Notes:
Going through most of the things that I've written in the past couple weeks, I find myself favoring certain players, personalities and skillsets in general.
I value especially shooting very highly apparently. This is a logical process IMO as championship caliber teams usually are one of the top teams in spacing the floor.
Guys that I didn't mention as frequently or not at all despite being projected by various mocks to fall In some teams range are often victim to me looking at the roster and what general direction a team is going to. I often find myself looking at rosters and tinker with lineups to see if there's strong lineups where less skilled players could fit in without ruining the whole spacing.
Players falling in that category are Grant, McDaniels, Clarkson, Stokes and Payton. It's not that I don't like these players.
I just couldn't get myself into dreaming that they become skilled offensive contributors in their areas of weaknesses. And then I look at the teams drafting in their range and try to find one that already has a lot of shooting, and could benefit from their defense and slashing/postup while compensating for the fact that these guys can't shoot. And I had to see that good shooting is more rare in the NBA than it should be and when you have good playmakers you can't really add enough shooting.
That's probably the reason why I like Vonleh's potential better than Gordon's. I like Gordon's game as well, but you have another guy who can shoot and has smooth mechanics, then I see skills that are already there, that don't have to be developed and I 'just' have to find ways to make these skills translate through strategic schemes and individual development.
With Gordon that doesn't matter, as every team other than Cleveland in the top7 sucks hard on paper and he'll get plenty of opportunities to develop his game and the franchise can monitor his shooting and compensate it by aiming for sharp shooter in later drafts.
But when you're outside the lottery, you're landing on potential playoff teams mostly and these teams can give you only some 2nd quarter and garbage time minutes when you don't show quick development, assimilation qualities and production on the court. And for a player like Jerami Grant it would be horribly to land in the middle of a Grizz, Jazz, Heat, Thunder and especially Hornets roster. Teams that draft in the middle of the 20s and either need a lot of shooting to make their offense efficient or can't afford to be patient waiting for a project to develop some game.
And that's why I don't like these low skilled players on teams that have no playing time and patience to develop them. When you're on such a roster you've a high chance to bust.
A team like Atlanta that has so much shooting and need to get more defense and attacking the rim would be a good fit for some of these players, so would the Mavs who don't like the draft in general.
I think DX's projection for ATL of tabbing TJ Warren is fair. He'd address a need for them by attacking the rim, running in transition and being capable in team defense schemes.
So if a team like ATL drafts in the mid 20s, Grant would make sense for them when you consider ceiling and the amount of production you risk by passing on guys like Robinson III, Early and others.
Embiid's health issue(s)
Nothing has been more discussed other than LeBron's and Melo's free agency these days. Even Love trade chatter is just noise compared to Lil'Olajuwon's navicular bone.
I agree with Cleveland that it's too risky now to pick him at #1 even though he's upside wise a top10 center in the history of the game.
I'd rank his upside together with Duncan, O'Neal, Kareem, Wilt, Moses, the Dream, Oden, Howard and others that I've prolly never heard about or simply forgot.
I'M talking upside here, not probability of reaching that. I'll get **** for putting Oden and Howard in there anyways. But imagine a healthy Oden, whose body was simply unfair with the strength and athleticism he had paired with a good skillset at an early age. And then imagine Dwight Howard with an offensive game that isn't 99% putbacks and lobs out of the PnR and who could hit free throws.
And I just go by the skilllevel Embiid's already at and the pace of improvement from highschool to the draft. He continues at the rate his game was evolving prior to his injuries and he'd be an AllStar in year 3. He still can become that but when your #2 through 4 are Parker, Wiggins and Exum, you don't go full Portland.
You simply take the safer alternatives and remember that it's a marathon, not a sprint.
If I'm Cleveland I'm selecting Parker #1 or take the Orlando deal that's been in the media for a couple of days. And I think that's why they wanna see Exum. They want to be comfortable with Exum at 4. They are with Embiid, but wanna be safe that Exum would be as well.
No matter what happens you trade Dion Waiters. Because the only scenario where Waiters + Irving works is if Waiters is the 6th man and the two are sharing the court only half the game. And Waiters isn't the guy who likes being 6th man and not always finishing games when your defense needs to be solid.
