The Failure Of Our 2018 Draft
Posted: Fri Apr 2, 2021 7:35 pm
It has become common recently - this season particularly - to see people here say that all of our draft picks - or at least GarPax's picks - post Jimmy trade have been bad picks. I write this post to argue against that point. A pick can be a solid pick even if the player isn't that great - it's all relative to the draft class in question, who else was available, and any number of other contextual factors. IMO, since the Jimmy trade, there's only been one pick where we really, clearly screwed up, and that was the guy we just traded away.
Let's start with 2017. In 2017, we had the #7 pick acquired in the Jimmy deal. If that draft were run again today, I think Lauri still goes in the 7-10 range. Tatum, Bam, Mitchell, and Fox obviously all go before him. John Collins and Lonzo Ball probably go before him as well. That puts Lauri at 7. I don't think there's anyone else that obviously would've been a better pick than Lauri. You can certainly make arguments for Jarrett Allen, OG Anunoby, Kuzma, Derrick White, and I guess some people are still high on Jonathan Isaac(though I never was), but I don't think any of them are overwhelmingly better and even if you do take some of those guys over Lauri, he still might stay in the top 10, depending on your views on some of those guys.
It's true we passed on both Mitchell and Bam, but so did five other teams. On draft night, no one knew those two were going to be what they are. I don't even think Utah and Miami expected them to be this good. I still remember stories throughout 2017-18 about what a find the Jazz made with Mitchell, and Bam wasn't even a starter until last season. To criticize not taking those guys is like criticizing the twelve teams who passed on Giannis in 2013. Not to mention even if we did like Mitchell back then, we had just traded for LaVine, and those two are too similar.
It's also worth noting that if you look at all #7 picks from the last 30 years, Lauri probably falls in the top third of players on that list too. He's not a star, he's not close to a star, probably the best he can be going forward in his career is a fifth guy in a starting lineup or a sixth man, as I said in another thread. But it doesn't mean he was a bad pick. I wouldn't call him a great pick either, at this point. But some of you seem to think there are only great picks and bad picks. Lauri was a solid pick. Not great. Not bad. Just solid.
In 2019, we had the bad lotto luck of falling from #4 to #7. To an even greater extent than 2017, there really was no obviously better talent on the board at #7 that year than Coby, with one exception: Tyler Herro. And, as with Mitchell and Bam, no one thought Herro was going to be as good as he's been(even so, Herro has regressed, as the whole Heat team has, this season and some of his advanced stats and 3P% are actually worse than Coby's right now). Maybe Keldon Johnson. But who out of Hachiumura, Reddish, NAW, Thybulle, PJ Washington, Nassir Little, etc, would've been a better pick or made any difference to the trajectory of our team? None of them. Aside from Herro, Coby was about as good as we could've done with that pick in that draft. Sometimes the best you can do in a draft isn't as good as you want it to be. The real issue with that draft is that it wasn't deep and we didn't have lotto luck on our side.
I would also remind you that a guy a lot of people wanted to trade up for on draft night, perhaps some of the same people who think Coby was a bad pick, was Jarrett Culver, and that clearly would've been a bad move as he hasn't done much of anything yet. Coby is clearly not a PG, but I think he will be a decent player in this league in the right role.
As for 2020, I don't think I need to defend Pat Williams too much as people seem to be fairly optimistic about him, he's had less than a season so far, and it was a crappy overall draft anyway - I think Haliburton is the only guy a lot of you would take over him at #4 at this point, and he fell all the way to #12.
But 2018, man. That's the one we should all still be upset about. That was the one we truly screwed up. That was perhaps the best draft of the last five years and we blew it. It's not that I dislike Carter so much, it's that there was opportunity after opportunity to do much better.
