I wouldn't get too mad at his list. Could be his editor gave him a topic to do for an assignment. I would have excluded Chet entirely since there was no large enough NBA sample. Personally, I have Bari higher than 8, but his stats this year hasn't been great. So I don't think we can be too upset that outside media had him lower. It's one of those, while I disagree with him, I understand his choices. Bari and Keegan above Ivey and Sharpe. Keegan has some record with rookies and threes. Bari's draft profile is super attractive, but he has to start living up to it. Hope is with new year and new coach, he can do that.
I get that. Instead of predraft ranking, you now have one year of NBA performance for you to judge the potential, which is supposed to be more informed. I can understand Chet being still high, but should drop a little bit because the predraft worry about his injury risk has actualized to a certain extent. Ivey didn't play well but his ceiling remains high. Smith should be in the same boat as Ivey. Sochan and Sharpe look like solid players but their ceilings don't look any higher than last year. I would have guessed the stocks of Mathurin, Kessler and Murray would have been raised a bit.
Vecenie kind of addressed this a few minutes ago on his live stream of "where would we like to see Wembanyama go in the draft?" They were saying they got blowback from Indy fans for putting Mathurin way down at #10, but they said it was because he was advertised as 3&D pre-draft, but his D was non-existent to the point of being horrific during the season. Not sure about the others, but to me Sharpe was a big ol' question mark coming in and a great athlete hardly anybody had seen play against legit competition. I think he showed he's not a fluke or myth in his first season. His ceiling may have stayed the same, but his floor was either raised or may have actually been realized/built because nobody really had a clue where it was before this season. Kessler? I was completely wrong about him and Duren. They both surprised me.
I'm actually high on Jabari than Green. Jabari became the 3rd option behind Segun and whoever they bring in. I hope he improves his rebounding and block shots. His defense is great for rookie.
Why would Chet still be high when people know he will break his leg on a non contact injury? OKC is the only one that's OK with that the rest of GMs wouldn't wanna be fired for picking a rookie that won't play.
No gm In their right mind with hindsight will draft chet that high especially knowing that he will get a serious season ending Injury b4 the season starts. The whole point of a redraft is to pick players with hindsight and data from a completed season. Can't trust a guy judgement if he would rather draft a guy who has a season ending injury, played 0 games over players who actually play their rookie season.
I don't think GMs would be fired for picking Chet. He still has a great deal of potential to be a special player. But the injury did validate the predraft concern. The risk is real. A lot of people dismissed the concern before the draft. Now they can't. So his stock should be lower but I think it is still quite high because of the potential. This is the same with Wemby. In fact, Wemby has had more injuries than Chet had. But I don't think any GM would pass up Wemby. The risk of being the guy who missed a generational talent is much more severe than the risk of picking an injured bust.
Imagine all the people hating on Jabari right now. Well Jabari had a couple of good games, not a lot but they were there. And now Chet is even worse he had 0 good games. There's a huge diff between Wemby and Chet. Wemby is just slim he is like KD predraft. Chet is like malnourished kid from 3rd world country and he only gained like 5 pounds after everyone told to gain weight for 1 yr.
Jabari has a higher ceiling as a 2 way big than Chet. His body frame is similar to Rui Hachimura, Giannis, Al Horford, JJJ etc at 6'10 he should be able to guard guys 2-5. Chet is stick thin he'll be similar to Mobley can switch and guard guys 1-3 but will be destroyed by 4s and 5s due to his lack of mass. He'll be pushed around and bodied pretty hard on the paint.
Lisfranc injuries are pretty rare for NBA players and it doesn't necessarily mean there's some structurally wrong or it's due to Chet's body type/frame. I don't necessarily disagree with Chet is still #2.
The redraft position for Smith seems to be about right. He performed well in the second half of the season, but his first half performance was pretty a dismal.
What would be Jabari's upside scenario? I think if he could end up like Jaren Jackson Jr., that would be kind of a best case scenario for him at this point. Their rookie stats are similar, except that Jabari somehow forgot how to shoot...if he can fix that, I think he could become similarly good as JJJ.