And in that case Exum's an alternative. His defensive potential is high, the way he works laterally, he's at least as good a playmaker as Irving is. So that would make sense as well, when you get Afflalo and #10 as well.
But if you select #1 it's Parker and you figure out later if Tristan can defend 3s or Jabari can defend 3s or if you need to trade both Bennett and Tristan to make place for Jabari as the starting 4.
Assuming Parker goes #1 anyways no matter if it's Cleveland or Orlando picking at 1, I expect Wiggins to go #2. Simply because you've got a long road ahead in Milwaukee and you aren't going to be good anytime soon. So select the guy with the highest upside/risk ratio. That's Wiggins. Philly will go either Embiid or Exum at 3 and the other guy lands in Orlando at 4 or the Cavs select at 4.
I don't think too much is changing after 4. So many smokescreens and every organisation has multiple guys who would fit in as players and it's a question of whose personality, work ethic they like/believe/support the most. A lot of baiting teams into panic deals, which won't happen, because the teams from 5 to 9 are solid management wise.
Elfrid Payton has risen on draft boards and Saric dropped after announcing that he's going to play 2 years in Turkey. I think Saric's floor is Phoenix's 2nd pick at 18.
Also Bogdanovic being connected to the Spurs is not really shocking to me. I didn't really know too much about him before I wrote. And when I saw him I was like: Ginobili light, he looks Spurs. Can shoot, can dribble, can pass, can defend.
Napier being connected to the Heat these days is also sth I wrote about. Made a lot of sense if you expect LeBron to be back. Not the best decision maker, but surpreme shooter and LeBron handles anyways. Also can attack the basket and finish in a variety of moves. Winning history.
One last advice for tonight's lottery. If you don't want spoilers unfollow Wojnarowski on twitter. And never look up Chad Ford. Dude's got a history of being trolled by "sources" on draft night. Unless you wanna know what's not happening and have a little bit of fun. Broussard has even worse sources though. So that might be more entertaining.
Going through most of the things that I've written in the past couple weeks, I find myself favoring certain players, personalities and skillsets in general.
I value especially shooting very highly apparently. This is a logical process IMO as championship caliber teams usually are one of the top teams in spacing the floor.
Guys that I didn't mention as frequently or not at all despite being projected by various mocks to fall In some teams range are often victim to me looking at the roster and what general direction a team is going to. I often find myself looking at rosters and tinker with lineups to see if there's strong lineups where less skilled players could fit in without ruining the whole spacing.
Players falling in that category are Grant, McDaniels, Clarkson, Stokes and Payton. It's not that I don't like these players.
I just couldn't get myself into dreaming that they become skilled offensive contributors in their areas of weaknesses. And then I look at the teams drafting in their range and try to find one that already has a lot of shooting, and could benefit from their defense and slashing/postup while compensating for the fact that these guys can't shoot. And I had to see that good shooting is more rare in the NBA than it should be and when you have good playmakers you can't really add enough shooting.
That's probably the reason why I like Vonleh's potential better than Gordon's. I like Gordon's game as well, but you have another guy who can shoot and has smooth mechanics, then I see skills that are already there, that don't have to be developed and I 'just' have to find ways to make these skills translate through strategic schemes and individual development.
With Gordon that doesn't matter, as every team other than Cleveland in the top7 sucks hard on paper and he'll get plenty of opportunities to develop his game and the franchise can monitor his shooting and compensate it by aiming for sharp shooter in later drafts.
But when you're outside the lottery, you're landing on potential playoff teams mostly and these teams can give you only some 2nd quarter and garbage time minutes when you don't show quick development, assimilation qualities and production on the court. And for a player like Jerami Grant it would be horribly to land in the middle of a Grizz, Jazz, Heat, Thunder and especially Hornets roster. Teams that draft in the middle of the 20s and either need a lot of shooting to make their offense efficient or can't afford to be patient waiting for a project to develop some game.
And that's why I don't like these low skilled players on teams that have no playing time and patience to develop them. When you're on such a roster you've a high chance to bust.
