kulaz3000 wrote:Leslie Forman wrote:DxC17 wrote:
Still wouldn't want Lauri?
Stop it. There isn't a single GM in the NBA that wouldn't give up the farm for Lauri.
Do you have any idea how often 7"0 pure shooters come through this league. There's like 2 in history.
Which is why I would have looked into trading him, especially if I knew Carter was going to end up here. His value is probably at or near his peak right now IMO.
"7" pure shooter" doesn't mean anything.
When you are trying to construct a title winning team under a salary cap/luxury tax, you have to be super picky about who you're spending 20-35% of the cap on. Bigs who are anything less than a two-way stud or all-time great are not worth it.
So you wouldn't have wanted Ayton, Bagley, Bamba or JJJ?
I would only have wanted Bamba or JJJ, not Bagley or Ayton.
Markkanen is not a 5 or a rim protector, and, until he grows into his frame, JJJ isn't exactly a 5 either.
I can't see either one, neither Markkanen nor JJJ, banging in the paint with the likes of Kevin Love, Andre Drummond, Myles Turner, Domantas Sabonis, Jonas Valanciunas, Enes Kanter, Joel Embiid, Marcin Gortat, Kelly Olynyk, Hassan Whiteside or Nikola Vucevic 4 games per season each, not to mention games against Boogie Cousins, Steven Adams, DeAndre Jordan and others out west.
I can remember already physically imposing players like Kevin Love, Blake Griffin and Anthony Davis, being happy to return to playing Power Forward because playing Center had them so banged up until they got someone with the physicality for the demands of the position to free them up.
All Wendell Carter needs to do is be an upgrade from Robin Lopez and Cristiano Felicio to have been worth the pick. He might be a little on the narrow side at the moment, but, he actually trimmed down from his normal playing weight to help his draft stock.
Carter, Jr. was shooting from the outside at 6'10", 260 lbs. of chub, not muscle. His fitness will be the main issue. We don't want another Eddy Curry on our hands, but he strikes me as much smarter and more professional than that.
I like the pick.
Bamba and JJJ have the defence, but not the shooting. Bagley and Ayton would have to improve their defence and outside shooting to catch up with Carter, Jr.
Carter has all of that as well as the frame to carry the girth needed to play the 5 against some of the aforementioned players.
"Well then why didn't anyone have WCJ ahead of those 4 on their mock drafts?"A. Some did. Within the past week, I started seeing WCJ as high as 4 to Memphis from people who, despite getting that wrong, got a lot of other stuff around it right.
https://www.thestepien.com/2018-draft-rankings/http://www.nbadraft.net/forum/my-2018-mock-draft-100B. The Bulls are in a different circumstance than some of the teams ahead of them. When interviewed after the press conference, the way Forman and Paxson framed it was that the Jimmy Butler trade was the first step of the rebuild, which yielded 3 starters, and that they feel that this year's draft was a continuation of that process.
They never called Hutchison or Carter out as starters. They emphasised that everyone still has to earn their way off the bench.
However, as compared to a team that is practically starting from scratch, like Memphis (who are in denial about the age and health of their core), or Orlando (who has no guard play to speak of and a log-jam of duds in the frontcourt), those teams need to make a big splash with a single, big-named player. Fit is not a concern.
The unavailability of a trade to move up forced the Bulls not to over-think it.
The player who fit the best is the one who landed in their laps. I'm not going to run that whole "they got the player they wanted all along" line. I think if they could have gotten a bigger name, or a sexier name, they would have.
I just think the universe conspired to force them to make what was actually the most fitting choice, even if it doesn't give the fan base a hard-on quite yet.
