LOL some people acting like actual NBA scouts are talking about draft prospects on Twitter. NBA writers are now draft prospect experts?
Wtf are you talking about? Biden and elections? etc I am saying before the draft there were most certainly people that questioned his defense in different ways. I am not saying anything about how warranted those assessments are or are not. Only that those opinions were in fact declared. At this point sir you just seem to want to write a lot of words and debate this and that.
Pretty sure if the Rockets had the #1 pick they would've just gotten Jabari. I liked Paolo better as a player but the Rockets couldn't have drawn up a better fit for this particular team. There was a reason Jabari was the betting favorite almost the entire run up until the last day. It's actually fairly unprecedented for Vegas to get that wrong. They never do.
What I am talking about is random people have random opinions and a lot of those opinions are very biased. My entire point was how warranted those opinions were and who was giving those opinions, I don't know why you are flying off the handle, I never said those opinions were not out there, I am pushing back on how credible they were. Why would I be debating if those opinions were out there in the 1st place? Forrest for the trees indeed.
This makes zero sense this team is at the start of a rebuild and overall talent always trumps fit when you are drafting that high. Both Chet and Banchero fit just as well if not better because of their versatility.
It does make sense when the 3 players at the top of your board are more or less similar in talent but varying skillset. You take BPA and only draft for fit if it's a tie-breaker. Which this one kinda was. If Paolo had been a transcendent NBA prospect then I can see that, but he wasn't. He has some warts as do the other two which is why you had dozens of scouts and analysts with a different prospect at #1. Jabari was the consensus betting favorite for almost the entire draft process. Period. Nothing can change that fact. If the Rockets had the #1 pick, they (probably) would've gone Jabari. Then Paolo. I don't think they wanted Chet at all based on the rumblings that came out after the draft. Seems like they were concerned with his medicals and apparently those concerns were not unfounded.
The only thing we know for sure is that Orlando had Banchero first when it came time to make a pick and that OKC had Chet over Jabari. Orlando clearly debated on who they wanted likely up to the hour of the draft. Either that or they illogically smokescreened on Jabari so hard that they convinced Paolo it wouldn’t even be worth his time to go to Florida and workout. Good job Orlando. The only consensus, if there was one, was that you wanted a top 3 pick for one of the bigs. Their skill sets are so different that preference for one over another was all over the place.
I don't know how many times this has been repeated. The top three players in the last draft had NO clear "best player." Each had strengths and weaknesses the others didn't have. The consensus was that the overall prospect were very close. Just because some people think one player is clearly better does not make that player BPA. (In fact, some people think Keegan Murray was the clear BPA in the draft. That opinion did not make him the best player.) When the overall talent is about equal, of course you'd take the fit. Why not?
We are talking about the Rockets specifically and I really doubt the Rockets thought all 3 top picks were literally equal in talent and had them all as 1A in their rankings.
There's no way to know without getting into the minds of the Rockets FO. If the Rockets had the first pick and took Smith, did they take him because they thought he was the best or because they didn't have a clear BPA and thought Smith was the best fit? The only people who doubt that they actually picked the BPA would be people who think the player was clearly not the best. So it goes back to beg the original question. Was there a clear BPA? Just circular thinking.
Fortunately, Stone has specifically stated before that they will always draft for talent over fit. He also did mention that whilst ceiling is the most important when evaluating player, you would take a 98 ceiling and 97 floor over 99 ceiling and a 1 floor. Jabari Smith, in my opinion, is closer to the former (not necessarily the highest ceiling, but a very high floor). Chet is closer to the latter.
Well, as fun as it is seeing people stating they don’t have any inside knowledge and then throwing out extremely firm opinions about unknowable things, maybe someone should help with this real question. When I lived in Dallas, it was Maverick territory and the games were blacked out on ATT SW (though Astros were aired). But streaming on League Pass worked. But any game on NBA TV, national channels, or against the Mavericks were blacked out. National games were much more frequent back then though. I’m not sure if it has changed in the few years I’ve been gone.
That's true, but I was merely stating my hope that the Rockets would go for talent over fit with #1 pick in the context of the initial reply.
A question.. When's the last time we had a 6'10 forward that was a great shooter and defender at 19? NEVER. With just those 2 skills, high BBIQ and a frame to grow, he's going to be a monster on both ends in time.
Bingo. Any comparison you make with him is absurd. LaMarcus Aldridge with range and defense. Chris Bosh with defense. Rashard Lewis with defense. Any one of those players with Jabari's lateral movement and switchability is....well. Good. Pretty good.
The Rockets haven’t really had someone like that. Jabari looks good on paper but we should be really patient his rookie year because I would imagine it will resemble (but be better than) his summer league performance.
True. Wonder if having a 6-10 floor spacer with good defense made a difference in winning titles for the teams he was on.
