FarBeyondDriven wrote:babyjax13 wrote:The thing is, though, a lot of the people you are arguing with have big boards and mocks posted based on watching games. Some players I expected to be good weren't (e.g., from watching some high school games I liked Castle, Edwards, and Williams --- but Edwards has been terrible...and he was the guy I felt like in high school had a chance to become a guy worthy of going 1 in an average draft), and others have stepped up and been good, yet it still doesn't look to have the high end talent of a lot of recent drafts to me. Using your metric of all-NBA, all-stars, and starters, I'd expect this to be below average in the first two categories and possibly average in the third. To me - and feel free to disagree - the quality of the draft is mostly determined by the top-end talent because that is ultimately what has the largest impact on the trajectory of the league. Even taking Wemby out of the equation, if any of Scoot/Amen/Miller were in this draft I would easily take them first. I think Ausar/Walker/Black would also be in the conversation. Hopefully, I'm wrong and you are right, I'd rather see a good draft than a bad one, but you are still beating on a strawman. We've seen most of these guys play, heck, I've posted links to some freely available international games for Saluan and Risacher so that other people could see them in professional game action, too ... so the problem is not that we haven't seen them play, it's that after seeing them the draft looks unimpressive.FarBeyondDriven wrote:
don't believe that's how prognostication works. We gather all the information available to us then compare our knowledge and predictions to one another and discuss. Everyone has the same amount of time and access to info to arrive at an opinion. Once you make that opinion known before/on draft night that is your take. If you claim a draft class is weak that means it shouldn't approach the average number of all-nba (4), all-stars (6-7) and total starters (20+) most draft classes have. If it does, you're wrong. If you think it MIGHT have one or more of these things, you're free to claim it's average instead of weak. So sorry, no free passes
What isn't acceptable is for you all to say it's weak for a full year then if proven wrong, shrug your shoulders and then claim "well, who could have seen it?" or "he came out of nowhere" Like, if I declare this is a strong draft class on draft night, and it turns out to be terrible, I'll own it. I can't then say "well, he was never given a chance" or "he was a knucklehead with work ethic issues that never developed and how could I have predicted that?!"
The irony is I very well might agree with you all about it being weak come draft night. I'm worried that half the guys I expect to come out won't and if they don't then the class will take a major hit. I just mostly hate how for a year it's been "historically weak" from most of you before any of you saw these guys play and knew a dozen of the best prospects existed. It wreaks of you all reading a Givony Big Board and parroting his opinion.
Let's take a look at some Big Boards that likely informed much of this board's opinions about this class long before the season even began. And don't pretend otherwise, you got your opinions from somewhere and these were the drivers of the narratives that get regurgitated on here. I can go back through old posts if I must.
Givony Top 20 - ESPN (2/23/23) "This has been considered a weak incoming freshman class for some time, but the assumption was that reclassifications and late-bloomers would emerge to change the trajectory of the conversation, something that hasn't happened thus far."
1. Buzelis
2. Williams
3. Risacher
4. Edwards
5. Collier
6. Holland
7. Wagner
8. Coulibably
9. Evans
10. James
11. Bufkin
12. Walter
13. Johnson
14. Phillips
15. Clowney
16. Almansa
17. Sarr
18. Durisic
19. Arecenaux
20. Gueye
Wasserman - Bleacher Report (7/19/23)
1. Holland
2. Buzelis
3. Wagner
4. Edwards
5. Jackson
6. Collier
7. Clingan
8. Castle
9. Proctor
10. Ware
11. Foster
12. Risacher
13. Bradshaw
14. Darlan
15. Filipowski
16. Bona
17. Walter
18. Sarr
19. Mara
20. Ajinca
21. McCain
22. Mintz
23. Brazile
24. Almansa
25. Miller
26. Cadeau
27. Williams
28. da Silva
29. Booker
30. Mgbako
KOC - The Ringer (8/2/23) "many analysts have said this is a weak class, lacking top-end talent and depth...and to an extent, that's true"
1. Buzelis
2. Holland
3. Walter
4. Castle
5. Almansa
6. Mara
7. Cadeau
8. Edwards
9. Clingan
10. Proctor
11. Jackson
12. Foster
13. Wagner
14. Collier
15. Ajinca
16. Darlan
17. Sarr
18. McCain
19. Filipowski
20. Williams
21. Ware
22. Kugel
23. Buyuktuncel
24. Miller
25. Risacher
26. Klintman
27. Johnson
28. Brazile
29. Bona
30. Biliew
These boards were laughable then and they're even worse now. Now it makes sense why you all felt it was weak back then. The problem is, barely a 1/3 of the players on these boards are still considered first rounders. That means 2/3 of these boards are full of guys none of you considered when evaluating this class and its strength. THAT is why I've pushed back for months because as new and more information poured in, almost none of your opinions have changed one bit. This deserves pushback. All of these guys have updated their Big Boards to reflect most of these new additions (and subtractions) and it's a vastly different landscape, yet they've stuck with their original premise that it's a weak class. Seems odd.
Players they (and you) didn't consider as first round talents THEN that ARE first round talents NOW when they created the "weak" narrative
Topic
George
Furphy
Missi
Knecht
Watkins
Sheppard
Dillingham
Ivisic
Salaun
Smith
Carter
Carrington
Ighodaro
Mitchell
Grant-Foster
How does adding this much talent to the pool you were considering when deciding this was a weak class...NOT alter your opinion of this class? Most of these guys weren't even considered for 2nd rounders back then so it's not like you're just shuffling the deck chairs. These are legit additions to the talent pool. Even if you're still not convinced it has any potentially great players, you have to admit it's deep af right? There's still a slew of returners that likely go in the second round that should also make NBA rosters like Ware, Bona, Proctor, Shannon, Scheierman, Kolek, da Silva, Karaban, Halls, Sears, Dante, etc.
Also note 2013
All-NBA: 3 (Giannis, Gobert, Oladipo)
All-Star: 3 (same)
Starters: approx. 13 depending on how you define
So by your metrics that's a pretty terrible draft.
these people decided this was a weak draft a year ago, based on evaluating a player pool that has since changed dramatically. I wouldn't care if people waited until now after watching all of these prospects (though it's STILL a little premature) and made a BIg Board and declared it weak. I might disagree but at least they would be evaluating the actual eventual first round prospects (not the guys everyone initially had in the first all those months ago) and after watching a full college season.
no argument about 2013. I get it. People really believe 2024 is as bad as that class. I stake my reputation on them being wrong.
Lots of people have their priors start with McDonald's All American, U18 and U19 --- which happens to overlap with recruiting service ratings --- because that is where we see these elite high school players in a context vs. other elite high school players. Some of them can't or won't adapt to other roles and flame out pretty bad (but sometimes they improve later in their college career). The fact that a big board at the beginning of the year wouldn't be close to a big board at the end of the year isn't a surprise. If you don't update it - you likely aren't watching the games.
The fact that different OAD guys replace other OAD guys at the top of boards also doesn't mean that the class has suddenly gotten better. It can - there are frequently unexpected freshman that end up being awesome (e.g., last year I started with Miller around 19 and that was way too low). I just don't see how any of this means that people aren't doing their own scouting, to the extent that a bunch of people with jobs and lives can recreationally?
It's completely fine that you disagree and think it is a good draft class - I hope you are right - but the combativeness with absolutely everyone and all the comments that essentially amount to "you all are Givony shills" is really annoying and doesn't reflect what is happening on the board.
I'm done with this discussion, though. Hopefully this board can be about the prospects again without people making things up about other posters. It's very, very old.
