This would be a good trade for the Rockets imo, the team would be more talented with some combination of Ivey/Sharpe/Murray taken at 4 and Mathurin/Duren/Griffin taken at 8. Of course if the team feels one of the top 3 is a can’t miss superstar you hold onto the pick.
This is a really great question. I just think giving up Chet or Jabari is just too big of a risk and 3 more rookies to eat minutes may be too much. It is definitely enticing though and depends on how great Stone thinks Ivey or Sharpe is. I think the best thing if we get the first overall pick is to take our man and use multiple resources to try and move up for Ivey or Sharpe. If neither of these things happen it may be wise to pick Dieng or a stash player at 17 or trade it away for future considerations. I also expect Garuba to get more run this year so we really don't have a lot of minutes to spread around.
Going down the rabbit hole of my initial question: 1. Houston gets the 1st pick 2. OKC gets the 4th and 8th pick 3. A team getting the 3rd pick (say, the Knicks) is lasered in on taking Ivey Would it entice Houston to trade OKC the 1st knowing that they'll have either Holmgren, Jabari or Banchero left at the 4th spot? Take Murray or Mathurin at 8 and you pretty much just finished your potential starting lineup for years to come: Sengun Banchero Murray Green Porter
In this scenario I would say yes, if we could really get Murray at 8. Don’t really want Mathurin but might be tabled into Eason or another tall defensive forward.
1. Chet 2. Jabari 3. Ivey 4. Sharpe 5. Banchero Really hoping for Chet or Jabari, and it's close between those two for me.
For what it's worth I would pick Jabari and Ivey over Banchero without looking to trade Sengun at all. I was trying to imagine a scenario where Rockets end up picking Banchero and what that ultimately means for Sengun and what justifications there would be for picking Banchero. Also, in your example of Green/Banchero compared to Green/Smith/Sengun we wouldn't just give Sengun away lol. If we were to trade Sengun it would only be for a good return. I like Sengun and think he's our second best player. I do see more limitations building a team around Sengun than I do with Banchero though. If Rockets felt very very strongly that Banchero's projected career >> Senguns I'd give them the benefit of the doubt, but I'm not eager to give him away or anything. Maybe really bad example but if I woke up the day after NBA draft and found out we drafted top 3 and traded Sengun for Banchero straight up I'd be more excited about that lineup than Green/Sengun/pick. I do get the love for Sengun though
Never understood this mentality. So Chet is the only good prospect? I don't have him first on my list, but if we picked him I'd be excited knowing the Rockets scouting department did their due diligence and decided he'd their guy. I'm not saying my mentality is superior, but I just don't get it.
Here's my list: 1. Jabari = I think he's got the highest floor of the top 4. shooting and defense are immediately transferable to the nba. I also think efficiency shooting and versatile defense are the 2 most important skills in the modern nba and he gives us the most of both. plus I love the idea of having the new splash brothers with jalen and him. 2. Chet = highest ceiling but lowest floor of the top 4. however, he's got so many emerging skills, if even just a few hit he's worth the pick here. and again I really value versatile defenders who can shoot. here I think having someone to anchor the defense while jalen runs the offense is great balance from a team building perspective too. 3. Ivey = I'm not crazy about high usage guards unless they're truly tier 1 prospects like jalen was. if they can't produce elite efficiency then they pretty much become 6th men. especially when they don't really do anything else like defend, rebound, etc.. ivey isn't the most efficient initiator, I'm not sure he's ever going to be a true PG, but at #3 I'm willing to hope that he can improve his decision making and defense because he's got all the tools. he's the best of the 4 at creating advantages on offense, and I believe in the shooting. I would also love to have the most athletic backcourt in the league. 4. Paolo = again, I'm not crazy about guys who's game relies on usage unless they are really efficient. Paolo was, but I'm also skeptical of players with nba bodies beating up on lesser athletes in college. when he gets to the nba and everyone is as big and strong as him can he still be as efficient? as I said earlier I love players who are plus shooters and defenders, he's a neutral at best defender and maybe turns into an average 3 point shooter in the nba. I'm just worried about a bunch of empty stats a la Julius Randle. However, at #4 we'd be lucky to get whoever lands in our laps. I'm still doing deep dives into Sharpe, Murray, griffin, but there's a lot I don't like about them right off the bat. Murray's age/upside, griffin's injury history + questionable defense and self creation. Sharpe will be a long term project who wouldn't have played competitively in over a year by the time summer league begins. so I'm going to get spicy with my 5th pick.... 5. Dyson Daniels - 6'8, 200lbs, elite on ball defense, maybe best in class. can defend 1-3. Pg skills, high IQ player and mature/tough kid. I love how he fits as a point forward with jalen and KPJ (who shoots way better off ball anyway). realistically sharpe's upside is too great to turn down here, so that's probably my actual pick. but Dyson and jalen would just complement each other so much.
But you think after we draft Banchero, actively deciding to punt on Sengun after one year and get pregnant with two very similar players and then start shopping Sengun…that we still get ‘good return’? I sure don’t think you get back someone as good as Sengun… If anyone wants to have the ‘Banchero is better and/or has a higher ceiling than Sengun’ argument, I’ll listen. But we already invested two 1st round picks in Sengun one draft ago, and he was pretty damn good last year, and we don’t have a tremendous amount of highend talent on the roster right now. Are we really sure we want to kick Sengun to the curb already, for whatever we get in return? That seems very shortsighted to me. Why can’t we just draft one of the other high-ceiling, but not sure-thing prospects and keep Sengun? Bird in the hand, people. And again, TBF, I’m irrationally high on Sengun…
But Banchero and Sengun are not two very similar players. Banchero could play small ball 5, 4 or 3. There's more roster compositions that works with Banchero than Sengun. Sengun is the reason why Banchero is not the desired choice. So if the Rockets believe Banchero has the highest ceiling out of everyone then it would make sense for them to draft Banchero and have the two work hard to earn their right to be apart of our core going forward. Again, I'd rather draft Jabari or Ivey and maybe Chet and keep Green/Sengun so all this is just me rationalizing if Banchero were the pick or if we were to trade Sengun for Banchero (which I don't think a single NBA team would do). I think our biggest disagreement is you're higher on Sengun than I am, even though I'm still pretty high on him (im just higher on Banchero than sengun) I do appreciate the back and forth though. It seems most people who disagree on this site inmediately go to "you don't know ****" mentality at each other
Keegan Murray will be the best player out of this draft. Two way player. Can dribble drive with good first step, handle full court, post game. Can shoot the 3.
Interesting you compares Smith to Klay. Like Klay, Smith has a slow first step and not a one on one iso type player that can take people off the dribble consistently. So most of his scoring would have to come from screens, flares, and cuts. And a lot of spot up shooting. If he doesn’t try to do too much and understand his role and play within his limitations and maximize his strengths he can be really good like Klay.
