This draft is all over the place. Cody Williams is going in the top 4 in some mocks. I'm wondering which Kentucky guard is truly the best NBA prospect Dillingham or Sheppard.
I feel like most of Stone's picks were "consensus" type picks. Green vs. Mobley was really the only one where there's major debate. But otherwise it's fairly chalk based on public draft evaluations. Even most of his later picks were considered to be "how did they drop so far" type players rather than "we didn't expect him here" players, including guys who didn't pan out like Garuba and TyTy. But there is one thing that one can definitely criticize Stone for. We tanked hard for 3 years and didn't develop a single diamond in the rough. And I feel that may be more an indication on his limitations as a talent evaluator. I would also give him an INC grade, but I'm leaning more towards that he's average in this regards.
Stone draft critics really have to do some mental gymnastics. “Sengun was a ‘consensus’ pick, which is why the Thunder traded him to us for peanuts.”
but why are u ignoring the Jalen pick, and the two late 1st rounders in 2021? And that while Jabari is a good prospect, he’s far from a star prospect at #3? And the TyTy pick in 22’? The draft history is mixed: some good, and some bad. I think that’s a reasonable assessment. More good than bad, but not spectacular.
Stone landed six valuable prospects over a three year period, including arguably the best value picks in the last three drafts (Sengun, Tari, Cam). I don’t think another team has done as well over that span. I don’t really care that much about the really late picks— their hit rate is very low, and you have to make some decisions when drafting so many prospects over a short period. Not to mention he hasn’t given up any future capital. The “bad” doesn’t come anywhere near the “good.”
you’ve got to get star prospects out of 3 years of tanking. Hopefully we have a few, but it’s unclear. I think it’s fair to say that Jalen’s value is no longer in the lotto range. I do agree with you about Tari, Sengun and Cam. I think Stone deserves credit for those three, and I think Amen is gonna be special. But I just don’t think we maximized our #2 and #3 picks from 21 & 22’ and we didn’t hit on any later round picks in our drafts, which isn’t an impossible thing to do. So that’s why I think it’s mixed. I’m compartmentalizing my concern over the asset mgmt in general. But we’ve certainly been above average in the draft.
Getting Sengun with the #16 and keeping him away from OKC is pretty spectacular. That alone far outweighs whiffs on late 1st round picks in Christopher, Garuba, and Tyty. At the end of the 1st round it's hard to find quality players at all. We missed out on Herb Jones in 2021, but that's basically it. Who do you think we should have drafted with those missed picks?
we didn’t need to draft 4 guys in 2021; two of which played the same position as KPJ, apparently a key building block for the org at the time. A good GM would have traded one or both of those picks for future assets. And if we want to nitpick about who was available late (which I agree hindsight is 20x20), add Cam Thomas to the list. But I agree trading up for Sengun was Stone’s best draft move and he deserves credit.
Definitely should have traded some of those extra assets on draft night or at some point long before they did and looking ahead to this offseason, they really need to start flipping some of these young assets/draft picks for a bonafide superstar. If you redraft 2021 today in hindsight, I don't see how Sengun goes lower than 3. Probably even #1. He was a steal, and props to Stone and the scouts for seeing his talent.
The roster was completely devoid of prospects in the 20-21 season and KPJ was far from a cornerstone. He had only played 26 games for us at that point and was a project himself. We could've used as many picks as possible. The crime isn't whiffing on the late picks (even if we could've had Cam Thomas and Herb Jones), it's whiffing on the #2 pick. You say a good GM would have traded one or both picks for future assets, then praise Stone for doing the opposite with Sengun. We traded two future 1st round picks for him. Not sure how you can reconcile the two approaches. Trading a 2021 pick (or two) for future assets = good GM. Trading future picks for a 2021 pick (Sengun) = also good.
Yep. The Rockets are in the Top 11 or 12 in future draft capital despite Rockets being down 3 FRPS and 2 FRP swaps when he became GM, and having drafted 5 good prospects in 3 years. Even taking out the Harden trade, the Rockets are up 2 FRPs (used on Sengun and Whitmore because of Stone's draft pick asset management) and is only down 2 SRPs after trading 3 for Adams. Edit: If Stone doesn't get a 1A option through either trade or internal development, he will go down as a bad GM. Right now, I think it is pretty clear he's done a better job of accumlating better picks than he's given up versus the average GM even without considering the Harden trade. It is just going to be do any of those guys make a difference in the star category.
because you can only develop so many players at once. Rebuilding is not a sprint. If we believed in Sengun enough to trade two 1sts to draft him than that’s great. That means we have two players in the 2021 draft that we are heavily committed to developing. But trying to develop 4 rookies, plus KPJ (who absolutely was a cornerstone; disagree with you there), and they were high on KJ Martin and Tate. We just didn’t have a pathway to developing all those late picks. We probably should have traded one of them. but agreed, the big issue is that we blew our #2 pick. I still think overall we’ve done well in the draft the last 3 years.
I want to keep the pic. I have no issue if we want to trade up, thinking that we identify a franchise talent. otherwise I’m targeting Reed Shepherd or a kanky small forward type in case Tari is unable to come back. Id also be fine with a center to develop behind Adams but I am mostly hoping that we keep Adams for 3 to 4 years.
I can't recall a single time a late first has been traded straight-up for valuable future assets. Teams just don't place much value on them. I just don't think the deals you think existed actually existed.
Agreed. Also, I belive Shepherd to be extremely overrated. He's a "safe" pick that will be picked too high.
I don’t know about overrated. As far as safe I think that’s what the Rockets need if they keep the pick. Someone that elevate the team or at least not hurt the team and help the other guys that still need to improve.
