My thoughts on trading up to near the top of the draft

Very interesting post.

I wonder Meh, if it would be worth the time to gather up a list of all star players and see where they were drafted.

My point with the first round, or top, is that I prefer to keep guys that are already talented NBA players, and are getting better.

To me we have 4 players that have not peaked.

1. Aaron Brooks
2. Chase Budinger
3. Jordan Hill
4. Jermaine Taylor

Do we have a superstar or star player amongst them? I think there are 3 chances....in AB, chase and Jordan....

If we add another one with a high pick, great, but if we give up one of these 4, then we are just treading water, IMO.

Good thread though....5 stars.

DD

 

Im expecting a move up during this draft more than ever, Morey finally has the assets at his disposal to do it.

 

I've said it before and i'll say it again, superstars are found through the draft, no way else. Unless they have some luggage.

 

DD, neither Brooks, Budinger, Hill and Taylor are even close to being top 5 talents. If anyone of them could help land a Cousins or a Turner then I have no problem pulling the trigger with some of them included in the trade.

 

Brooks is the most talented, but he'll never be a superstar. As far as the OP, I'm completely on board. We need to start thinking about the future -- trading up for a shot at one of these young studs could go a long way in case we have to rebuild without Yao. We need to make our move this off-season -- our Knicks draft picks may be at their highest value on draft night.

 

Imagine if we gave up our assets that were definitely not going to be stars, and got DM 3 mid-to-late 1st-round picks a year for three years. Maybe he could come up with, say, 3 hot-shots...

 

None of these guys will be superstars ROFL.

 

The point is that some of the guys drafted in the top 5 aren't top 5 talents either.

AGreed, but I was saying star player, there are very very few superstars, and drafting at the top of the draft doesn't guarantee that either.

Oden, Kwame, Olawakandi, Beasley...man the list just goes on and on.....


DD

 

DD, I'm sure you've had your heart broken before your wife. We can't stand pat because of our fears of them not being a superstar. You can't win if you don't gamble, amigo.

I never liked it when people put up the stats of how many superstars went #6 vs. #8 -- it's just irrelevant to me. A lot of teams pass on guys that eventually end up being superstars -- the trick is having a good scouting department and discovering these guys. I won't ever dread having the 6th pick instead of the 9th when the percentages show more superstars were drafted 9th -- instead, I have confidence Morey will draft that guy at #6.

 

You know LTF, I am going to have to agree with you here about gambling and taking a risk.

I guess my issue is I don't see anyone attainable in this draft worth taking that risk.

If we could get Wall or Turner, then yeah, but anyone else to me is just as risky or more risky than the guys we already have.

Now if we can get them without giving anything substantial up...then heck yeah !

DD

 

Do you see every young, productive player with those rose colored glasses or just the ones in rocket red? You're very narrowly focused, but surely you must have some kind of feel for the talent level around the league. If Darren Collison, Danilo Gallinari, or Dejuan Blair were traded for a top 5 pick I highly doubt you'd think their teams were just treading water.

 

I guess that would depend upon how those picks turned out. As for the Rockets players, yeah, I like em, I just put more value on players that have done it at the NBA level than those coming into the league.

To me AB has All star potential....20ppg and 5+ apg as a first year starter are really really good....

Budinger has all the tools but does he have the work ethic and mentality to be more than just a spot role player, can he be Ray Allen lite?

Hill has the most potential out of all 4 I like, he has quickness, and length and seems to move well without the ball, his upside is All star level, but that will depend upon how hard he works.

Taylor has athleticsm out the wazoo and made enormous strides, if he can get the mental portion of the game down, who knows where he could get to.

Now, am I saying any of them will become all stars, no...but I am saying they might....and they will reach their peak more quickly than anyone outside of Wall and Turner, IMO.

DD

 

Just looking at who's playing in the finals right now....

Kobe - draft (essentially)
Gasol - trade
Odom - trade
Artest - FA
Bynum - draft

Pierce - draft (I think)
Allen - trade
Garnett - trade
Wallace - FA
Perkins - draft
Rondo - draft

Given that, it seems like you can't just say that you have to get top talen through the draft. Probably pretty safe to say that you need to look to get your best player, your number one option through the draft, but get the rest where ever you can.

