Exactly I was right about Durant over Oden, the difference is that at that point in the draft there is a CLEAR difference between players. Once you reach pick 10 or so, it is really murky, there is just not a thumbnails difference in the bust rates of players. Your Parsons and Morris example is spot on - look how much better Parsons was and he was drafted a lot lower. I do generally agree with the BPA theory early in the draft, but I think once it gets to the middle part of the first round, you have to include need as a factor. If Zeller and Jones are about equal in your rating, I think need comes into play. DD
There was not a clear difference between the players at the time..... opinions were split http://www.tulsaworld.com/sportsext...d=203&articleid=20120610_203_BB1_CUTLIN141468 Just because you watched a bunch of Longhorn games and decided that Durant was better (like when you decided that marcus pfizer/micahel beasley etc were superstars) doesnt' mean that everybody else felt that way - they didn't. If you lived in Columbus Ohio, I don't harbor the faintest of doubts that you would be telling us that Oden was the demon spawn of Bill Russell and Hakeem Olajuwon.
I think it helps to think in terms of numbers, let's say: Worth of an All-Star: 45 Worth of a Star: 15 Roleplayer: 5 In the FA market, once in a long while, you can spend 15 and pay fair price for a Star, but they are not easy to find even if you are willing to pay. All-Stars you can't buy. You can mostly only have them want to be yours out of their own volition. What is fairly readily available in FA is fair price for Roleplayers. You will generally have your Dalemberts and Cambies available for fair price, but inking a Star for fair price is hard and inking an All-Star is mostly out of your control. Now you have the draft where everybody is a lottery ticket. Unless you are drafting in the top 3 your bust rate is probably in the 80s and 90s % for any kind of usable player. Do you draft somebody with merely a small chance to turn into a Roleplayer? It makes no sense to buy 5-upside lottery tickets to fill a need when 45-upside lottery tickets are still available. You can buy 5-worth Roleplayers on the FA market pretty readily; you can't do the same for the 45-worth All-Stars.
As has been pointed out, Zeller was picked before Jones, so that was never an issue. I suspect they would have taken Zeller if he had still been available, but only the Rocket's know for sure. I suspect they did it in the order they did because they didn't think the Mavs had any interest in Zeller, which they were right about, but didn't for see the Cavs trading for him. But still the arguement is White/Lamb vs Zeller, Jones isn't in the equation. If you want a center rather than Jones, you are looking at taking Fab Melo.
I'm guessing the only reason Morey didn't draft Marc Gasol, Gortat, Asik or other centers is because the Rockets were a win-now team. They didn't want to wait to develop those players which I actually agree with.
Morey all but confirmed they were going to draft Zeller at 18 and Dallas messed it up. He picked White over Zeller. Many on this board think White has all-star potential and Morey himself said he has the most potential of anyone on the roster. If he honestly feels that way, why would anyone want him to pass on that for a backup center?
During the draft, bpa is highly subjective. Other than a couple of players at the top, no 2 teams bpa look the same. Bima, this isn't about fab melo at all, I'm just using his name because of his skill set comparable to asik. Let me ask a question, did anyone think marc gasol could be traded for his brother yrs after he was drafted? Did anyone think asik would sign a deal worth 8m per when he was drafted? Did anyone think al jefferson could get kevin garnett? I compared centers or bigs to qbs. The demand is high and their availibilty is low. If royce white or patterson avg 13ppg and 9 rebs, you think a team is gonna offer them max money. The risk of a big drafted mid to late 1st given his small nba salary outweigh the prospects of him being a bust. Someone brought thabeet, but to memphis they thought they were taken bpa. They already had marcgasol coming off a very solid rookie yr. Top that off, we're talking #2 pick that yr, not middle of the rd pick. What happens is asik is like jim mcilgvane or dudley,then what? Its a risk because he hasn't played a lot of minutes.
To be fair there's a difference between a defensive oriented sub and a top 5 defensive center in the league, no? I see no reason Zeller can't be every bit as good as Asik within a couple of years, and he'll be cheaper then too and we'll likely/hopefully just be figuring out how to compete with the elite teams in the league.