A team like Atlanta that has so much shooting and need to get more defense and attacking the rim would be a good fit for some of these players, so would the Mavs who don't like the draft in general.
I think DX's projection for ATL of tabbing TJ Warren is fair. He'd address a need for them by attacking the rim, running in transition and being capable in team defense schemes.
So if a team like ATL drafts in the mid 20s, Grant would make sense for them when you consider ceiling and the amount of production you risk by passing on guys like Robinson III, Early and others.
Embiid's health issue(s)
Nothing has been more discussed other than LeBron's and Melo's free agency these days. Even Love trade chatter is just noise compared to Lil'Olajuwon's navicular bone.
I agree with Cleveland that it's too risky now to pick him at #1 even though he's upside wise a top10 center in the history of the game.
I'd rank his upside together with Duncan, O'Neal, Kareem, Wilt, Moses, the Dream, Oden, Howard and others that I've prolly never heard about or simply forgot.
I'M talking upside here, not probability of reaching that. I'll get **** for putting Oden and Howard in there anyways. But imagine a healthy Oden, whose body was simply unfair with the strength and athleticism he had paired with a good skillset at an early age. And then imagine Dwight Howard with an offensive game that isn't 99% putbacks and lobs out of the PnR and who could hit free throws.
And I just go by the skilllevel Embiid's already at and the pace of improvement from highschool to the draft. He continues at the rate his game was evolving prior to his injuries and he'd be an AllStar in year 3. He still can become that but when your #2 through 4 are Parker, Wiggins and Exum, you don't go full Portland.
You simply take the safer alternatives and remember that it's a marathon, not a sprint.
If I'm Cleveland I'm selecting Parker #1 or take the Orlando deal that's been in the media for a couple of days. And I think that's why they wanna see Exum. They want to be comfortable with Exum at 4. They are with Embiid, but wanna be safe that Exum would be as well.
No matter what happens you trade Dion Waiters. Because the only scenario where Waiters + Irving works is if Waiters is the 6th man and the two are sharing the court only half the game. And Waiters isn't the guy who likes being 6th man and not always finishing games when your defense needs to be solid.
And in that case Exum's an alternative. His defensive potential is high, the way he works laterally, he's at least as good a playmaker as Irving is. So that would make sense as well, when you get Afflalo and #10 as well.
But if you select #1 it's Parker and you figure out later if Tristan can defend 3s or Jabari can defend 3s or if you need to trade both Bennett and Tristan to make place for Jabari as the starting 4.
Assuming Parker goes #1 anyways no matter if it's Cleveland or Orlando picking at 1, I expect Wiggins to go #2. Simply because you've got a long road ahead in Milwaukee and you aren't going to be good anytime soon. So select the guy with the highest upside/risk ratio. That's Wiggins. Philly will go either Embiid or Exum at 3 and the other guy lands in Orlando at 4 or the Cavs select at 4.
I don't think too much is changing after 4. So many smokescreens and every organisation has multiple guys who would fit in as players and it's a question of whose personality, work ethic they like/believe/support the most. A lot of baiting teams into panic deals, which won't happen, because the teams from 5 to 9 are solid management wise.
Elfrid Payton has risen on draft boards and Saric dropped after announcing that he's going to play 2 years in Turkey. I think Saric's floor is Phoenix's 2nd pick at 18.
Also Bogdanovic being connected to the Spurs is not really shocking to me. I didn't really know too much about him before I wrote. And when I saw him I was like: Ginobili light, he looks Spurs. Can shoot, can dribble, can pass, can defend.
Napier being connected to the Heat these days is also sth I wrote about. Made a lot of sense if you expect LeBron to be back. Not the best decision maker, but surpreme shooter and LeBron handles anyways. Also can attack the basket and finish in a variety of moves. Winning history.
One last advice for tonight's lottery. If you don't want spoilers unfollow Wojnarowski on twitter. And never look up Chad Ford. Dude's got a history of being trolled by "sources" on draft night. Unless you wanna know what's not happening and have a little bit of fun. Broussard has even worse sources though. So that might be more entertaining.