares aren’t intuitive to me and the first 5 seasons aren’t really how we think about player careers. but it’s basically, you can expect a solid star w the first pick, a good player for the next few and then goooood luck!
If all you do is go back thru basketball reference and look at the names of the first picks it’s eye opening just how many misses/injuries there are. It’s just really hard to be a very good player in the NBA for a long time.
Sure, but plenty of guys develop it after they get to the league. Not sure he’s completely broken to not be able to improve. De’Aaron Fox was a 25% shooter on the shorter college 3 point line and still isn’t great, but is at least passable there. When you are really good at other things, being a passable shooter is enough.
