I think you can get Eason at 17 .... but I don't see Williams falling that far. Hell, I could see him going as high as 10-12 depending on how the lottery shakes out. Several guys could slide (Sharpe, Griffin, Daniels) for various reasons .... Trading up to get Williams would be my plan B with plan A being getting back into the top 5-6 for a shot at Keegan Murray. Don't think Stone will trade more than 17 and one of EG / Wood to move up and that doesn't seem like enough to get to 6 so .... plan B is more likely IMO.
Agbaji is 6'5" with a 6'10" wingspan at 215. He's as big and long as any SF on our roster. Is good on defense and shoots 40% from 3. He has gotten better every year and many believe he has not reached his ceiling. Was the man for Kansas this year. He was named the most outstanding player in the tournament after leading them to the championship. I doubt he falls to 17, but if he does im totally down with that pick. No reason he could not start for us next year AT the 3.
Since we're most likely looking at a center prospect with this pick, I crunched some numbers on centers drafted since 2010 and how they've "performed": Centers drafted in the top 15 vs Centers drafted between picks 16-30: Criteria20102011201220132014201520162017201820192020TotalAverage Centers in top 1544351342312320.21875 "All" Centers in top 15102011110007 Centers 16-3011442134123260.115384615 "All" Centers in 16-30010100010003 The criteria used here was simply whether or not a center had been selected as either an All-Star or All-NBA player. Using the past 11 drafts, we see that about 22% of the time a center selected within the first 15 picks will turn into an "All" player. From picks 16-30, however, that number basically gets cut in half, down to 12% of the time. Now not all centers will emerge and become an All-NBA player like an Embiid or an All-Star-level player like a Jarrett Allen BUT they can still impact your team's success or failure all the same. So I went in and looked at the same 11 drafts and pulled numbers related to VORP, setting the baseline at VORP greater than or equal 1.0 as an average. So if a player has played 6 seasons, I would expect to see a total VORP value of 6.0 or greater to deem him as a contributor. Criteria20102011201220132014201520162017201820192020TotalAverage Centers in top 1544351342312320.40625 Centers ~ 1 VORP per season1122122110013 Centers 16-3011442134123260.230769231 Centers ~ 1 VORP per season010210011006 As you can see, the numbers are a lot higher when we lowered the bar from "Center, All-Star" to "Center, decent player". There's about a 40% chance that a center selected in the 1st round would end up being a contributor to the team. Looking at the back half of the 1st round, you get about a 1 in 4 chance that a center will be a contributor to your team. In this draft, I've seen the same 3 names in the top 15 when it comes to centers: Holmgren, Duren and Williams. If the % hold true then you're only going to get 1 "All" level center among the 3. "Has there been any drafts (in the past 11 drafts) where the center selected 1st became a "lesser" player than centers selected after him?" Good question because, by all accounts, Holmgren will be off the draft board way before Duren or Williams. Looking at drafts since 2010: 2011: Vucevic (16th) has gone on to be a better player than Kanter (3rd), Tristan Thompson (4th), Valanciunas (5th), and Biyombo (7th) 2013: Rudy Gobert (27th) has ran laps around Alex Len (5th), Noel (6th), Olynyk (13th), etc. Steven Adams (12th) as also performed better than the centers drafted ahead of him 2016: Sabonis (11th) is definitely better than Dragan Bender (4th) and Poetl (9th) 2017: Jarrett Allen (22nd), nuff said. 2018: Robert Williams (27th), nuff said part 2. So yea there have been obvious examples where a center selected in the lower part of the draft has excelled mroeso than one drafted near the top of the draft, however, none of these examples have a player who's expected to go in the top 2 like Holmgren. If Holmgren goes #1 and busts, he would be the first center in the past 11 years that would have the dubious honor of not fulfilling expectations/potential. The silver lining here for Duren and Williams is that, in the past 11 drafts where 3 centers were taken in the top 15, 2 out of 3 ends up being at least a "contributor" (VORP > 1.0 on average). If we can safely assume Chet is one out of those 3, then one of Duren or Williams will underwhelm. As for the 2nd half of the 1st round, there are two center prospects in Kessler and Oloko in this draft. Hoping that one of the two turning into an "All" player (12%) is a fool's errand but if we set the bar lower to "contributor" status it's a little bit more promising at 23%. That being said, the centers that have been taken in the past 11 drafts that went on to be at least a contributor were: Vucevic (16th), Mason Plumlee (22nd), Gobert (27th), Capela (25th), Allen (22nd), Time Lord Williams (27th). If we're to hitch the proverbial wagon to a center pick in the 2nd half of the 1st round, it's been better to select one near the end of the 1st and most likely one with some international background.
I'm just going by what a slew of publications are labeling him as in their mock drafts. SI.com, tankathon.com, nbadraft.net, bleacherreport.com, etc. Positional change wouldn't be a surprise once he gets to the league but if all of these websites are labeling him as a center RIGHT NOW, I'm going to use that.
I was thinking almost the exact same size as Iguodala. Iggy 6'6" / 6'11" / 215 Agbaji 6'5 / 6'10" / 215 KPJ 6'4" / 6'9" / 203
I see that too but the reality is 7 footers are automatically listed as centers in drafts. Just like Mobley was listed as a 5 but he played the 4 at USC and his best position was the 4 in NBA. If he stayed at 4 the last month or so to end season, he very likely wins ROY.
