http://www.nba.com/rookies/ casspi probably wouldn't have played much here if we were reasonably healthy, but still looking at his shooting percentages can't help but feel KP may have pritchslapped himself on this one. hard to imagine claver has a much higher ceiling.
I like Casspi every time I have seen him play this year. He seems to have a lot to prove and a lot of pride being the first player from his country in the NBA.
I thought for sure KP was going to draft Casspi when he was still available at 23 (or whatever it was). I'll be shocked if Claver ever dons a Blazers uniform.
I hate to say it... I am starting to agree. I don't think KP is a bad GM. I am just starting to think that maybe he just got REALLY, REALLY lucky the first couple of years and just has made normal, mediocre GM moves since then.
in hindsight, casspi is more nba ready, but i think that was the general assumption. not sure. claver seemed like a reach, but its a late #1 with high upside, might as well take a shot at a position of need.
presumably we were more concerned with preserving cap space than with what players were availiable at 22. as it turns out stashing claver made no difference to who we were able to sign.
At the time, everyone was healthy. I think he looked at Claver as having higher upside, and so figured without a need at that slot, why not go for hgih upside. I think it's unfair to say it is a bad pick because Casspi is playing here and Claver is not. Claver on Sacramento might be doing the same thing.
durant is good, but after that we kill them hands down. i mean... roy = durant lma>green bayless>westbrook rudy>harden oden>krystic batum>sefalosha pryz>bj mullens outlaw=ibaka, although i like ibaka, this might be closer than this. miller>maynor, right now and possibly forever. you fail kings????? roy>tyreke lma>thompson oden>hawes batum>casspi rudy>garcia miller>udrih outlaw<martin, wasnt sure where to put him, i think tyreke is more their roy. martin cant play defense at all and they are better without him it seems. same could be said of outlaw. bayless>>>sergio (sorry maris) you fail
turkoglu is happy we drafted claver. toronto had to pay around 5 million more for him than they would have otherwise.
Oden was definitely luck. Drafting Roy and Aldridge were both incredible moves. Buying the rights to Rudy was a steal. Trading Jack and Rush for Bayless, great move. Pendy was an awesome pick and so was Dante. I think Mills is going to be a good player in the league but obviously that is up for debate as of right now. Drafting Casspi didn't make any sense at the time. Batum, Webster and Outlaw were all healthy. I think Casspi is a damn good player and will continue to get better but I don't see how KP missed out on a player that wouldn't even break the rotation here if everyone is healthy. If anything he should have drafted Dajuan Blair.
Anyone who thinks that Pritchard is not a great GM deserves to have Nash back. Jesus Christ people, get a grip. Casspi is decent. He's exactly what the Kings need, which is a dose of toughness. He's, how shall I put this? Scrappy. But there are a LOT of players like that out there. In fact, he's sort of a poor man's young Nocioni. If we'd've drafted him and (a) signed Turkoglu OR (b) not had ALL the injuries we did have OR both nobody would know anything about how good he could be, because he would be getting zero minutes. And then all you geniuses would be questioning Pritchard for taking a guy who's getting no minutes and has such a funky-looking shot.
Having watched about half of Sac's games they are clearly a rapidly developing team of highly athletic and intelligent players. In any way you want to compare their year to ours so far, they win hands down. Our team got slower and older and lost nearly all it's chemistry from last year, while Sac did the exact opposite. Here's a more honest comparison of the teams: Obviously, Oden> and Joel>. Casspi>>>Claver Brockman>Pendergraph Tyreke=Roy Thompson+Hawes<<<LMA Udrih>Miller+Blake Sergio>Bayless Martin>Rudy Garcia, Nocioni, Udoka>Batum,Travis,Webster Westphal>McMillan.
