I don't know how interested the Rockets are... I do know they like Larkin and Craft (had he come out).
What about trading Thomas Robinson to OKC, reacquire Lamb and get their second first round pick to use to take Antetokounmpo? http://insider.espn.go.com/blog/nba/rumors/ Who got combine draft promises? May, 17, 2013 3:25 PM ET By Tom Carpenter | ESPN.com We quite often hear that an NBA team has made a promise to a prospect that they will draft him if he is still on the board when their turn comes up in the draft. Of course, those promises are as good as the paper on which they are written, which means such handshake agreements rarely come to fruition. For instance, last season, the Phoenix Suns reportedly made a promise to take Dion Waiters with their No. 13 pick, but he ended up going to the Cleveland Cavaliers with the fourth overall pick. It's still quite early in the draft process right now, but even though the combine is still in session, ESPN NBA Insider Chad Ford reports that a couple of international players -- Germany's Dennis Schroeder and Greece's Giannis Antetokounmpo -- may have such promises in hand: Chad Ford Notes from Day 1 of the draft combine "While sources did not pinpoint the teams who made the promise, they did say that Schroeder's promise was in the mid-first round while Antetokounmpo's promise was in the late first round. Both make sense. Schroeder wowed at the Nike Hoops Summit last month and had generated a lot of buzz coming into the camp. A team fearing he might improve his stock even more at the combine might have decided to shut him down now before he rose out of their draft range. Several teams including the Boston Celtics and Utah Jazz are looking for point guards in that draft range. Antetokounmpo hasn't had an opportunity to do real workouts with teams. However with so much upside, you could see a veteran team with multiple first-round picks deciding to keep him in Europe as a draft-and-stash candidate. A few teams including the Jazz, Oklahoma City Thunder and Minnesota Timberwolves have a second first-round pick in the 20s."
Now why would OKC do that? I know TRob was a #5 pick with very high potential, but teams value high potential players without any NBA experience higher than high potential players with NBA experience. Besides, they already have Ibaka & KD. Unless they think Antetokounmpo can grow enough to play the 5.
Well, if you throw in Thomas Robinson who is a very athletic player with Durant, Ibaka & Westbrook, all also very athletic, that may be the type of team for him. The Thunder need some more depth up front & they might want to have one rookie and a second year player in Robinson next season, instead of 2 rookies since they should also have the #12 pick. #29 could be too low anyway. NBA draft net predicts that he will go #20: http://www.nbadraft.net/2013mock_draft Maybe the Rockets can trade Thomas Robinson to Atlanta for their pick because they have pick #17 and #18 which is from the Rockets.
Good article in the New York Times on Adetokunbo and it mentions that Morey went to go see him. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/26/s...arth-a-rare-find.html?hp&_r=1&pagewanted=all&
I feel like it will stay quiet about him now, but as we get closer and closer to the draft he will rise up the ranks until he is considered a top 10 pick
It seems to me that it is very unlikely that we will be able to net a high enough draft pick out of trading Robinson to draft him. Besides, has he had enough strong competition to prove he can hang in the NBA? I read an article on RealGM about Robinson really not playing against NBA level bigs in college which caused his stats to not be truly indicative how he will perform at this level. Thought it was a good point (by no means groundbreaking analysis) but still something to strongly think about with regard to this guy.
I'd say 90% chance of bust, with 10% chance at all-star. Don't think there will be much in between for him.
Based on his physical tools. He is a near carbon copy of Durant and could possibly still be growing. And notice I said he has the potential, I didn't say he will be. Just depends on how dedicated to the game he is.
6-9 PGs are dicey prospects. Usually too soft to play against SFs but then their ballhandling's too weak to play at PG in higher level comps like the NBA. A possible red flag would be they're playmakers out of necessity, ie ordinary to bad shooters. I think he's another Korolev.
Big-time boom or bust. Probably worth the risk in the back end of the draft. Schroeder is actually the guy that I'm the most high on out of all the Euros. Knowing Morey's man-crush on speedy pgs, I suspect he likes him a great deal.
