Yowza, you're right. Okay FOUR out of the ones I listed plus possibly John Henson and Tyler Zeller (who will be good, trust Jerry West).
How would you like to be Olshey right now? Less than a month into the job. You have two lottery picks and there are a lot of players to like in this draft. You have a lot of holes to fill. You have teams wanting to move up and teams wanting to move down. It's enough to make my head explode.
I tend to lean that way as well, depends somewhat who falls to 6 and of course how our guys rate that pick potential/tier vs later picks
If it were me, my tiers would now look like this Davis Robinson/Beal Barnes/Lillard/Drummond/MKG Ross/Rivers/Lamb/PJ III Harkless/Jones/Henson/Moultrie/White American born white centers/Soup Juggler
MKG should go #2 in this draft. It looks like he won't, but he should. He's definitely the second best talent. At #6 we have to take the risk on Drummond. No way would I trade for #16 and 18. You won't get anything there.
I must admit I am warming up a "little" to Myers Leonard. (Not over someone like Rivers) My main concern with him though is not the white american center part because he clearly is no "stiff'. The part that concerms me is the "center " part. I don't care where they were born, or the color of their skin, the percentage of all centers having knee or foot problems seems too high. That scares me with all of them regardless if they have injury issues now. All that weight on those small bones/joints does not seem to be a good scenario.
Why? It's a stupid risk. So the names listed are "nothing". Kendall Marshall? Jared Sullinger? Royce White? Moe Harkless? Terrence Scott? All nothing. Despite the fact that every one of them will have a better NBA career than Drummond.
You say this as if it is a known fact. The NBA draft is a crap shoot and sometimes you got to bet on snake eyes. High risk/high reward.
I'm going to say: Davis (duh) MKG/Beal/Robinson big gap John Henson/Jared Sullinger/Waiters/Royce White/Tyler Zeller Moe Harkless/Terrence Scott/Andrew Nicholson/Kendall Marshall Will Barton/Jeff Taylor/Arnett Moultrie/Lillard don't care second rounders (This is purely on the assumption of keeping the players. A lot of GMs like to pick players that they don't want and think are overvalued to trade for the players they want PLUS extra. Like when Nelson picked Tractor Traylor and traded down for Nowitzki, the player he wanted all along. I think that's risky and sort of devalues the players. If you think they're worth that position, take them there and pay them their worth. Don't dick them around like commodities. Sam Presti wanted Westbrook at #4 when that was higher than ANY mock, but fuck it, he just took the player he liked.)
I come to you from the future. (By the way, enjoy The Netherlands while you can.) I guess I'm risk averse. Years of watching 7foot stiffs get picked in the lottery has done that to me. Of them all, basically only Bynum has paid off, and that's with lots of injuries and being a tool. [I'm not counting dead cert players like Ewing, Robinson, Shaq, Duncan, et. al., because everybody said they'd be great. I'm thinking of players like Benoit Benjamin, Yinka Dare et. al. where there were always doubters.]
He asked what was WRONG with the list, not what was RIGHT about it. It also left off various Joneses and Meyers Leonard.
There's only two things I hate in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures and the Dutch. I see where you are coming from. Call me a victim of the gambler's fallacy, but I tend to think Drummond is being undervalued for exactly the reasons you state above. Prior outcomes of other players is a limited predictor of Drummond's success. We shouldn't shy away from Drummond because of Oden's knees or Yinka Dare's career stats.
