yeah, I could see packaging the pick with a player to obtain a young proven front court player or wing.
Oddly enough, a lot of places list Cody as a guard/forward. He even played some point guard earlier this season.
Yeah there are serious, serious question marks about all of these guys. (Here are some bits and pieces from different places) sarr is a minus rebounder and hasn’t proven he can shoot, yet. So if the defense doesn’t immediately pop in the NBL- NBA transition what is he? topic is said to be one of the worst defensive prospects in recent memory. Cody is a limited shot creator, and more of a finesse finisher vs physical one and doesn’t like to attack ATR going into the body of the defender. He hasn’t produced very consistently or dominated much for Colorado either. It’s a lot of eye test stuff. Risacher is more of an off-ball performer, and will disappear for large stretches of the game if you don’t involve him in the game. If you draft him he may not be a star. Until very recently was not comfortable attacking the rim with vigor—it was a lot of off-the-catch stuff. Matas has shot better recently but started the year pretty poor from the outside. The GLI-ness of his draft stock makes him tough to project—they are absolutely awful, and for many games he was stuck in the corner. ## In a draft with zero no-brainer picks I am not going all-in on any of these guys—whoever they pick there will need to be a degree of faith by the fan base. So I’m not sure there’s a very strong ‘BPA’ ranking here, they’re all in a similar tier where fit will be very important.
Ant and the pick for who? The conflict i see is who is trading a young proven player for an unproven pick and a solid player with flaws like Ant? young proven players are super valuable. It would likely require multiple picks and Ant, at minimum.
I like Risacher--I think some are looking for more of an all-around, star archetype that high in the lottery. I don't think Risacher is necessarily Him/Himothy/Himbucktu.
Yep at their age they all have flaws. But all these guys mentioned are teenagers, so this is when the team scouting personnel needs to earn their money. Projecting how they will be in two years is key. Just because there aren't any "no-brainers" does not mean the draft is weak, it just means the front offices need to be smarter in finding those who will improve the most. There will be stars from this draft, we just don't know which ones.
probably depends on what the current level the "proven" player is, and what the upside level is. But I tend to agree that any good young player, especially one still on his rookie contract is going to have nearly 'untouchable' value compared to Ant+pick. And I'd say that Grant would have wider value than Ant, and he still wouldn't be nearly enough leverage. I mean, Orlando wouldn't trade Franz Wagner for Ant/Grant and a 5th pick meaning the Blazers would have to aim lower or add a lot more to the offer **************************************************************************************** I'm beginning to wonder if the "this draft class sucks" narrative is becoming like so many internet narratives and that's simply it's repeated so often it becomes a 'fact' even though it might be false just because there is no clear cut #1 or #1-3 doesn't mean there won't be talent in the class. Portland will have a top-5 pick (probably) and there is going to be talent in the draft. The Blazers just have to identify the talent accurately and that's what Schmitz is paid to do. right now, before changes and coin flips Portland owns the 5th - 13th (maybe down to 18th) - 34th & 40th picks. Yeah, it's a bad draft to have that collection of picks in if the goal to use them as trade leverage. But if the goal is to simply roll the dice and add talent....and Portland desperately needs more talent...then the Blazers have 4 rolls of the dice and that's a lot better than they have had lately if you look at the last 5 drafts and see who was taken outside of the top-10: 11 Cameron Johnson 12 P.J. Washington 13 Tyler Herro 21 Brandon Clarke 29 Keldon Johnson 30 Kevin Porter Jr. 31 Nic Claxton 38 Daniel Gafford 44 Bol Bol 46 Talen Horton-Tucker 11 Devin Vassell 12 Tyrese Haliburton 14 Aaron Nesmith 15 Cole Anthony 19 Saddiq Bey 21 Tyrese Maxey 25 Immanuel Quickley 28 Jaden McDaniels 30 Desmond Bane 42 Nick Richards 49 Isaiah Joe 15 Corey Kispert 16 Alperen Şengün 17 Trey Murphy III 18 Tre Mann 26 Bones Hyland 27 Cam Thomas 35 Herbert Jones 38 Ayo Dosunmu 12 Jalen Williams 13 Jalen Duren 14 Ochai Agbaji 15 Mark Williams 22 Walker Kessler 31 Andrew Nembhard 34 Jaylin Williams 37 Jaden Hardy that's a lot of talent taken outside of the top-10. Granted, most of it is role-player level talent, but there are some all-star level players in that mix. And with no clear-cut #1, there might be some trade movement in the top-5 of the draft. Could the Blazers leverage #5+#13 for a #2?
Not only #2 but #3 as well. I would be ok with trading the GS pick for Sarr, Risacher, or Williams. And if we are lucky enough for Topic to go in the top 3 on draft day, then #4 is as good as #3....to us. On the other hand, if Buzelis or Holland turn out to be just as good as those other 3.......we might regret it. The bottom line is Cronin's staff needs to guess right in June. Those workouts should be interesting.
I think you have to use a lot more of your brain this year than last year. Like for example, I'd probably trade our pick for Jarace Walker (as an example) because I like him a tick more than the guys we're discussing in here—and Jarace went 8!
I challenge you to watch tape of the top 6 guys being discussed and look at their game logs—Cody, Sarr, Topic, Risacher and let's say Matas—and pit them up against a recent year's draft. I'm telling you, at the top they're all dented cans of vegetables. It's a matter of where the dents are. The groupthink part of this is that I think this is a normal draft past 10-12 or so.
Not sure if you saw a post I made on here a few days ago or if you have me blocked because I’m such a detriment the enjoyment of this site….. but 2 different podcasts I heard talking about the 24 draft said that Cam Whitmore would be the #1 pick this year had he stayed in……ouch.
There is a reason Doncic went 3rd in the 2018 draft behind Ayton and Bagley. Teams, fans, podcasters, etc don't have the same knowledge about the young international players. This year's mocks often have the top 3 projected picks to be international players. Granted there is no unicorn in this draft, but I question whether or not anyone knows what the fuck they are talking about until they get these players in for a workout. They could be much better than we think.....or worse.
