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What grade would you give Ainge for his draft selections?

What grade would you give Ainge for his draft selections?

  • A

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • B+

    Votes: 2 9.1%

  • B

    Votes: 3 13.6%

  • B-

    Votes: 5 22.7%

  • C+

    Votes: 2 9.1%

  • C

    Votes: 3 13.6%

  • C-

    Votes: 4 18.2%

  • D

    Votes: 2 9.1%

  • F

    Votes: 1 4.5%
  • Total voters
    22
J

jazznik

Well-Known Member
Soon Ainge and his team will have to make their 2025 draft selections. I know it is early but lets look at how well Ainge drafted for the Jazz so far as he already drafted 6 players who played at least a season for the Jazz. I will list 4 players drafted right after each of the Jazz draft pick as the approximation for the pool of the "consensus" draft options for each Jazz draft selection. I will exclude draftees who never had a chance to play in the NBA so far (Topic etc.).

9th pick (2023) - Taylor Hendricks (Cason Wallace, Jet Howard, Dereck Lively, Gradey Dick)
16th pick (2023) - Keyonte George (Jalen Hood-Schifino, Jaime Jaquez, Brandin Podziemski, Cam Whitmore)
28th pick (2023) - Brice Sensabaugh (Julian Strawther, Kobe Brown, Jalen Pickett, Leonard Miller)
10th pick (2024) - Cody Williams (Matas Buzelis, Devin Carter, Bub Carrington, Kel'el Ware)
29th pick (2024) - Isaiah Collier (Baylor Scheierman, Jonathan Mogbo, Kyle Filipowski, Tyler Smith)
32nd pick (2024) -Kyle Filipowski (Tyler Smith, Tyler Kolek, Johny Furphy, Bobi Klintman)

So, what grade would you give Ainge for his draft selections?

​

 
Personally, I think Ainge earned a solid "B" so far: only Cody Williams looks worse than players drafted immediately after. 5 out of 6 picks look very solid given the available options and that is pretty rare. Looking back, Ainge really did not have any great/very good players to choose from.
 
I too would give Ainge a B
His picks have not been disastrous
Too early to decide on Cody
Maybe none are ever all stars but they seem to be good role players and some could be top 8 or 10 rotation players
 
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I went back through my big boards and if it was up to me we would have Cason Wallace, Keyonte George, GG Jackson, Cody Williams, Isaiah Collier, and Bobi Klintman.

So, basically we would be in a very similar position as we are now. But I'm just some random guy on the internet. DA has way more resources than me to make better decisions. I would expect him to perform much better than me, so that's why I gave him a B-
 
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jazznik said:
Soon Ainge and his team will have to make their 2025 draft selections. I know it is early but lets look at how well Ainge drafted for the Jazz so far as he already drafted 6 players who played at least a season for the Jazz. I will list 4 players drafted right after each of the Jazz draft pick as the approximation for the pool of the "consensus" draft options for each Jazz draft selection. I will exclude draftees who never had a chance to play in the NBA so far (Topic etc.).

9th pick (2023) - Taylor Hendricks (Cason Wallace, Jet Howard, Dereck Lively, Gradey Dick)
16th pick (2023) - Keyonte George (Jalen Hood-Schifino, Jaime Jaquez, Brandin Podziemski, Cam Whitmore)
28th pick (2023) - Brice Sensabaugh (Julian Strawther, Kobe Brown, Jalen Pickett, Leonard Miller)
10th pick (2024) - Cody Williams (Matas Buzelis, Devin Carter, Bub Carrington, Kel'el Ware)
29th pick (2024) - Isaiah Collier (Baylor Scheierman, Jonathan Mogbo, Kyle Filipowski, Tyler Smith)
32nd pick (2024) -Kyle Filipowski (Tyler Smith, Tyler Kolek, Johny Furphy, Bobi Klintman)

So, what grade would you give Ainge for his draft selections?

​

Click to expand...
C+
B+
A
F
A
A+
Those are the grades for the picks listed above. I hate that we passed on Dick and Whitmore for Hendricks.

And I have zero issues giving an F for Williams, I myself spoke out against taking him during draft season and when people were comparing hip to Paul George during summer league (mainly one love) I laughed in their faces. So you know it’s a bad pick when I’m the voice of reason. I’m very happy with the other picks.
 
I gave a C- because I'm not seeing a lot difference between our picks and the likes of Kenny, Frank Jackson, Yurt7, Luka S, Bazely, Kris Dunn and Jason Preston both in current performance and potential.
 
homeytennis said:
I'm very serious. Of our last two drafts who is a piece to a championship team? Who is still going to be here four years from now? I'm not saying the scrubs I mentioned are either but I think DA's haul at this point has been underwhelming imho.
Click to expand...
I agree.

We have zero pieces from the draft that I see sticking with this team through the rebuild. In Fact, I see yet another tear down. The last 3 years have been a complete waste of time and resources. You would’ve hoped that we had collected at least a piece or two by now. Or a piece or two that could be used in obtaining a star. But really, I just don’t see much there to build on nor do I see any of these players we’ve drafted recently being affective to other teams. Again, the last 3 years have been a waste.
 
Quite interesting results we having so far: the grades run from B+ to F without any obvious clustering. It looks like there is a wide, wide disagreement about how well Ainge has been drafting for the Jazz.
 
I really ragged on Ainge here and maybe these guys improve greatly in the next year or two. This season our guys' warts were on full display and I can see their market value taking a hit as well. Can you imagine the Warriors reaction when Ainge proposes a Key for Pods trade straight up?
 
Cody Williams is such a negative, I don't know how you can give any grade higher than a D if Williams is involved. He is not just an F he is a zero. I would trade him, if anyone would trade for him. His shot is just broken.
 
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It's a D for me.
Although I love Collier and Filipowski, they are not more than role bench players on a good team, unless they improve exponentially in the next couple years.
We need to hit on our top picks, and so far we've not.
 
Ainge's top 10 picks are embarrassing. His picks after 20 look like the best gm in the league. Drafting on potential is a crapshoot. Hopefully 3rd time is a charm.
 
nateboz said:
Ainge's top 10 picks are embarrassing. His picks after 20 look like the best gm in the league. Drafting on potential is a crapshoot. Hopefully 3rd time is a charm.
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I concur with this view as it stands. Maybe time will prove that we held funerals for Cody too early, but we at this point we gotta roll with the evidence we have.

I'm giving DA a C mainly because of missing on the important picks. The 2024 "running to podium" and "we would have considered him #1" pick on Cody looks like disastrous assessment, and in 2023 they made a much better assessment and wanted Bilal but couldnt/wouldnt move up and eventually Wizards blocked them. I know they werent that thrilled about Hendricks, but the fact that they didnt get the guys they wanted (Black/Bilal) led to a similar result as their failed 2024 assessment.
 
The other interesting question is which one was worse:
  • 2023 - Getting beaten by Washington Wizards in getting the guy you want
  • 2024 - Making poor assessment on a prospect
I could see why someone thinks that 2023 result was even worse. Failed assessments are part of the business, and there is no FO who doesnt miss the mark every now and then. Hendricks may or may not turn into a good player, but they already confessed that he was a "meh" pick and they wanted someone else, who they simply failed to get.
 
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