First let's stop with Clingan. Why is that a position of need. Knowing everything we knkw now the obvious picks are dalton Knecht or McCain. We sorely needed shooting and that's why we took Reed problem is he doesn't ever shoot.
I knew better and had others tabbed at #3 Reed is good in garbage time though. Criminal to call him a jump shooter in the NBA. More like set shot shooter. Has to quicken his: beat on the rim, rise and release. That's all......just change everything that got him here.
Point guards almost never contribute positive value for a playoff-aspiring team. Rondo is the only exception. Take Steve Nash's rookie season: 3.3ppg, 0.7 win shares. Mark Price: 6.9ppg with 1.1 win shares. The point guards that are allowed to let loose and max out counting stats (Steph Curry, Kyrie Irving) are generally not on contending teams. Jared McCain's team is 2-11. It's apples to oranges. You let Sheppard contribute if he can, but if not you table any discussion about his stats until the beginning of his sophomore season. The shooting that I've been able to see spurts of so far tells me that his numbers at Kentucky will eventually be reproducible in the NBA.
I haven't paid enough attention to the other rookies to definitively have an answer but I definitely don't regret taking Sheppard at 3 at this point.
It's too early to tell. The Blazers are where we were in like year 2 of our rebuild. They have nothing to lose by playing their picks big minutes. This Rockets team is stacked. It's hard for Reed to get on the floor. For all we know, if he had been given the minutes Clingan is currently getting, he may have already completely broken out. We just don't know. That said, Clingan looks great. And even Edey is looking like he'd be able to give us a radically different look at the 5. In a perfect world, we'd have a guy like Derek Lively coming off the bench to run with Amen and Tari. But who knows, we may still find that guy in the coming drafts.
McCain is looking like a pretty good argument too, but literally none of us were considering him at the #3. Nobody was.
It’s funny that it is the same people that didn’t want reed at 3 that would redraft someone else. People out here would rather win rookie of the year than look toward the future. The rockets have stated (maybe a lie) that they would have traded the pick if reed wasn’t there and they only wanted reed. I don’t think they changed their mind. Other rookies may be playing better but idk if they would even get playing time with this team. If you thought he was coming into the league as Steph curry you are delusional. It was a bad draft class to pick 3 but he is an nba player. So far I would say he has met expectations. Last year amen was supposed to come in and be point and couldn’t even dribble. He was pretty bad until he got hurt and rehabbed for a month and figured it out.
He should be a college sophomore, and he's a smaller PG of the future. Might be good to RGV him, at least for a while, so he can work on his handle, keeping dribble alive, pick-and-roll skills, getting shot off quicker and deeper, polishing his floater. His attitude seems great, teammates seem to like him, he's not as terrible a defensive liability as I feared he be. He might turn into Mark Price, Steve Kerr, Scottie Brooks; we can dream he'll turn into Nash, Stockton, Kidd-- I'm saying there's a chance. He even looked a little bit Curry two games ago. So let's be patient, give the kid some time to mature his game.
Reed Sheppard looks incredibly mid, but this is a weak draft class so whatever won’t shoot…won’t be aggressive…can’t get to the rim or collapse the defense he hasn’t taken a single free throw yet this season 178 minutes…0 free throws 57 shot attempts…0 free throws that’s insane
It was a historically bad draft. Sheppard was fine at 3. Maybe he’ll be good someday. That’s the best you can hope out of this draft. He might not have been top 10 in this upcoming draft. I don’t mind that he is getting a few minutes to try and build confidence early in the season. If we stay in contention for the playoffs, the rotation will shrink not expand and he will be either in RGV, traded or a junk time player. He was, and is, worth taking a flyer on. He does have a nice 3 pt stroke and is not nearly as horrible at defense that I thought he would be. You should never count on rookies to contribute to a playoff bound team in their first year.
Personally I wanted Steph Castle because I thought he at least had a chance to be a solid 2 way player and all star if his shot comes around. Reed's size will always limit his effectiveness on the defensive end although he has good supplementary skills to help him defensively(those quick hands)....in this day and age though, he lack the versatility you want and he has to come with A LOT of offensive firepower to overcome that limitation (a la Curry) - I never bought into the Curry like hype of his shot....but I get the pick of Reed because he filled a desperate need for the roster(shooting) and his floor was probably a lot more certain than others in the draft - in other words, it was the safe pick because he will probably be useful in the near term as a great specialist if nothing else worked out for him. I shared a similar take to @Nook before the draft that we probably should have been drafting for more upside because I don't totally buy into the idea that we have any foundational stars on the roster today either. Sengun is the closest to that but until we find "the guy", I don't know if Sengun is necessarily going to be the right Robin to whomever that Batman is. I would love to be wrong and see Sengun grow into the Jokic some think he will be(I'm betting he's more like a Pau Gasol type) or Reed turn into the Curry some think he will be(I'm betting he ends up a little FVV like but it will similarly take him longer in his career to get there), or Jalen turn into the Kobe some thought he would be(I don't even understand this one - he's somewhere between a Brad Beal and a Jordan Poole - essentially same offensive player with different efficiency stats)....but I think the odds are fairly slim that any of these guys will be a true max level guy....but then again, I see very few of those guys out there that we actually could have drafted so I don't think we failed at the draft - we just didn't have the opportunity you would hope after all those losing seasons....
Our future star is Amen. Some people only watch one side of the ball. Amen would be first team defense if he was starting and he is pretty damn good at offense as well, even without an outside shot.
Didn't want him then, and he's done nothing to dissuade me. Again, maybe at 6 or 7, but 3 was and is too high. Yes, he would have been gone, but cie la vie. I have the same concerns. That said he's got that high floor and was a safe pick.... Unlike Jalen
Every draft pick is a bet. The FO liked the bet, so did I, and so did most other FOs in the league from all we've heard. Whether the bet actually hits or not is the gamble. We certainly won't know by game 15. Go look at the NBA.com rookie ladders from early seasons in the past. All kinds of names rise and fall early on. Mathurin, AJ Griffin, Jabari, Ivey, Chris Duarte, Davion Mitchell, James Wiseman, Cole Anthony... all were high in the rankings early in their rookie years. Just gotta see how Reed learns and solves the game over time.
I had Castle first and Donovan second. I would have Edey first and Castle second if we draft today. At least I can say Reed is better than Donovan
