Should the Rockets seriously explore trading UP to #4?

What’s hilarious for me is …. On 2k22 last night . I traded up and got the number 6 pick draft night , had to let go of Wood ,17th , 2nd round pick . I came away with Bancharo and Ivey on the same team …. Wow ! Make it happen !

 

We’ll see. I’d be surprised given how many players they’ve worked out that will likely be taken in the 15 - 25 range.

 

I thought about that as well, but the primary reason the Lakers got AD was because Lebron signed as a Free Agent and they got Lebron because they are the Lakers, but yes those players were necessary to get AD so valid point. Houston is a different market although still an appealing one to NBA players, but we don't have the same margin for error. I actually think the Lakers drafted pretty well all things considered , in 2017 they took Lonzo over Tatum and in 2015 they took DLo 2nd which was not a bad pick, the next best player didnt come until #13 at Devin Booker. I don't think anyone but Boston had Tatum that high, there were multiple teams missing on him. If they held onto all of their players instead of grabbing the one bubble ring, they would probably be fairly competitive with DLo, Ingram, Lonzo, Randle, Caruso. We ,have not seen stone really need to make complex decisions yet when it comes to the draft, this year could very well be a test. I think only a handful of teams (Boston, OKC, Toronto) would be able to pull off 3-4 years of consecutive home runs in the draft. A perfect Lakers draft would have net them Booker, Ingram, and Tatum - not sure of many GMs who would have seen this.

 

Do the Lakers get LeBron without having young assets to trade to build around him? I doubt it honestly but we won't ever know.

As for the Lakers and their picks..... they drafted "okay", part of it was that the 2014 draft wasn't all that great. They went 7th and took a flawed but productive player in Julius Randall. They passed on guys like Capela, LaVine, Warren and Jokic but so did other teams and it wasn't a very good draft outside of Embiid and Jokic.

In 2015 they were again in a mediocre draft and took the guy at #2 that most expected would be an all star quality guard, but he really wasn't (Russell). They probably should have taken Porzingas but it isn't like the 2015 draft was loaded.

In 2016 they took Brandon Ingram, which was "okay", but not optimal. They passed on Jaylen Brown which hurts a lot.

In 2017 they had a bad draft. They took Lonzo Ball over Tatum, Mitchell and Adebayo, Allen, Anunoby.

So the Lakers did "okay" but nothing special, I would actually say they did mediocre. A couple of the drafts they had were weak and a couple were not. They for example passed on having Brown/Tatum as their core.... and there were others as well.

Getting the draft picks is one thing, and it is huge but you also need to draft well. You can wiff some if you get a franchise player (which the Lakers didn't get).

So you don't need homers every draft, but you need to hit on a couple big ones and the Lakers didn't do that but had chances to.....

The early returns on Green are positive.... need to hit on #3 too as well.

 

Most realistic situation i see is

Trade sengun/tate/17 for #7

Trade #7/ego/wood for #4

With salary filler it works out and is doable. Saves all future assets. Hurts to do imo, but typically a trade like this WOULD hurt to become possible.

Ivey
Green
KPJ
Banchero
Holmes (salary filler from kings)

Or

KPJ
Green
Mathews
Banchero
Chet

Full trade below:
_________________

Houston out: #17, wood, ego, sengun, tate
Houston in: #4, bledsoe, holmes, holiday

Sacremento out: #4, holmes, holiday, harkless, davis
Sacremento in: #7, wood, ego

Portland out: #7, bledsoe
Portland in: #17, sengun, tate, harkless, davis

 

Mitch Kupchak's draft history is pretty unspectacular. Granted he had Kobe for most of his GM tenure with LA so high picks weren't always to be had but when he did have them....I don't know if he did proper scouting or went with the flavor of the month selection. I know Magic Johnson (Lonzo Ball) sure as hell did.

 

I could endorse such a thing.

Bledsoe waived allows us to go after Chris Boucher.

Garuba should be able to contribute this season as well. Re-sign Bruno

 

If you’re willing to give up so much for Ivey, why not draft him at #3. We could use all those assets for a big. How that trade works and who to target, I leave to the experts here.

 

I'll go a step further, if they are so unsatisfied with the team's current starting SG that they want to draft another one with the top pick, just trade Green for the #1 pick and take Ivey with it.

 

They're satisfied and excited about Jalen Green's future with the Rockets. Silas has said this himself.

 

Ivey is the very obvious pick between he and Paolo. it should be clear to everybody. if we aren't trading up for Chet or trading down to leverage more into the 2023 draft and increase our lottery odds, then Ivey is the pick.

Of course, we should try to trade 2023 pick swap rights plus #17 and #3 to OKC for #2 to draft Chet before we go ahead and pick Ivey if Bari and Chet go 1-2.

 

I thought that might be the case.... so just maybe they aren't in the market for a new SG..... so we can stop with the Ivey BS

 

What are some of the reasons you think Ivey is going to be such an amazing player ??

 

I don't necissarily think he's going to be. I was questioning why, if we're satisfied with our current SG.... and I am, we would draft a SG with a top pick this year. It doesn't make any sense to me.

In my estimation Ivey is just a smaller, less talented in every possible way version of Green. If rather just stick with the version we have.

 

Obviously bobby misses the point of acquiring an 'additional' top 4 pick.

Has literal zero to do with green ot the fact we have a sg, and everything to do with grabbing another top tier talent/prospect that happens to be BPA.

Getting both banchero and ivey to add to green would be spectacular and it takes a special kind of dumb to try and argue against that.

 

Obviously you don't understand that you'd be wasting the pick if you already had the SG you want... you don't draft a guy that high too be a bench player but there would be nowhere on the court for him without making the team worse.

Green pretty much has transition and plays where the defense isn't set covered.... and that's the ONLY thing Ivey is any good at.

Let's say you pencil in Ivey at the point despite his complete lack of PG skills.... well, now you've gotten smaller, your shooting is worse, you have no one capable of running the point, and you're worse defensively.

It's obscenely stupid to think any of that would be a good thing.

 

Drive
IQ
Environment (Coach mother)
Work ethic
Size and length
ultra quick first step
speed
developing jump shot not based on speed and burst but based on the space created by his speed and burst (opposite of Russ who runs into the defense and then launches quick J's that have a terrible connect rate.).

 

For more information on this strategy, please read The Sacramento Kings Guide to NBA Drafting.

 

a concept so incredibly simple and basically common sense

 

I think the top half of the first round of this draft is going to be very good. I generally am not a huge fan of moving up, but I’d definitely package that 17 pick along with some other things (players, future picks) to do it this year, especially if you could somehow get Keegan Murray out of it. Getting Murray and one of the three bigs would be franchise altering.