Iko implies Smith was at the top of Houston's board...

Not blaming Stone for anything, he did what he should have done - take the best player available.

But unlike you I'm not crediting him for masterminding some jedi mindtrick on Magic either.

 

You are literally blaming him for letting it leak who he wanted, again, and losing Paolo because of it.

And no one is saying Stone masterminded anything, he just took who was left. Orl is the one trying to mastermind some elaborate hoax that didn’t work. The subject of the thread is trying to figure out who was on the top of Stone’s board, we can’t say the answer for sure, but Orlando at least thought it was Jabari or else the dog and pony show they put on would have made no sense.

if Orlando wanted Houston to trade up for Paolo, they would have leaked all long that Paolo was going #1

 

There was that video that surfaced this offseason of Chet and the Gonzaga guys playing king of the court. I couldn't tell the difference between them and your local YMCA gym due to the bricks that were being thrown up. I got pretty turned off by it. Happy OKC went that direction.

 

LOL

Reading is fundamental.

There is zero proof that Orlando contacted Rockets to trade up for Jabari.

Or that Stone was willing to trade up - for Jabari OR Paolo.

We only know what we actually saw.

Both Jabari and Paolo were emotionally distraught when the picks were announced.

Logically we can assume they were told and relied on a different outcome.

 

B-b-b-b-b-why now, Stone?????

 

I like to believe Orlando was set on Jabari then Paolo liked the tweet that he measured 7ft with shoes and Orlando was like whhhhhoooa, let's get heem insteam.

 

You get the full five minutes, and Jabari was clearly shook on the broadcast about the Magic passing on him. Frankly I'm not worried in the slightest that Stone made sure to take the time to call him before the pick, help calm him down and let him know that he was wanted very much in Houston.

If I was 19 and felt that I had just been embarrassed on national TV, it would mean the world to me to have my future boss reassure me, and pump up my confidence again before I got up on stage. Since Jabari didn't engage with the Rockets at all during the pre-draft process, that very might well have been the first time he had even talked to Stone. It's being a professional, and being a decent human being.

 

Amen brudah!

 

Take anything Iko says with a grain of salt.

He has a very good pipeline with the Rockets front office... he and Feigen both get information directly from the Rockets and that makes their reporting a must read.... but ask yourself how often they say anything negative about the Rockets? If you were the Rockets, would you want to tell Iko that Smith was second or third on your board, or would you leak to him that Smith is the player you wanted all along and infer that you outsmarted the Magic?

 

The magic let it known that their guy was Jabari all the way leading to the draft. Who were they trying to fool, a team who was targeting Jabari or a team targeting Paolo?

It was widely reported leading up to the draft that Houston was trying to trade up to 1, if their guy was Paolo, why would they do that if by all accounts Paolo was dropping to 3 by all indications?

Not trying to blindly believe a Rockets mouthpiece but any other scenario doesn’t really make sense why Orlando did what they did leading to the draft.

 

could be part of a strategy .

we ended up not taking the named guy this time and didn’t move up for him . I’m sure orl would have traded down for a relatively fair price .

last year If green was taken I’m sure we’d be all loving stone for getting cade (or whoever we took / traded )

and plus we could have had mobley , green , etc graded veeery similarly . By saying green and taking green you build credibility .

which means that if we were at the top in orl’s position WE may have been able to pull off some sort of Tatum - fultz thing ourselves. Because we credibly named and took green last year .

 

Your question is a good one, however Orlando supposedly didn't tell anyone in the media what there preference was. All of the reports were from other teams around the league speculating. Also Orlando did have a workout with Banchero scheduled and he cancelled it. He instead had a zoom call.

So Orlando may have been open to a number of teams possibly trading for the pick, and for Houston or OKC trading up as well.... the Magic lose nothing by being quiet and possibly could have added other assets.

FWIW OKC supposedly didn't leak they wanted Chet either, teams made the assumption based on what type of players Presti wants... it is also why no one knew for sure about Jalen Williams going there and the interest in Dieng was mostly a guess.