You are correct. BPA is highly subjective. But the Rockets' subjective opinion was that Jeremy Lamb and Royce White were better than every center in the draft (well, at least those not named Andre Drummond or Meyers Leonard). The Rockets' subjective opinion was also that Terrence Jones was better than every center in the draft not named Drummond, Leonard or Tyler Zeller. Believe me, I was BEGGING for the Rockets to draft Tyler Zeller at 16. They chose White. I can understand why, as White very well may have more talent than Zeller. Another example of people's subjective opinions differing. Unfortunately, Zeller went off the board one pick before the Rockets could snatch him up at 18. Stuff happens. I was really mad about it during the draft, but I'll get over it. If the Rockets had Zeller rated ahead of White, he'd be a Rocket right now. They didn't. So he isn't. If you want to criticize the Rockets' subjective ranking of Lamb and White over Zeller, have at it. But I don't think there is any fundamental strategy of avoiding a center in the draft that should cause such consternation.
Fab Melo lacks the lateral speed to be effective, especially in the type of system the Rockets want to run, and with the direction the league is headed. Asik is offensively r****ded, but he is a suprisingly good athlete and has the dexterity and foot speed to cover players and make plays Fab Melo will probably not make. I promise you, if the Rockets felt Melo would be close to as good as Asik they would have drafted him for sure. Interesting point though.... I agree that Morey tends to address the center position through trade/free agent and not the draft..... still not many centers he has passed on that really excite me.
Bima, I wouldn't have drafted zeller before lamb or jones, but I would've drafted melo or zeller before white. I think melo can at least be sam dalembert. I like white and his talent, I just have an issue with smallish guys on the frontline who are not explosive. When mason was playing, 6'8 guys were kinda normal in a sense. I mean elton brand went #1 in 99 at 6'8, but look at his arm length and explosion coming out. You may be right about the target was zeller at 18, but what happened to the same intel that had phoenix taking lamb a week early?lol
Why do you keep "lol"-ing at this? The intel was not that Lamb for sure was going to last that long (although he did), then intel was that PHO would take him a pick before us if he was available at #13. So that's one of the big reasons why we jumped up two spots. And it wasn't a week before the draft...the trade was 3 days before.
Before that when the drat process started Lamb was going in the top 8 in some drafts. Then Dion Waiters, Terrence Ross, others literally came out of nowhere.
For every DeAndre Jordan there is a Hassan Whiteside, Samardo Samuels, or Jeremy Tyler. For every Omer Asik there is a Cole Aldrich, Aaron Gray, or BJ Mullens. For every Dejuan Blair there is a Shelden Williams, Joey Dorsey, or Big Baby Davis. The fact of the matter is, you can go down the list on every body type, every style of player, every motor or intangible you want to think up. We remember the ones the Rockets missed, but we always forget the guys who were extremely similar but never panned out. This applies to every position in the draft from guard to center. But apparently Morey and co. have crunched the numbers, and it is particularly bad for centers (<20%). I can buy that. We don't know what Andre Drummond, Meyers Leonard, Tyler Zeller, or Fab Melo will become. Chances are one of them at least becomes a multiple time all-star. But none of them are on our team. What does that mean? Well, nothing except that the Rockets management deemed that the opportunity cost to go after one of those guys--trading up in the case of Drummond and Leonard, or losing out on a different prospect in the case of Zeller and Melo--was simply too high. Not worth it. The end. As others said, with free agents you know what you are getting. Before the season starts at SOME point you have to hedge your bets and start crafting a roster based on need. And free agency has the double bonus of being 1.) a safer bet; and 2.) later than the draft. So the organizational philosophy stands of getting as much talent as possible early in the offseason and then fitting the jigsaw pieces together later on, while at the same time targeting potential in the draft which has a greater probability of success than you would otherwise have going after the one-in-five chance of getting a viable center. In the end it comes down to talent evaluation. No amount of strategy will help if you draft crap players and sign crap players too. In this regard Morey has a proven track record of hitting more than missing. Unfortunately people remember the misses most of all, which is not a fair measure of any GM. You think people in San Antonio still blast Buford for giving up Scola and keeping Splitter? Heck no, they moved past that because they know Buford's the best in the game otherwise.
We already know that Asik can be Dalembert+ for 15 minutes a night. We dont know that Melo can be that. And the odds say that he probably won't.
