there was a mock he did on a podcast a few weeks back where he had Segun mocked to the Raptors at 4. He's all over the place...
It's been a long time since I've paid any attention to the draft since Houston never had picks until this year, but is the draft coverage always this wild? Are these guys just farming clicks? Is this just the world we live in now? Are these guys just writing outrageous bullshit that they don't even believe to get traffic to their website? Or is this draft actually abnormally deep/good and also abnormally variable in where prospects are projected to be picked?
I think with him it's everything else. You hope you can get him to improve the shooting. If he does, he becomes a top-4 talent.
He has held fairly steady, actually. Sengun still at 4. He is not terribly impressed with Kuminga. Big balls to hype Barnes and Sengun over the usual suspects. Our draft board is also radically different than the public board I'd venture.
If Detroit goes for fit rather than BPA, they are as dumb as can be. Not saying that Cade is the absolute BPA. Just that thinking about fit when you are picking #1 is just dumb. The greatest lesson we learn from history is that people never learned from history.
Lets say Cade becomes Luka and Green becomes Beal. 23 and 24 are Leandro Bolmero and RJ Hampton. (2020 #23 and #24). Would you trade Luka for Beal, Wood, Gordon, Bolmero and Hampton? I’d say most GMs would do that. Don’t let the quantity of players make you overlook that ultimately a top 5 player is worth well anything. All that being said it’s the unknown that makes it difficult. Could get a Jokic or Draymond at 23/24 especially in this deep draft.
We COULD say that. But we won't, because that is prophesy. And I don't do witchcraft. And if you can see the future and Green is 2nd coming of Beal, then why the heck aren't you advocating for Mobley???? All kidding aside, this is a very DEEP draft. Nothing like the Beal draft.
Not totally surprising - there just isn't a lot of data to back up the translatability of 18yr olds skipping college ball and moving directly into the G league. The "stats guys" don't have a playbook on what to do with guys like Green and Kuminga because that is only just now "a thing".
A lot of players play in the G league, there's a long record showing how G league performance translates to NBA performance. They even have history of 19 year old players on the G league to go on.
This draft is different, I have never seen people taking sides so much with prospects and mainly basing it on interviews and puff pieces. You also have everybody and their uncle wanting to be some kind of internet scout/nba reporter. This draft is a bit deeper than most but no draft has had the hoopla surrounding it. The fact that the top 3 are so evenly talented makes for a lot of drama as well.
Those are not the same types of players - blue chip players have never skipped college to play G league. Those 18yr olds also don't have the benefit of years of advanced professional development like most players in the G league already have from playing either in the NBA or in a high level professional league elsewhere. They have their god given talents and whatever training they happened to have access to in high school - that's just not the same preparedness that the normal G leaguer has.
