if you still think Green is a bad defender you haven't watched him play for the past month. dudes made amazing strides on that side of the ball and has been an actual distrupter as of late.
I think that was the label that stuck with him during the draft but the overall D of the team was grotesquely bad. Good for him that he improved, if only the entire team could improve.
1. Houston Rockets Jabari Smith Jr., F, Auburn (2003) Jabari Smith Jr. is one of four guys in the top tier of this draft. He is a potential superstar with a very high floor. As long as his shot creation develops, he will turn into a star. However, even if he fails to develop that part of his game, Smith projects as a lockdown defender who can cover all five positions while knocking down threes on the other end. Yall heard that? All 5 positions he can lockdown
4 5 5 1 5 5 5 5 5 5 2 2 4 5 4 5 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 1 1 4 5 5 1 5 2 5 5 5 5 5 1 5 4 2 2 1 2 5 3 1 4 4 4 4 1 4 1 4 5 5 1 5 1 1 4 4 1 4 5 1 5 5 4 2 1 5 5 5 1 3 5 5 5 2 4 5 5 3 3 5 5 5 5 5 5 2 5 4 5 5 1 5 5 1 1: 18 2: 9 3: 8 4: 20 5: 45 100 sims with the worst record. No chance at the 6th or 7th picks. I'm glad I'm not going to be the one who does the real thing.
Stone needs to take the Orlando and Detroit GM's to the strip club, throw a few girls in their lap, get them completely wasted, then trade our G-league players for their first round picks.
Smith looks like the power forward Morey spent his entire career searching for. I think he is the clear pick if available smith looks very comfortable in his frame snd can’t imagine how he might be adding more muscle as he gets older. I also think he might help with some of the physicality in the paint with Sengun. I think Sengun will always lack the size snd athleticism to be center full time. Smith & Sengun will probably balance well with each other Chet looks like a unicorn but I don’t think he will ever grow into his awkward frame. Like many unicorns I think he’ll end up injured on the bench like many other unicorns
There is a slight possibility the Nets miss the playoffs and win the lottery with a top 3 pick. Imagine a #1 and #2 draft
That's about as slight as it gets since even us getting a top-2 pick ain't all that great, but .... KEEP HOPE ALIVE!
Chet's frame and height are cause to consider his durability. but if you're concerned about durability you would also be red flagging AJG. unless there's medical records to indicate a real concern, which the rockets will have access to during the pre-draft process (unless one of these guys are trying to avoid being drafted here), then you draft the best player available. you can't predict injuries. injury prone players come in all shapes and sizes. if we have a top 2 pick and we pick either Chet or Jabari I'm happy. if we have pick 3 or 4 and take either Banchero or Ivey I'm happy either way. things might change through the tournament but I'll try not to let a small sample size (the tournament) overtake opinions formed over a the longer sample size of the full season. the tournament gives additional data points but shouldn't outweigh everything else.
You have the right idea but the actual numbers are off by $9m. The actual minimum return on EG & Wood's contracts next league year is $26,588,021 between the two or $15,654,688 & $10,933,333 individually (+/-100k).
I think most fans are pretty high on the current group of young players and expect that they all develop into something between superstar and solid rotation players and that there's no room for more young players and that's really unreasonable. They won't all become rotation players and none of them may end up superstars .... I like a lot of these kids myself .... but my expectations are some of them will bust.
There should be a hierarchy on the team. You cannot have 4 different guys trying to outscore each other every night, they are not even scorers in the most convenient sense other than Green and Co. They'd have more rookies coming on, expect to see more internal competition. I'd take personal feelings out of that.
You cannot play bully ball with Chet and Green and that is for sure. You'd have to commit to a unique style of basketball. The last time we had that was MDA and Morey style ball. Injuries are part of the game, so we'd have to live with that.
I'm not worried about Chet's frame at all .... really the game has changed, guys aren't inside banging like they were in years gone by. Hell, his slight frame might work in his favor when compared to big guys who had foot problems ... I can't pass up what I think is the best player in the draft for some what if's .....
