Mavericks 2017 Draft #9

[Otis Driftwood]

In general I think we are better off drafting someone who has played at least three years in college. I can see a Freshman draft pick being put in Carlisle's doghouse and never developing. At least someone who has played three to four years of college basketball would be a little more polished and stand a better chance to get minutes here.

Unless he is an absolutely "Can't Miss" Freshman, I completely agree with you on all counts... and I would go further and say at least 3 years prepares a kid to be a more mature pro also. Not to diminish the skill development but that mental development is almost as important when going up against grown men.

That's a great way to limit your ressources artificially, but I doubt that type of Anti-Freshman-dogma will help us to actually build a successful team. By that logic, Dirk never lands in DAL as he was far from a 'can't miss'-type of young kid too and extremely young when he came over. That's also exactly how you miss out on names like Giannis, Gobert or Schröder. For instance Justin Anderson was a Junior, yet that still did not change the fact that he could not get on the court for almost his entire first year with the Mavs.

Therefore, I disagree entirely, Imo that shouldn't be a criteria when evaluating draft prospect at all. We need to explore every single avenue to get young top-tier talent to DAL. Even more so when we're already fighting an uphill battle anyway due to our poor draft position.

As you and I have about as much in common with regard to draft philosophy as we do on tanking, I'll simply file this under "difference in opinion" and move on.

[Texas Chuck]

Unless he is an absolutely "Can't Miss" Freshman, I completely agree with you on all counts... and I would go further and say at least 3 years prepares a kid to be a more mature pro also. Not to diminish the skill development but that mental development is almost as important when going up against grown men.

That's a great way to limit your ressources artificially, but I doubt that type of Anti-Freshman-dogma will help us to actually build a successful team. By that logic, Dirk never lands in DAL as he was far from a 'can't miss'-type of young kid too and extremely young when he came over. That's also exactly how you miss out on names like Giannis, Gobert or Schröder. For instance Justin Anderson was a Junior, yet that still did not change the fact that he could not get on the court for almost his entire first year with the Mavs.

Therefore, I disagree entirely, Imo that shouldn't be a criteria when evaluating draft prospect at all. We need to explore every single avenue to get young top-tier talent to DAL. Even more so when we're already fighting an uphill battle anyway due to our poor draft position.

As you and I have about as much in common with regard to draft philosophy as we do on tanking, I'll simply file this under "difference in opinion" and move on.

Just want to weigh in and point out that Dallas has drafted a number of older players in recent years:

Hammons was 23 and clearly isn't ready
Anderson was older and not ready
Heck Sarge was nearly 30...
Larkin -- older and not ready
Jared Cunningham
DoJo
Jae Crowder -- was the most ready, but even he took several years.

I'm not opposed to picking a more experienced player, but I think picking the most talented player is the most important thing. You can succeed by finding a senior at the end of the 1st like Josh Howard. Or you can succeed by finding a raw guy like Dirk who turns into a superstar.

I wouldn't limit my options. And certainly not with the idea that Rick won't play kids. Rick will play kids if he thinks they can play. But every coach, not just Rick, is going to prefer guys they can trust. If you don't know where to be at either end, or aren't decisive, well its hard for him to keep throwing you out there---especially if he is trying to win games.

[Texas Chuck]

Have you watched the Mavs? We never had great Defense, except the Championship Season. And turning Nash into Dampier was definitly not what helped us win anything, even though its funny that Dampier later turned into Tyson.

This actually isn't true. Now obviously "trading" Nash for Dampier is horrible. But we have to remember what else happened that summer--we dumped Walker and Jamison. We made an organizational change towards building around Dirk. No more just piling up offensive talent and hoping we could outscore teams. We went and got guys who could play defense and who complimented Dirk.

That is why we had the b2b 60 win teams and the Finals trip. Heck we cut Finley for nothing but some money savings for Cubes in the summer of 05. We let a ton of talent go for little to nothing and ended up with the best RS teams in franchise history. That wasn't a coincidence or something that was going to happen anyway.

