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2023 NBA Draft Megathread

KqWIN said:
We did have a chance at both. The chance for Wemby may not have been high, but it wasn’t high for anyone. We would have been closer, but not as close as many seem to think. People are acting as if we would have had Wemby if only we acted earlier on Lauri.

This isn’t a video game. We weren’t going to sit Lauri for half the season. How about this, if you were there raising your hand saying we should sit Lauri 30 games into the season you can complain. But if you didn’t, I don’t want to hear any complaining about not sitting Lauri earlier for better (but still bad) odds for Wemby. It’s not a real thing that was going to happen early on in the season. Fact is, Lauri was the biggest thing at odds with our tanking chances. Yeah, it would have been nice to have a higher pick, but I’m not mad if our pick was lower because we have Lauri Markannen. I think it’s silly to try to split hairs and declare when the perfect time was to give up and call it quits on his season. I doubt Lauri would have liked us quitting on him any earlier than he did. He wasn’t the only one sitting out either. Clarkson and Sexton missed a ton of games during tanking time.

Having said that, with the Conley stuff….yeah everyone was calling for that. I feel like it’s fair to question if it was worth it to have him and all those vets on the team for half the year. I was on record saying I don’t see the point of Conley on this roster. Maybe we got a better trade deal by waiting. But to me that’s a more fair question. Was the waiting worth whatever tanking benefits we lost out on? It’s not obvious when to sit your budding star, and it’s hard to do that. Trading Conley and the other vets, however, was a much easier decision for the reasons you mentioned.
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Ya we just should have tanked harder than we did. Thats really the jist of it. Trade conley prior to the season starting. Rest guys more often on back to backs. Etc. Doesn't have to be as drastic as sitting lauri for 30 games. Though we did in fact sit sexton and clarkson and even lauri for some at the end. Just waited to long. We totally half assed it. We probably could have made the play in. Or we probably could have had a better pick than we ended up with. Instead we did the worst case scenario when 2 better, imo, scenarios were there for the taking.
I was totally down to tank the F out of the season. I was also down with making the playoffs. We decided to do neither lol. Seemed like the jazz gameplan was "lets make the playoffs. lets make the playoffs. Win as much as possible" until the trade deadline when we were still in position to make the playoffs and then they were like "lets not try so hard to win anymore. We will get rid of some talent now" and then at the very end of the season they were like "ok, lets tank the F out of the rest of our games"
Just a weird strategy.

Still sitting with a pretty good roster, good salary situation, hella draft picks and a great GM and coach though so im still very excited for the future of the jazz and this season coming up wednesday.
 
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fishonjazz said:
What if we could have had Lauri AND a chance at wemby? We still had lauri during the last 20 games of last season iirc and we kinda sucked. I just checked the last 20 games (just chose the number 20 at random as its a nice round number and decent sample size) and we went 7-13. Lauri was on the jazz roster that entire time. Not sure where a record that dismal puts us if extrapolated out to 82 games but I bet we would be much closer to wemby with lots more lottery balls.

If nothing else mike conley should have been dealt before the season started. An old highly paid dude does nothing for a tanking team who recently traded literally every other piece from that team. Weird to trade bogey, royce, rudy, gobert, etc but stop at conley.
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Well that random 20 game sample leads to 28-29 wins, which is still 6-7 more than SA had.

Besides, Lauri sat out like 7 of those last 20 games. Our record in games that he played in was 32-34, and in games that he missed was 5-11.
 
Saint Cy of JFC said:
Wouldnt have guaranteed Wemby.
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Obviously not. But it would have been a real chance to make the full leap ahead without paying any meaningful price at all. A real shot at a real chance to build the next decade dominant team.
The Spurs choose wisely (again) and reminded everyone around (again) that when a chance at greatness appears in front of you, you just try to grab it.
RS/DA choose to ignore.
 
Alright, I've watched a lot of these rookies play preseason basketball. I was very invested in this draft, and that's carried over to the preseason, since this is my last chance to watch a lot of them get real minutes. Here's what I'm seeing in as a concise way as possible:

Here's the top 10:

- Wemby has been amazing, even better than I could have expected. He had by far the highest usage of any rookie and his team still played well while he was on the court. He still has a ton of room for improvement, which is scary.
- Miller is a really smooth athlete and has a well rounded game. I think he will be a good NBA player, but doesn't look like a star to me.
- Scoot is going to get the chance to play with the ball in his hands more than any other rookie. He's going to put up some counting stats this year, but generally be inefficient and a negative on the court. I still think he's going to be great, but wonder if he's being given too much too early.
- Both Amen and Ausar are as athletic as advertised, and in my opinion they are really fun to watch. They were both very good at getting to the rim and to the free throw line. Amen is being given more of a lead guard role whereas Ausar is being asked to be more of a connector. Ausar surprisingly had the most rebounds of any of the rookies including all of the bigs. They both turn the ball over a lot.
- Anthony Black didn't do much when I watched him, and looking at his stats, didn't do much at all this preseason. He needs to work on his handle in order to be a lead guard or work on his shooting to play off ball. He does everything else well, I'm still a fan.
- Bilal is as impactful on defense as he is unimpactful on offense. I personally love to watch great defense, so I've enjoyed watchin him. He's got some arrogance to his game that is fun as well.
- Jerace is kind of all over the place. He has a lot of skills for a guy his size, but needs to get under control.
- Taylor was the worst looking lottery pick, unfortunately. I was just waiting for him to do something to get excited about on defense. I'm not worried about his offense because I think his future role is so simple he'll get it. I think he'll spend some time in the G-League and get used to our defensive schemes and end up ok, at least I hope. I wish we still had Alex Jensen.
- Cason is a guy that can fit in to any rotation even as a rookie because he plays within himself and doesn't make a lot of mistakes. He can defend and shoot well enough to stay on the court, even if he doesn't bring much else to the table right now.
 