We started messing it up before that season even started. The notion that we shouldn't have re-signed Niko that summer is not a hindsight opinion on my part. I remember seeing the news before training camp in the Fall of 2017 and not being thrilled about it. We just dealt Jimmy and entered a rebuild, we should've been tanking as hard as possible. Niko hadn't received a single offer all summer. By bringing him back, he was either going to live up to his lack of offers and be a waste of cap space, or he was going to be just talented enough to screw up our tank. By 2017, Niko had been with us for three years, and the hope that he'd be a player to build around was gone; but we all knew he was talented enough to add a few wins to our record in a season we didn't want to win in. The whole thing with him and Portis happened early on, but when Niko came back, we had a stretch where we won ten games out of twelve including a seven-game winning streak . It was physically painful to watch. A ton of teams were tanking that year for that draft, and it was just slipping away before our eyes. People complained about the Sean Kilpatrick signing for similar reasons, but he wouldn't have mattered if Niko hadn't been around.
By the time the draft came around, we were picking at #7. If there was any draft in the last five years to trade assets, including future picks, to move up in, this was the one. There were reports that GarPax tried, but what else were they going to say? I remain highly skeptical that they made any serious effort to move up if it involved moving future draft capital. And worse, reports suggested that if they did move up, it would be not for Doncic, not for Trae, not for JJJ, but for Bagley.
Even when #7 came, there were better players there. I know a bunch of other teams passed on MPJ too because of the health questions, but I was sitting there screaming(not literally) for us to take the risk, begging them to take the risk, that it would be a boon to get him at #7. No, and now he's looking like a potential star. Sexton was there. SGA - who was not on my radar at the time but was on other peoples' - was there.
There were multiple ways to walk out of that draft with a difference-maker that would've given this whole rebuild a different look, a different tenor, a different feel. They just made so many mistakes with that draft, from the beginning of the season all the way to draft night. Again, this isn't about hating on Carter - I think he can still grow into being a solid player - but there was no good reason for us not to leave that draft with a substantially better piece that very well could've made the whole rebuild look substantially different.
(And none of that even mentions the Chandler Hutchison pick at #22, meaning our reward for Niko killing our draft position was...not much.)
I don't think there were any glaring draft mistakes of the variety that keep you up at night made in 2017, 2019, or 2020 - and again that doesn't mean I think Lauri, Coby, and PWill are such great players, just that I that I don't think they were bad picks - but 2018 should still gnaw at us.
JMO, and I'm prepared to be disagreed with.
Let's start with 2017. In 2017, we had the #7 pick acquired in the Jimmy deal. If that draft were run again today, I think Lauri still goes in the 7-10 range. Tatum, Bam, Mitchell, and Fox obviously all go before him. John Collins and Lonzo Ball probably go before him as well. That puts Lauri at 7. I don't think there's anyone else that obviously would've been a better pick than Lauri. You can certainly make arguments for Jarrett Allen, OG Anunoby, Kuzma, Derrick White, and I guess some people are still high on Jonathan Isaac(though I never was), but I don't think any of them are overwhelmingly better and even if you do take some of those guys over Lauri, he still might stay in the top 10, depending on your views on some of those guys.
It's true we passed on both Mitchell and Bam, but so did five other teams. On draft night, no one knew those two were going to be what they are. I don't even think Utah and Miami expected them to be this good. I still remember stories throughout 2017-18 about what a find the Jazz made with Mitchell, and Bam wasn't even a starter until last season. To criticize not taking those guys is like criticizing the twelve teams who passed on Giannis in 2013. Not to mention even if we did like Mitchell back then, we had just traded for LaVine, and those two are too similar.
It's also worth noting that if you look at all #7 picks from the last 30 years, Lauri probably falls in the top third of players on that list too. He's not a star, he's not close to a star, probably the best he can be going forward in his career is a fifth guy in a starting lineup or a sixth man, as I said in another thread. But it doesn't mean he was a bad pick. I wouldn't call him a great pick either, at this point. But some of you seem to think there are only great picks and bad picks. Lauri was a solid pick. Not great. Not bad. Just solid.