It was realizing that Dirk was the franchise and the guy who could carry this team to championship contention and building a team that best supported him. And yeah Dampier actually did help with that. As did Diop for that matter.

[fuller4379]

Most of these guys you are talking about are very low draft choices. You got 3 mid level first rounders who you can call busts there. Two juniors and one sophomore.

Hammons - 46th pick of the draft. If you get anything out of him, then you are a success.
Anderson - 21st pick of the draft. Too early to tell at this point. He is only in his second year.
Sarge - 33rd pick of the draft. Once again, if you get anything there then you are a success.
Larkin -- 18th pick. A bust and only played college through his sophomore year. You expect to get a starter at this location. Of course the Mavs should not have traded back from 13 in order to save a little cap space for Melo or Howard or whoever.
Jared Cunningham - 24th pick. Should at least get a bench player at this spot. He is a bust.
DoJo - 25th pick which Mavs. purchased for $3 million. Should at least get a bench player at this spot. He is a bust.
Jae Crowder -- 34th pick of the draft who has developed into a very solid starter. A great pick. Too bad we traded him in the Rondo deal.

[Jinra]

There are statistics out there that show very clearly that the success rate of draft picks outside of the top 10 plummets significantly. It does not matter if you are drafting the best available of taking a chance on best potential, the top 10 usually become League Stars and the rest of the first round are usually Role Players. In a bad draft, things get worse.

http://www.82games.com/nbadraftpicks.htm

I guess the point is, maybe 4 years in school would help weed through some of the crap players, but reality is that anything after pick 10 is truly chance.

[Teffer10]

There are statistics out there that show very clearly that the success rate of draft picks outside of the top 10 plummets significantly. It does not matter if you are drafting the best available of taking a chance on best potential, the top 10 usually become League Stars and the rest of the first round are usually Role Players. In a bad draft, things get worse.

http://www.82games.com/nbadraftpicks.htm

I guess the point is, maybe 4 years in school would help weed through some of the crap players, but reality is that anything after pick 10 is truly chance.

This draft might go a little deeper than 10....just about any lotto pick should yield a decent player that could help us next season and beyond.

[Jinra]

There are statistics out there that show very clearly that the success rate of draft picks outside of the top 10 plummets significantly. It does not matter if you are drafting the best available of taking a chance on best potential, the top 10 usually become League Stars and the rest of the first round are usually Role Players. In a bad draft, things get worse.

http://www.82games.com/nbadraftpicks.htm

I guess the point is, maybe 4 years in school would help weed through some of the crap players, but reality is that anything after pick 10 is truly chance.

This draft might go a little deeper than 10....just about any lotto pick should yield a decent player that could help us next season and beyond.

True. Amazingly I find these statistics a bit alarming, to say the least. I guess that goes to show just how unique and great the NBA talent truly is, that of all the college and international talent out there only a small percentage make it to the NBA each year. And then, of the group that make it, only a smaller percentage of those players have an impact in the league and actually stick.

[Torgeir Bryn]

There are statistics out there that show very clearly that the success rate of draft picks outside of the top 10 plummets significantly. It does not matter if you are drafting the best available of taking a chance on best potential, the top 10 usually become League Stars and the rest of the first round are usually Role Players. In a bad draft, things get worse.

http://www.82games.com/nbadraftpicks.htm

I guess the point is, maybe 4 years in school would help weed through some of the crap players, but reality is that anything after pick 10 is truly chance.

Yeah, that's the biggest reason why I wanted us to tank quite hard when it became obvious that the playoffs would be unlikely. You can find a star outside the top 10, but it is quite unlikely. A lottery pick gives you a good chance of finding a decent player, but I want something more than that

About the guys who play several years in college, have anyone studied if they actually are more "ready to contribute"? It get's tossed around a lot, but I feel like they often need the same amount of time to adjust.
The freshmen who are one-and-done tend to have the highest potensial, so I don't think we should eliminate that option. I mean, the top 13 picks in Draftexpress' mock draft are freshman, with the exception of Frank. Juniors and seniors are, with some rare exceptions, players who weren't good enough to be drafted very high in their previous years. Sometimes they still have a high ceiling, like Lillard, but it feels rare. Imagine the stats guys like Town or Giannis could put up if they were seniors in college.