Here's the other guys I've watched enough of to comment on:

- Jett didn't get much time against or with real NBA players to say much about him. He has a good feel for where to be on the court and is a tall shooter, so I think he'll be ok. His defense wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it might be.
- I already mentioned Lively went from looking bad to playable. He was actually better on offense as a rim finisher than on defense as a rim protector.
- Hawkins looked to shoot every time he got the ball, and isn't currently shooting well enough to justify that. He was bad on defense when I watched him. I'm kind of down on him.
- Bufkin has a well rounded game, but is currently taking too long to make decisions. NBA speed is a little too fast for him right now.
- George looks like he can get where he wants to on the court, but doesn't quite know what to do once he gets there. I think there is going to be a balance this year of working to expand his game while playing within the team and not being a negative on the court.
- Jaime only played one game, where he was really good. I wish I got to see him play more, I'm really high on him.
- Cam can do everything at a an individual level really well. He is an amazing individual scorer and is also an amazing individual defender. He needs to figure out how to play within a team concept to be really great. To his credit he seems to have made some progress from summer league to the end of preseason.
- Sheppard looks like he's going to get some rotation minutes this year. He's a smart player and can shoot, which is a good combination.
- Strawther looks like the steal of the draft. He looked really comfortable getting his shot off at the NBA level. He doesn't bring a ton else to the court though.
 
Some other notes:

- Noah Clowney didn't play much, but when he did he really rebounded well.
- Colby Jones looked pretty good to me. I think he'll be NBA rotation level.
- Emoni Bates had a really good preseason, he was shooting the ball extremely well.
- Craig Porter Jr. only played garbage time, but dominated when he was in.
 
Ferguson_Mellochill said:
Jett Howard could sneak up in the Magic rotation during the season. Brandon Miller could also be starting in Charlotte by mid-season.
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Yeah, I should have specified that those were the players I thought would start the season as starters. I think there are a lot of guys that could end up starting at some point this season, but I think a lot of that will depend on how teams are doing.

I could definitely see Miller starting this year as that team is going to be bad and why not start your #2 pick at that point. It's harder for me to see Jett start as I think Orlando could be in a the play in race this year.
 
Didn’t watch close enough to get a real feel for Jarace’s defense, but in preseason and summer league he’s been putting up shots at a much higher rate than I expected. The ball never seems to go in.
 
Been watching Pacers and Magic game to open the season. Looks like both Black and Jarace missed the opening day rotation. Bilal also demoted to bench.
 
Elizah Huge said:
Whitmore didn’t make the rotation either.
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Also Jett and Dick. While I don't think it's a huge mark against the guys who aren't playing, I think it's a fairly big accomplishment if Keyonte does end up being in the rotation tonight. For a freshman taken with the 16th pick he's way ahead of schedule.
 
Cason 5/5 tonight in his debut, and maybe more impressive has won the minutes over Tre Mann and Micic. Lively also looked amazing in the glimpses I caught of him.
 
On opening night the 2023 draft class:

Starters: Wemby, Scoot, Ausar
Rotation: Miller, Amen, Bilal, Wallace, Lively, George, Jaime, Sasser, Camara

Top Performers:
- Lively: 31min, 16pts, 7-8, 10 REB, 1AST, 1BLK
- Wemby: 23 min, 15pts, 6-9, 5REB, 2AST, 1BLK
- Miller: 25 min, 13pts, 5-9, 3REB, 2AST
- Wallace: 19min, 13pts, 5-5, 2REB,1AST, 1BLK
- Ausar: 27min, 7REB, 3AST, 5BLK
 
SoberasHotRod said:
On opening night the 2023 draft class:

Starters: Wemby, Scoot, Ausar
Rotation: Miller, Amen, Bilal, Wallace, Lively, George, Jaime, Sasser, Camara

Top Performers:
- Lively: 31min, 16pts, 7-8, 10 REB, 1AST, 1BLK
- Wemby: 23 min, 15pts, 6-9, 5REB, 2AST, 1BLK
- Miller: 25 min, 13pts, 5-9, 3REB, 2AST
- Wallace: 19min, 13pts, 5-5, 2REB,1AST, 1BLK
- Ausar: 27min, 7REB, 3AST, 5BLK
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Taylor is my guy but I loved Cason as well… Will be a little sad if he shoots 100% for his career and we missed out on a 3 and D pg.
 
Handlogten's Heros said:
Taylor is my guy but I loved Cason as well… Will be a little sad if he shoots 100% for his career and we missed out on a 3 and D pg.
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As much as I love Cason, he isn't really a PG right now. He doesn't have enough confidence in his handle through traffic to be a true PG. He has a nice role in OKC because they have so many ball handlers he can mostly play off ball. In the end I worry it could stunt his potential, but for now it makes him playable.

If we picked Cason, we probably don't pick George, and I think he has a lot more upside with his ability to get wherever he wants on the court.
 
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