For those of you that don't think batum gets us anywhere in the lottery, may I remind you of a time when we dealt Telfair and Theo Ratliff for the #7 pick to eventually get Brandon Roy?
A sampling of #4 picks over the past few years: Aaron Gordon Cody Zeller Dion Waiters Tristan Thompson Wesley Johnson So let's all assume there'll be a surefire hall-of-famer, shall we?
That was one of the great trades in NBA history. Are we likely to repeat that? To emphasize how great it was, here's the top 20 of that draft: 1. Toronto Andrea Bargani 2. Chicago LaMarcus Aldridge 3. Charlotte Adam Morrison 4. Portland Tyrus Thomas 5. Atlanta Shelden Williams 6. Minnesota Brandon Roy 7. Boston Randy Foye 8. Houston Rudy Gay 9. Golden State Patrick O'Bryant 10. Seattle Saer Sene 11. Orlando JJ Reddick 12. New Orleans Hilton Armstrong 13 Philadelphia Thabo Sefololsha 14. Utah Ronnie Brewer 15. New Orleans Cedric Simmons 16. Chicago Rodney Carney 17. Indiana Shawne Williams 18. Washington Oleksly Pecherov 19. Sacramento Quincy Douby 20. New York Renaldo Balkman There's a lot of talk of trading Batum to get the #7 pick. Imagine this draft is like the one above. If you're very lucky, you get Rudy Gay. Who is a gunner who makes every team he's on worse. But by all means, assume this draft is like 2003.
Blame the scouting teams for those picks. Lillard, Leonard and McCollum have been excellent picks by the blazers in the lotto of past years, no?
There is not really anybody taken after meyers that would have been a better pick. For Cj, maybe giannis or gobert, but give me a fucking break. Cj was a great pick at 10
Lillard, yes, although there's a strong chance that Drummond will end up being more valuable. CJ doesn't really fit with Lillard and is a very short 2G whose defense will never be great and Leonard also can't defend and isn't much of a rebounder. Meanwhile, we passed on Khris Middleton and Draymond Green for Meyers and we passed on Antetokounmpo and Gobert for CJ. Imagine if we had Green and Gobert now: we would be one of the best defensive teams in the league. And both players would help make up for Lillard's defensive shortcomings rather than compound them. And we only think CJ and Leonard are good because they looked good in that one series against Memphis. We were ready to trade them for very little for most of last year. (A reminder: for 3 games people were thinking that Dellevadova was actually a decent NBA player.)
CJ has been a guy that has just magically appeared in one playoff series, I was on the trade bandwagon all season for him, I like CJ's skillset for off the bench but if the right trade came along he can be dealt. My opinion of him changed when he proved himself against a great defensive team though. Leonard on the other hand, I disagree. He showed improvement throughout the season, I only remember one bad game from him. If Stotts wasn't so tight with his rotations we would've seen more of him. His defense I thought looked great against the "best" center in the NBA. He isn't a rim protector like a Gobert but he doesn't commit dumb fouls and he plays straight up, offensively he is probably our most versatile frontcourt player right now, great shooter. After-all Meyers was a part of the .500/.400/.900 club this season.
Let's remember that while Conley was healthy, CJ was effectively neutralized. It was only after Conley went down that CJ was being guarded by the Beno Udrihs of this world. Now, he did well with it, but it's misleading to say he did well against a good defender. Meyers is large, so Gasol was not able just to brush him out of the way, but Gasol still went past him a number of times, which is like a glacier drifting past you. A good center is responsible for help defense for the whole team. Saying Leonard did well against his guy is not good enough.
You're making an awfully good case as to why a team WOULD accept Batum for a top draft pick. Apparently there is a very good chance that the pick will never turn into the proven player that Batum is, and he is still young.
The SG guards CJ. Conley was on Dame It's an argument, but I actually think Leonard will get much much better
And on top of that, he names the only two guys in Leonard and cjs drafts that you could say are better. Not acknowledging that mostof the guys he named were drafted in the late 20's or 30's. Given where we picked and who was available, McCollum and Leonard look like great choices in comparison to the rest of the leagues selections