[2011Champs]

Watched a little Arizona last night and my impression off of a small sample size is that Markkanen is more Porzingis than Dirk.

[bwgood77]

Watched a little Arizona last night and my impression off of a small sample size is that Markkanen is more Porzingis than Dirk.

It's obviously tough to compare or project anyone to be like one of the top players of all time. About Markkanen vs Porzingis though, Markkanen doesn't block many shots. But the fact that a 19 year old 7 footer is shooting 43% from 3 on pretty high volume 4.5 attempts per game is pretty unheard of. I think it might be one of the best marks ever for that volume as a freshman 7 footer.

[bobsquad]

It's no secret around the league that Donnie & co. love drafting older players. It's an outdated NBA mindset and I hope we shed that this offseason. The lottery is all freshmen and first year eligible overseas guys this year. The cream of the crop isn't playing in college for more than a year anymore. There's only one upperclassman in consideration (Justin Jackson) and he has the same big red flag that Anderson did: 3PFG% that skyrocketed his junior year after underwhelming previously.

I do have the same concerns that RC won't try to develop a player that young. Carlisle-coached teams sadly are littered with draft busts. It's gonna have to be a guy with a high basketball IQ, regardless of physical tools, if he'll want to see any playing time.

[Texas Chuck]

I do have the same concerns that RC won't try to develop a player that young. Carlisle-coached teams sadly are littered with draft busts. It's gonna have to be a guy with a high basketball IQ, regardless of physical tools, if he'll want to see any playing time.

I don't think Rick has anything to do with it. It's very well known how much time Rick spends 1 on 1 with young talent willing to work hard. He's not remotely anti-youth. It's just the team has been trying to be a playoff team and veterans tend to be better players than kids. Knowing how to play is more important than I think fans sometimes realize.

And which of the kids that didn't develop here went on to do so elsewhere? Crowder got more opportunity in Boston, but he had proven here he could play. But Larkin, Cunningham, DoJo, Anderson, Ager, Ledo, Mekel, etc just all sucked at basketball. Rick can only do so much with terrible players.

But Finney-Smith has shown he can do some things and he's gotten a chance(he's 4th on the team in total minutes played this year). Yogi showed up and has played over 31 mpg since he got here.

Trust me if the Mavs have a chance to draft a high potential teenager in the draft they will absolutely do so. Now this player probably won't immediately play as much as fans want, because he probably won't be ready to contribute to winning right away, but I promise you that Rick will work with him if he wants to put in the work and the team will work to develop the player--even if that means mostly in practice or in the D-League.

[bwgood77]

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[bwgood77]

DX uploaded their scouting videos for the French Frank today:

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[dirkforpres]

DX uploaded their scouting videos for the French Frank today:

Watch on YouTube

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He's definitely got some skills, but I wouldn't take him in the top 12 from what I've seen from other prospects

[2011Champs]

I'm probably as poor at judging draft talent as Dallas Mavs are. The last time I actually knew for a fact that a college player would be great in the NBA was Shaquille ONeal.

[Texas Chuck]

I'm probably as poor at judging draft talent as Dallas Mavs are. The last time I actually knew for a fact that a college player would be great in the NBA was Shaquille ONeal.

Tim Duncan?
Anthony Davis?


Point is valid tho. I too really struggle to evaluate how college players will translate to the NBA. I thought Derrick Williams was going to be really good for instance. And thought Steph Curry would top out at solid starter at best, but I figured he'd be a worse version of JET....

[Darren]

This French kid is interesting. I am not sure I'd pick Smith over him. 6-5 with 7 foot wingspan is really impressive physical tools. As we're poor in perimeter defense, I'd actually pick him if his leadership, first step and shooting are all fine.

[JamesConway]

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[Texas Chuck]

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Booooo. It's not that I really want Dallas to draft him, but now a team above us can't take him letting someone else drop.