Imagine if Portland had ONLY had a late first rounder that year. Now imagine that they targeted Sergio, moving up a bit to take him. Would that have been a good move? I would argue that it would have been a total waste of a draft. I used Sergio as an example of what the Claver selection/overall 2009 "targeted reaches" draft might turn out being. Ed O.
So you would say that business men are not competitive? Can one not assume that business people involved in sports are going to be even more competitive? Would you like to see some sociology studies that give some easy data numbers to say "NBA GMs competitivity: 10, average people competitivity: 5" then no, i cannot back this up. If you would like some essays/books to read, have fun! http://www.jstor.org/pss/2094846 http://books.google.com/books?id=TH...=general+managers+sports sociology&lr=&pg=PR7 http://books.google.com/books?id=I6...=general+managers+sports sociology&lr=&pg=PR9 Look, businessmen that succeed are aggressive and competitive, they are alpha-males. alpha-males don't run from a fight especially in their job.
The fact that it was their only first round pick is irrelevant, I think. Whether the team had some fun picks earlier in the draft is just a question of whether we had bigger prospects to chat about...it has no bearing on the wisdom of how the late first round pick was spent. As for moving up, Pritchard moved up two spots and gave up almost no value. Probably less value than the $3 million he spent for the Rodriguez pick...I'm sure one could buy second round picks for much less. I don't think stashing a possible future lottery talent is a "waste of a draft" even if that player doesn't pan out in the future. It's a smart gamble. Instead of taking a player who likely won't contribute, defer the pick and maybe get someone who will. If Claver really is a potential lottery pick down the road, Pritchard essentially traded this pick for a, say, #10 pick a few years from now. Bad idea? I wouldn't say so. I think he did a vaguely similar thing with Rodriguez (though I have no idea whether he would have been a lottery pick after a few seasons of playing in Europe...at the time, I recall draft analysts saying it was nice high-reward gamble).
I totally disagree. I think that if a team makes up its mind who it will pick--irrespective of what other players are available at that point in the draft--then it is a mistake procedurally. It appears to me that is what the Blazers did with all three of their first picks this year. I bring Sergio into the mix to demonstrate that the Blazers are not incapable of targeting the wrong player(s). Ed O.
I think you're overparsing pretty vague words. Pritchard has proven to see the draft extremely fluidly, considering his mid-draft moves in past drafts to get players he wants and seem attainable. I don't think they were just locked in to Claver (or Pendergraph/Cunningham) and didn't even know who had been picked to that point. Thir comments sound to me like standard Pritchard-speak: "We like our guys, we got who we wanted/targeted." I don't think the comments hint at how they actually handled the draft. Yes, but that seems like a somewhat trivial point. Akin to saying, "I bring up the Lakers last loss to demonstrate that they aren't an unstoppable juggernaut." It's true, but doesn't say much about the Lakers or much about what anyone would argue about the Lakers. No one has ever said that Pritchard has a perfect hit rate on draft picks and anyone he picks is a guaranteed contributor. Just that he approaches decisions well (what I'd call "good process"). If all you were trying to show is that Pritchard picks aren't always great players, then you're right. But I thought you were going for a deeper analysis, that Pritchard handled that Rodriguez pick poorly and thus may have done it again with Claver. That was what I was disputing (that he handled the Rodriguez pick poorly and that might bear on the Claver pick).
I think he said that he had three names written down before the draft: Claver, Pendergraph and Cunningham. That seems pretty clear that they had targeted them. Don't you agree? Maybe he was saying a whole lot of nothing... GMs (including KP) do that sometimes. That comment seems an explanation more than just a statement, though. Maybe even a self-congratulatory statement. "In KP we trust" indicates an infallability. Further, without Sergio as an example, a belief in a perfect track record moving forward is only silly, rather than impossible. I wasn't just commenting on that, though, but on a seeming CHANGE in process from years past. The Blazers didn't target a player (or three) and then sit back and take them. They moved up and down to get value for where they were picking and who they wanted. The Blazers didn't pick Batum at 13 and several second rounders and call it a day in 2008, for example, although they definitely could have. Instead, they moved up to grab Bayless and moved up to grab Batum and used #'s 33 and 36 as trade fodder. Based on what I've read and heard, the Blazers seemed much more passive and much more willing to rest on a predetermined draft plan than on maximizing the value of their picks. If the team's decisionmaking WERE perfect, then that would be great... Sergio, though, demonstrates that it is not. Ed O.
Targeted, but not locked into. Do you really believe that if Griffin or Rubio had fallen to #20, Pritchard would have ignored that? I find that hard to believe. I think he was just making feel-good comments that they got three players that they liked and believed they could get with their picks. What's the point of "writing down" the name Griffin when you pick at 20? Granted, the "I wrote down three names" anecdote was a little silly. I think Pritchard's comments tend to the useless. Of course, I feel the same way about Billy Beane and he's pretty smart about his job in general. Hmm, okay. To me, "In KP we trust" means "I'm not sure what the right move is, so I'll just trust the judgment of Pritchard as someone who has shown he's good at his job." It doesn't suggest infallibility to me, just trustworthiness in terms of competence. Why do you feel that they didn't maximize their picks? How picks are "maximized" will be different in every draft. In the last draft, Pritchard felt (correctly) that Batum could be had later, so taking him later was a maximization. In this draft, he felt (and we can't really know whether correctly or incorrectly) that Claver would not last. Was Claver the "maximal" pick for the #20? Maybe, maybe not...but I don't see any evidence that the process of maximizing each pick changed. Now, if Pritchard had said something like, "Well, we had higher-rated players on the board, but Claver filled a need," then that would suggest a change of process from maximizing each pick (and I would be sorely disappointed). As it stands, I think the default is that he still had the same approach, he just perceived fewer buying and selling opportunities and felt Claver was the best talent available at #20. I have no idea whether that will turn out to be true, of course.