In 2019, we had the bad lotto luck of falling from #4 to #7. To an even greater extent than 2017, there really was no obviously better talent on the board at #7 that year than Coby, with one exception: Tyler Herro. And, as with Mitchell and Bam, no one thought Herro was going to be as good as he's been(even so, Herro has regressed, as the whole Heat team has, this season and some of his advanced stats and 3P% are actually worse than Coby's right now). Maybe Keldon Johnson. But who out of Hachiumura, Reddish, NAW, Thybulle, PJ Washington, Nassir Little, etc, would've been a better pick or made any difference to the trajectory of our team? None of them. Aside from Herro, Coby was about as good as we could've done with that pick in that draft. Sometimes the best you can do in a draft isn't as good as you want it to be. The real issue with that draft is that it wasn't deep and we didn't have lotto luck on our side.
I would also remind you that a guy a lot of people wanted to trade up for on draft night, perhaps some of the same people who think Coby was a bad pick, was Jarrett Culver, and that clearly would've been a bad move as he hasn't done much of anything yet. Coby is clearly not a PG, but I think he will be a decent player in this league in the right role.
As for 2020, I don't think I need to defend Pat Williams too much as people seem to be fairly optimistic about him, he's had less than a season so far, and it was a crappy overall draft anyway - I think Haliburton is the only guy a lot of you would take over him at #4 at this point, and he fell all the way to #12.
But 2018, man. That's the one we should all still be upset about. That was the one we truly screwed up. That was perhaps the best draft of the last five years and we blew it. It's not that I dislike Carter so much, it's that there was opportunity after opportunity to do much better.
We started messing it up before that season even started. The notion that we shouldn't have re-signed Niko that summer is not a hindsight opinion on my part. I remember seeing the news before training camp in the Fall of 2017 and not being thrilled about it. We just dealt Jimmy and entered a rebuild, we should've been tanking as hard as possible. Niko hadn't received a single offer all summer. By bringing him back, he was either going to live up to his lack of offers and be a waste of cap space, or he was going to be just talented enough to screw up our tank. By 2017, Niko had been with us for three years, and the hope that he'd be a player to build around was gone; but we all knew he was talented enough to add a few wins to our record in a season we didn't want to win in. The whole thing with him and Portis happened early on, but when Niko came back, we had a stretch where we won ten games out of twelve including a seven-game winning streak . It was physically painful to watch. A ton of teams were tanking that year for that draft, and it was just slipping away before our eyes. People complained about the Sean Kilpatrick signing for similar reasons, but he wouldn't have mattered if Niko hadn't been around.
By the time the draft came around, we were picking at #7. If there was any draft in the last five years to trade assets, including future picks, to move up in, this was the one. There were reports that GarPax tried, but what else were they going to say? I remain highly skeptical that they made any serious effort to move up if it involved moving future draft capital. And worse, reports suggested that if they did move up, it would be not for Doncic, not for Trae, not for JJJ, but for Bagley.
Even when #7 came, there were better players there. I know a bunch of other teams passed on MPJ too because of the health questions, but I was sitting there screaming(not literally) for us to take the risk, begging them to take the risk, that it would be a boon to get him at #7. No, and now he's looking like a potential star. Sexton was there. SGA - who was not on my radar at the time but was on other peoples' - was there.
There were multiple ways to walk out of that draft with a difference-maker that would've given this whole rebuild a different look, a different tenor, a different feel. They just made so many mistakes with that draft, from the beginning of the season all the way to draft night. Again, this isn't about hating on Carter - I think he can still grow into being a solid player - but there was no good reason for us not to leave that draft with a substantially better piece that very well could've made the whole rebuild look substantially different.
(And none of that even mentions the Chandler Hutchison pick at #22, meaning our reward for Niko killing our draft position was...not much.)
I don't think there were any glaring draft mistakes of the variety that keep you up at night made in 2017, 2019, or 2020 - and again that doesn't mean I think Lauri, Coby, and PWill are such great players, just that I that I don't think they were bad picks - but 2018 should still gnaw at us.
JMO, and I'm prepared to be disagreed with.