With the #7 pick, the Portland Trail Blazers select....

And you obviously ignoring the fact that Duren's block not only made up for his bad pass but led to his team scoring an easy bucket.
After the bad pass, Duren's team 2, opponent 0.

 

Which is why I compared Norm/Roco to Grant/Kuzma. The Norm/Roco PER is actually higher on average than Grant/Kuzma.

But you know how this place works. Someone would respond saying “but we have Hart and Simons” so I addressed that in my reply.

 

LOL what a spin.

He has talent but that pass was awful. He is gonna take some time to be a player in the NBA. Does not fit Dame's timeline.

 

Followed by 64 wins and a second round playoff loss* to a team that’s about to get swept and struggled with the 8 seed.

Reminds me of the Utah Jazz, who have/had consistently been finishing at or near the top of the western conference standings but most people deemed them a “regular season” team … which is what people were saying about the suns, by the way. Ya know the whole “suns are fraud” memes? Ya. Exists for a reason. So it’s not “my” ridiculous narrative, pal.

 

The most likely series of events:

Trade the pick for Grant.

Re-sign Nurk/Simons/ et al.

Scrape into the 7th or 8th seed.

Get knocked out in the first round.

Rinse and repeat for a couple more years.

Find ourselves right back where we are right now, still wishing for a second star, and now Dame is 34 or 35.

 

Really hope people are prepared when the inevitable 7 for Grant happens. We'll probably get a second or a late first or something else in the deal and people will justify it as being enough value to make up the difference (it's not).

 

I foolishly hoped we’d get the pelicans pick. We didn’t.

I foolishly hoped that Sell Low Joe wouldn’t be made the permanent GM. He was.

I’m now foolishly hoping that we don’t trade our lottery pick for Grant.

 

maybe start hoping for the opposite?

 

The more I think about it the more I think we end up with Ousmane Dieng. We'll trade the 7th to move back so we can use a pick to get Jerami Grant. At that point Portland will go with the highest ceiling with the other pick and I've heard Dieng is that. Will he be there at 13? I don't think there's any guarantee he will. Eason though? Sure.

I'd be happy with Dieng and Grant instead of whatever is there at #7.

 

Damn, should've kept CJ McCollum and played him at Center.

 

Don't overthink it, we need to address our forward positions and try and get guys that consistently defend and knock down 3s. Mathurin is the perfect choice to do both those things well (maybe immediately) at 7, and has off the dribble upside beyond that.

 

Me and Eric watched a ton of college ball tbis year and came away with completely different takeaways as Jake. Everyone has their hits and misses, even scouts who do this for a living. Jake is way too low on Mathurin and too high on Griffin in my opinion. Duren is solid but we need to address other positions and he's not a clear cut choice over any of those guys.

 

Also, the Pistons wanted two 1sts for Grant at the deadline and that didn't materialize. Keon + 2025 MIL 1st + #36 is pretty damn similar value, and if Grant wants to come here to play with his buddy Dame, then he can leverage his upcoming free agency. He's also close with Detroit's front office so there's a chance they'd listen to where he wants to go.

But, if all that's true, I have a feeling like Cronin will still overpay and trade the 7th pick away in order to get Grant, which will turn the "leverage" excuse he's had directly against him.

 

I don't think there is a chance that we trade 7 for Jerami Grant straight up. All of you guys who are saying that are being a bit too negative. I really think that it's likely that we overpay for Grant. I could definitely see us trading back to 9 and 25, taking the best prospect at 9 and then trading 25, the Bucks 2025 first and Detroit's 2025 second back to them for Grant. I think that would be an overpay for him but to think we'll just stay at 7 with all of the teams behind us that have multiple picks and move 7 for Grant... I think that's silly but shit I've thought would be silly has happened before.

The fact is, I think we knew heading into this off season that we had to add multiple rotation players to this roster. I just can't see us coming away from the draft or maybe it will be a little after the draft without 2-3 quality additions.

 

I wonder if the Clippers would trade us Powell and Roco for the 7th pick?

 

4D chess.

 

Dyson Daniels on the move:

"Dyson Daniels (Top 100: No. 6)
Daniels continued his rapid ascent with an impressive showing at the Octagon Pro Day, where he displayed impressive shot-making prowess. Decision-makers from virtually every team in the NBA lottery were on hand to watch what appeared to be, in my view, the most eye-opening workout of the week in Chicago. NBA teams were buzzing afterward about Daniels' talent, throwing out comparisons to the likes of Tyrese Haliburton and Khris Middleton.

Daniels, an alumnus of the NBA Global Academy and G League Ignite program, has grown considerably in the past few years, adding 3 inches and 30 pounds of bulk. Even so, he appears nowhere close to reaching his physical potential with an outstanding frame and near 7-foot wingspan. The knowledge that Daniels has guard skills, with measurements that should allow him to moonlight at power forward as his frame fills out over time, is intriguing in today's NBA. The way teams rave about Daniels' interviews at the combine and the background intel they have received is clearly working in his favor. There's a real comfort level with what seems to be an extremely high floor for Daniels as a prospect, while the thought process regarding his ultimate ceiling appears to be evolving daily. -- Givony"

 

how are Halliburton and Middleton even remotely alike? who wrote that comp?

 

I rank my top 3 like this

1. Duren
2. Daniels
3. Sochan

I rank Daniels above Sochan because I think there’s some overlap between Sochan and Watford, while Daniels has the higher ceiling and I don’t see anyone on our roster with his mix of skills/size. Duren is still my number one. I think he’s getting slept on, not too differently than Adebayo was. I remember being super high on him as well, but he slipped too because of similar reported “weaknesses.”

 

Almost all of me wants us to build around Dame and even more of me expects that's what's going to happen. So I still think we'll trade 7 either for a vet forward and a mid first rounder in this draft or for two mid firsts. I still think trading 7 for Wood and 17 and then trading 17 and either a future second or more likely (smh) the Bucks 2025 first for Grant is both a great outcome for us and a likely one.

There's this other part of me that thinks we could trade Dame to the Kings, they would send us 4 and send Fox, Harkless and their 2024 first to OKC, the Thunder would send us picks 12 and 30. This would leave us with picks 4, 7, 12 and 30 in the first round and potentially 60M in cap space if we signed our 36th pick to a rookie min contract, signed pick 57 to a two way deal and let Bledsoe, Hart and Nurk walk.

Let's assume that we use the cap space to acquire both Miles Bridges and Deandre Ayton. Assuming we could get both of them in free agency I would draft Sharpe with pick 4. I would take the best PF available at 7... if Murray slipped to that spot then him, if not Murray then Sochran. At 12 we'd just take the BPA and let's say that's Dieng. At 30 and 36 we would need a backup PG and backup Big. I say that's Cockburn (I've just been dying to post anything with Cockburn in it this entire off season but I'd actually go with Orlando Robinson [pick 30] because he's more mobile, still huge and spreads the floor with the three) and Nemhard (pick 36).

I think the roster of Ant, Sharpe, Bridges, Sochran, Ayton, Dieng, Nas, Justise, Robinson, Nemhard, Trendon, Keon, Greg and Didi would be really fun to watch and would have a great chance to get into the playoffs and make some noise as soon as next season and obviously would be built for the future.