Truth be told no one knows what the Rockets wanted to do, it is very possible that the Rockets assumed they would get Banchero and felt nothing positive would come from bad mouthing someone they would be getting, whom was third on their board.

For example I know that the Rockets really liked Washington and Eason and at one point, Montero well before the draft and posted about it.... but where were they compared to someone like Mark Williams who they probably figured was off the board. Had Eason been gone, would they have taken Griffin if he fell and told everyone he was at the top of their board? IDK.... and things are also fluid. The Rockets at a couple points liked Jean Montero, but he didn't even get drafted. The Rockets didn't draft him, is that because they want Washington more or because they changed their mind?

FWIW I think that the Magic changed their mind. I don't think they were certain who they would take, and after leaning Smith, they decided that the ability to create by Banchero, as well as his charisma were slightly better than Smith. If the draft were held in two weeks, they may have picked Holmgren or Smith.

 

The Magic didn't tell anyone anything.... there were no leaks from the Magic that I can find. The closest thing to a leak was the betting line activity at 2 am.

Also I don't know of any credible reports of the Rockets trying to trade up to #1. If you know of credible reports please let me know.... but from credible sources, all I heard was that the Rockets would be happy with any of the top 3, or throw away statements about how the Rockets seem to like Banchero, but never anything definitive.

I don't know who the Rockets wanted in the days leading up to the draft, but I do know in the weeks leading up to the draft that the Rockets had not made up their mind who they wanted @treyk3 @Deuce

 

Honestly, based on the track record of Sam Presti with high draft picks, I feel more secure that Chet will be really good.... had OKC passed on him I would have some concerns.

 

Some of this is just conjecture, but I'd say that 70% of teams had Jabari as their #1, 20% had Chet, and 10% had Paolo. The lottery worked out beautifully for the Rockets, who essentially got their #1 pick anyway.

I'd also agree that the Rockets did have Jabari as their #1, but did not expect him to fall to them. Don't forget that Jabari wouldn't work out for Houston, which I'd assume played a factor in being more than happy to end up with Paolo and not going all in to trade up for Jabari when they were ranked pretty close.

Orlando for whatever reason played their hand extremely secretive, because they were not out there actively trying to trade down from what I know. My guess is that it truly was a decision they went back and forth on and didn't settle on until very close to the draft. It's even possible that their entire scouting department was locked in on Jabari, but ownership decided Paolo was their guy. Those kinds of stories don't usually come out until people start to lose jobs or players become busts, then people are quick to blame someone else.

And no, I don't think they had Tari and TyTy rounding out their top 5

 

The magic social media broadcasted the entire Interview and workout process when Jabari came to town which they didn’t do for Chet(he supposedly cut the workout short) and didn’t talk much about Paolo at all. The Chet connection to Okc came more from Chet himself, he talked glowingly about the okc team and culture, while was noncommittal when asked about wanting to go #1. Chet and Giddey have also been playing footsy for weeks like Kpj did with Green.

Yes the only other explanation for what the Magic did besides a smokescreen for teams to trade up for Jabari is that they truly just didn’t decide who they were picking until last minute, or changed their mind from Jabari to Paolo. In their post draft interview when asked about it they said the perceived flip in picks was draft strategy, posturing, which implies it was all a smokescreen, but that in itself may just be PR to make Paolo feel like he was the choice all along.

 

Will we ever find out down the line who the rockets wanted the last few days leading up to the draft? i don't blame Stone for not getting Jabari or Chet in for a workout or to come visit both of them were set their mind on going 1 or 2(Jabari saying he only sees himself as top 2 so he had to have a promise to say that), I posted this before but Richard Jefferson was teammates with Jabari's father and Jabari SR told him "my son going number 1" . I truely believe Magic changed their mind last minute and playing off like 'We kept everything close to our chest" .

 

We may never know where we had the prospects ranked, but it was a good draft to be #3. I thought we had a great draft.

 

I forget who the source was but in the day or two leading up to the draft this board was in full panic mode after hearing we may trade up and assuming we were moving up for Paolo since that was who was most connected to the Rockets. (Which made no sense since Paolo was projected to drop to the Rockets anyway)