Merged: The Draft Thread For Stuff About The Draft Including Thoughts About The Draft

Yeah, Neil should have never traded for Nurkic. Totally fucked up our tank job. What the fuck was Olshey thinking? Worst trade ever. Damnit, we could have had the 10th pick! Instead all we got was an injury prone 22-year old center. Fuck me. I'm so pissed!

BNM

 

Zach would be a great get at #15, but still holding onto hope that Jonathan Isaac falls to #9 or #10 and can use #15 + #20 to trade up to get him. I'd then trade down from #26 for PHX's #32 and #54 and take P.J. Dozier and Kadeem Allen.

Not a likely scenario though.

 

I guess 4 years from now we will go back and say "damn see we could have that guy if we only would have tanked". But who is that guy?

There is probably just as good of a chance that player is there at 15 too....and we pass on him. Right now NBAdraft express has us taking Justin Jackson at 15. Who would you rather have? Can we say for certain that the #3 pick in that mock (Josh Jackson) is any better? I kind of like Justin. I think it's at least debatable.

 

Could we have got Aldridge, Roy, Lillard, CJ, etc at 15? All the players who have led us to the minimal success we've had have been lottery picks. All it does is give you the opportunity to draft from a bigger pool of potential franchise changers. Oden bombed, but we were the only team that had the opportunity to land anyone. Same with the Bowie draft. We had the opportunity to draft a franchise changer.

 

Like beating a dead horse is prevelant...

And some still disagree with you. Your statement is completely vague and doesn't take into account who is going to get drafted at the top and if they are a position of need.

You seem to have quite the narrow viewpoint on this...and insist on repeating it over and over and over, but you don't need to. We all know how you feel.

 

All things being equal, it's better to draft higher for the reason you mentioned. But everything isn't equal--to pick higher would have meant less team success in the present. I know some fans are of the mindset, "Either you seriously contend for the championship or else you seriously contend for the #1 pick--anything in between is a waste of time." While that sounds logical on paper, what that leads to in practice is many, many seasons of awful, unwatchable basketball for the uncertain promise of a few years of really exciting basketball. For most fans (in my opinion, from what I've seen--I haven't done a scientific poll), it's more fun to have a playoff team much more often and hope the front office can find the gem player from a somewhat reduced pool to choose from.

 

Another thing to remember, we will have three picks. Three shots at getting someone decent. As I previously said, I don't even think we need to draft an absolute superstar with any of them, two more Jae Crowder/Serge Ibaka level players would be great and would get us to a higher level as a team.

Warriors are build around Curry (no. 7). Thompson (no. 11) and Green (no. 36).

 

This season was awful basketball except for a short run at the end....similar to last year.

 

And we already have Dame (No. 6), C.J. (No. 10) and Nurk (No. 16).

The Nurk trade didn't only get us a third impact player, it also got us that No. 20 pick from MEM which increases our odds of adding a 4th quality player to our roster.

Think about it pro-tankers (or more accurately, pro-losers). Would you rather have Nurk and 15, 20 and 26, or an expired Plumlee we can't really afford to re-sign, 10, and 26? Because those are the options we're talking about here. We got a younger, better, cheaper (for now) center that fits better and has a much bigger impact on both ends of the floor, plus a third 1st round pick in a deep draft.

I loved Plumlee's energy and effort, but we were never going to be an elite team with him as our center, and we wouldn't have been able to afford to resign him this summer anyway.

Adding Nurk moved our window forward (he's better now) and extended it (he's 4.5 years younger than Plumlee).

Every year, there are multiple impact players taken between 15 and 30. We now have three shots at landing one, possibly two of those players. Or, we can bundle picks to move up, or bundle picks in a trade for a proven player. We have many more options now than we had before the trade.

I'll take Nurk and three picks, over two picks and needing to somehow find a center to replace Plumlee any time.

Making the playoffs was nice. It was good to see the team turn their season around. It wasn't just exciting for the fans, it was exciting for the players and gives them, and us, reason to be optimistic about the future. We all saw how much better this team was with a healthy Nurk. That was/is a team that can make some noise going forward. Keeping your best players happy is the key to keeping them motivated and keeping them around long term. Something that's very important for a small market team that has difficulty attracting top free agents.

BNM

 

And what prevented it from being awful basketball at the end was the Nurkic trade, which is also what produces the promise of non-awful basketball next year.

 

It is going to vary by the year. Some drafts are top heavy and others are not. This draft does not seem to be top heavy. Besides I don't think by missing the playoffs (and the GS sweep), that we would have tanked enough to get a top 7 pick.

The 20th pick will be telling. If we get a good player through the Nurk trade, then missing the playoffs might actually benefit us in the draft. And the way the Mocks are right now, that seems possible.

 

If it makes people feel better, consider Nurkic our top-ten lottery pick and all our other draft picks (and making the playoffs) gravy on top of that.

You can't have both Nurkic and a top-ten pick--Nurkic made the team too good to end up in the lottery, let alone the top-ten.

 

Exactly, how many titles did Stockton ever win?

 

Of course that changed things....but he covered up so many holes that are still there. Those didn't suddenly go away just because of his arrival. Also, he has tended to be a bit injury prone already at a young age so it seems unlikely that he doesn't get hurt again.

Nurkic combined with a home heavy/softer schedule led to many more wins but it didn't fix the back-courts defense, or help Aminu suddenly have handles. It didn't suddenly make anyone in the front court a solid scorer other than dunks and it didn't make the bench better. It did finally give us a center which we hadn't had for several years.

 

Even looking at the last few drafts, some of the best players were drafted below top 10. Jokic, Booker, Turner and Harris were all outside top 10 though Booker and Turner were still lottery.

 

For those that love Terrance Ferguson, help me understand the love. He looks like he has short arms for his height, and I can't see anything really outstanding about his Ausie stint.

Draftexpress:

Sounds like a very poor man's Crabbe.

 

I know some want to move up to draft ZachCollins; here is interview and workout video of him: http://www.draftexpress.com/article/zach-collins-nba-pre-draft-workout-and-interview-5931/

I gotta admit, he is a pretty good shooter!

 

I wrote a post with a similar sentiment to this a while back. The way I look at it, by getting Nurk and winning ourselves out of the lottery, Nurk was in a sense, if not our lottery pick, then compensation for our lottery pick. I'll take it. Plus we got No. 20 to add to the crap shoot that is the draft. I'm cool with this trade-off.

 

Any Crabbe clone is a very poor man in comparison.