I agree about falling upwards or failing forward. But there are no generational talents in this draft. Generational talents are not projections, they are obvious. Like Dream, Kareem, Wilt, MJ, Lebron, Durant, KG, etc. No one blinked twice with these players, all knew these players were once in a generation talent.
Giannis? Draymond? Jokic?Luka? Harden? Steph? I'd consider all of those guys to be generational type of players in their particular role. We haven't seen defense like Draymond since Dream. Jokic is the most incredible passing big man I've ever seen. Luka is a projection and Giannis is just a dominant force. Harden also is generational to me and he was drafted after Thabeet. It's sooo hard to know who is going to put in the work and be great. Steph is an all time shooter. No one knew he would be this good. If any of the players drafted to the Rockets provide what those six men provide to their team, I'm ecstatic. We don't have to draft the next Jordan or Kobe, we just have to draft the guy who will bring something
These players are not generational to me. They worked to become great over time, or surprised everyone with how quickly they developed. Your examples are a tier below talent level of generational player IMO. Lebron, for example, was a prodigy from day 1. Same with all my other examples. Generational players do not sneak up or surprise you. They can play at high level from day 1.
LOL Yes they did! Bigs trumped all players back then, even a proven winner with freakish athleticism and elite 2 way skills like Jordan fell all the way to 3rd pick.
Seriously, Oden was consensus 1 and picking Bowie was not viewed as insane. We could easily have someone like 10 years from now saying how in the world could everyone pass on generational talent Jalen Suggs. It was right there!
I wasn't born for Bowie and I wasn't huge on Oden but you can't say Durant and Jordan were both GENERATIONAL OBVIOUS talents. If that was the case, no one would pass. Oden was being hailed Patrick Ewing 2.0 just like Ayton was being hailed as David Robinson 2.0. Kobe found a way to force everyone to pass on him.
Perhaps you are right and I'm misremembering that Jordan was a cannot miss prospect. I just recall he won a championship and he was best player on very talented very deep Tarheels team. Heard lots of unlimited potential talk about this elite 2 way wing. What I remember about Bowie, he was no where the freak that Olajuwon was. More of a traditional 5 who could pass (had to read this article to jog memory though). http://www.bigbluehistory.net/bb/bowie.html But he was also coming off serious leg injury. I thought it was a horrible pick at the time. But did anyone doubt Wilt? Kareem? Moses? KG? Lebron? Zion? As for KD, he averaged 25/11 in his lone season in college. He dominated. Portland just shat the bed with Ogden pick IMO. Like Sampson, Durant was one of the first Unicorns.
In a perfect world… Trade #1 Houston: #1 Detroit: #2, #24, Detroit’s pick Trade #2 Houston: #13, Jeremy Lamb, Justin Holiday Indiana: #23, Éric Gordon ……. ……. …….
Again, I believe Houston shouldn't overpay for the Pistons' No. 1 pick. This year's No. 2 overall pick, the 2022 Detroit protected pick, and maybe (maybe) the 2023 Bucks pick or this year's 24th pick (whichever management understands has the least value). Houston 2022 and 2023 first round picks are non-negotiable!
"The Rockets have dangled Eric Gordon". Yeah, like a pirate in a noose. For two or three seasons running. Portland didn't take him a year ago and we gave them Robert Covington instead. I hope EGO's groin injury was more of a "groin injury" because we had to tank the season and left nothing to chance.
If Stone wanted to be shrewder he should offer #2, #23 and call it a day. Like many have said on here, that protected pick is worth a ton more to Detroit than it does to us. Keep that pick/powder keg because there will be a time when Weaver will need 1st rounders to trade and he'll have to call up Stone and make a sweetheart deal.
That is not really a "smart" thing to say. I now openly question his intellect that is if the above "quote" did not come from his agent.
If nobody thought twice about those players I'd like to know why Michael Jordan went 3rd after Sam Bowie, Durant went second after Greg Oden, and Kevin Garnett went 5th after Joe Smith, Antonio McDyess, Jerry Stackhouse and Rasheed Wallace. (also, a little weird to throw in KG on this list when Timmy was so much more successful and actually went #1 and nobody had any doubts about him). I'd also point out Giannis, Kawhi, Harden, Steph Curry, Dirk, Kobe were all guys that weren't drafted number one (or in some cases, even close to number one) who plenty of people had doubts about when they were drafted but are all arguably generational players. And most of those guys even played for years before the doubts began to fade. Right now, we have Zion that nobody thought twice about - but he doesn't appear to be as good as guys like Luka, Trae or LaMelo, all of whom people had lots of doubts about. So basically, quit acting like you know if this draft has a generational talent. The NBA has the top experts in the world in the field, and even they miss the mark constantly.