In fact, wouldn't it be safe to say that SA is the only team to win a championship in the past 10 years or so who didn't make a significant trade that pushed them to the top

LA (Shaq, then Gasol)
Boston (Allen, Garnett)
Miami (Shaq)
Detroit (Wallace, Hamilton, Billups...my memory is a little shakey here)

I don't know whether moving up is the right thing to do or not, but I don't think it's accurate to say you either draft high or bust either.

 

The thing about "might" is that it can apply to anyone. Beaubois from the mavs "might" be the next Tony Parker. To me, Cousins' "might" is just as good as Jordan Hill's. Somehow, you think Hill is proven.

And didn't you recently say that Turner was a gamble you wouldn't take? You wouldn't even trade Bud for him. Why are you suddenly high on him?

 

Interesting... but over the last 20 years the draft has changed so much that I don't think you can take these percentages at face value.

First, since 1990, three major changes have affected the draft: (1) The proliferation of the high school draftees; (2) the one and done group after the age requirement rule and (3) the proliferation of international prospects. Each of these changes changed the risk involved in selecting draft picks. For example, a statistical evaluation of a high school player, european player or college freshman is much trickier simply because there is less data. Also, younger players are inherently riskier because they are so young and have yet to mature - a sort of increase in the character evaluation of the players. Basically, I think the the percentages are an oversimplification of the risk.

Though, the increased risks probably do favor organizations that are better equipped to deal with the risks like advanced statistical analysis of the college freshmen and european players. So, I think you're onto something with your hypothesis that an organization that is better equipped to evaluate talent may be best served to acquire a superstar through the draft.

Though, with all that, one of the best organizations at evaluating talent, the Portland Trailblazers, blew the #1 pick of 2007 with Greg Oden. So, you never know.

 

I wouldn't put money on any of them being all-stars, personally.Solid rotation players on a championship team, yes. Brooks will likely fall off a bit in scoring since we are going to add additional scoring threats in Yao and who knows who else. Bud isn't going to get much more oppurtunity to play unless his defense gets on par with Battier and Ariza. Martin and Brooks will ensure that a defensive stopper is required in the starting lineup. Taylor is in the same boat, but behind Bud. I see Hill as a utility big, his job will be to make the defense cover him, play defense, and make hustle plays.

These guys could end up exceling more on another team where there's more of a need, a void for them to fill, but I just don't see it here.

If mgmt really wants to give these guys the chance to be all-stars, then Morey needs to trade guys like Scola and Martin.

 

So basically you just said that all of those players have peaked.

To me, they are just getting their feet wet and will peak in years 3 and 4.

DD

 

one thing to consider though . . .

with the upcoming fear of major CBA changes, the talent pool in this draft is deeper than usual. if we look at this draft from the traditional Morey-istic "capitalize on potentially undervalued assets" perspective, we should be trading down in the draft, not up.

this being a deep draft means that lower picks in this draft would be equivalent to higher picks in a worse draft, so assuming the cost of obtaining picks remains constant between drafts, ideally the rockets should pick up as many picks as possible to maximize the potential to hit overall. similar to the strategy that yielded a lottery-like rookie season from CBud last year.

I understand that the current roster is devoid of top-tier talent. however, you can't assume that morey's methods translate to the acquisition of top talent. so far he hasn't had much to lose in the draft. acquiring a top-5 pick and surrendering the assets to do so means that you are putting a lot of eggs in one basket. if that player pans out, then you're golden, but obviously many of the teams with top 5 picks are continually terrible, so clearly simply having top 5 talent on your roster does not constitute success.

anyway, i guess my point is that even though i recognize the roster needs an infusion of elite talent and size, our front office has no track record of success with this type of draft strategy or high-risk, high reward picks. not only that, but all the success that morey has had has been with the opposite strategy, namely acquiring as many potentially valuable assets as possible so that your hits (CBud, Landry) can offset the misses (Dorsey, Andersen).