RealGM

Charlotte trades #4 (CHA 1st)
OKC trades #10, #11 (HOU and UTA 1sts), Dort


--

OKC combines some assets for one premier talent, conserving roster spots and salary, while not marginalizing the young talents they already have. If Cody Williams (Jalen's brother) is available at #4, this feels like a pretty natural fit, and something worth moving up for.

Chet/Jaylin
Jalen Williams/Dieng
Cody Williams (#4)/Hayward?/Kenrich
Giddey/Joe
SGA/Cason

Charlotte is already proving 3 games after the deadline that having depth on an injury prone team is super important. Micic, Mann, and Grant already look like keepers. I see them targeting Dort for wing defense, a natural fit between Melo and Miller, but in the event that he simply isn't available, there's definitely enough assets in OKC's stockpile to find a replacement (Dieng and a future pick?). This trade gets Charlotte 3 for the price of 1 and start to fill some of the many holes that are on this roster. I admittedly do not know a lot about the draft prospects yet, but could Charlotte go into next season with:

Mark/Filipowski (#10)
Bridges/GWill
Miller/Holland (#11)
Dort/Mann
LaMelo/Micic

as its top 10, and is that better than:

Mark/Richards
Bridges/GWill
Cody Williams (#4)/Cody Martin
Miller/Mann
LaMelo/Micic
?

I think the gap between 9 and 4 is basically nonexistent in this draft and there's no one interesting for OKC. OKC can probably move up more cheaply to like 8 for their guy.

People talk a lot about Cody Williams because Jalen plays there, but Cody Williams is REALLY BAD on defense and is unplayable on a contender for several years. Cody needs 20 pounds of muscle and needs to get way more athletic to be playable in the NBA. He's legitimately a very bad defender in college and it's going to be a massacre in the NBA.

Holland is just a better prospect than Cody Williams and the Thunder give up a ton of stuff to get Cody Williams instead?

I think OKC is better off staying where they are -currently 10/11. Their need is centers. They could take shots at Clingman, Filipowski, Messi, Edy.
Going earlier puts them in line to get a Holland, Walters, Buzelis level forward.
I would prefer to take chances on the bigs and have Holgrem by my PF.
If Filipowski actually works out, he and Holgrem could be interchangeable positions.

Will Sarr be available at 4? who knows

HadAnEffectHere wrote:I think the gap between 9 and 4 is basically nonexistent in this draft and there's no one interesting for OKC. OKC can probably move up more cheaply to like 8 for their guy.

People talk a lot about Cody Williams because Jalen plays there, but Cody Williams is REALLY BAD on defense and is unplayable on a contender for several years. Cody needs 20 pounds of muscle and needs to get way more athletic to be playable in the NBA. He's legitimately a very bad defender in college and it's going to be a massacre in the NBA.

Holland is just a better prospect than Cody Williams and the Thunder give up a ton of stuff to get Cody Williams instead?

If we accept this premise, that Holland is considerably better than Williams, then shouldn’t OKC want to trade up to get Holland?

I don’t think we can assume there is a clearly better player and also that the clearly better player will be drafted later.

HartfordWhalers wrote:

HadAnEffectHere wrote:I think the gap between 9 and 4 is basically nonexistent in this draft and there's no one interesting for OKC. OKC can probably move up more cheaply to like 8 for their guy.

People talk a lot about Cody Williams because Jalen plays there, but Cody Williams is REALLY BAD on defense and is unplayable on a contender for several years. Cody needs 20 pounds of muscle and needs to get way more athletic to be playable in the NBA. He's legitimately a very bad defender in college and it's going to be a massacre in the NBA.

Holland is just a better prospect than Cody Williams and the Thunder give up a ton of stuff to get Cody Williams instead?

If we accept this premise, that Holland is considerably better than Williams, then shouldn’t OKC want to trade up to get Holland?

I don’t think we can assume there is a clearly better player and also that the clearly better player will be drafted later.

Holland is not considerably better, he's just very slightly better.

Cody Williams is just not a very good prospect (he's still a top 5 guy because this draft is awful) and he's a terrible fit with OKC because he's a ball handler (and he would never get the ball...) who plays PF but doesn't rebound (their biggest weakness...) and is way too unathletic currently to defend.

So I just think the Cody Williams to OKC meme is really bad. He's a massive project that probably wouldn't be good until year 4 if he ever gets there in general.

HadAnEffectHere wrote:

HartfordWhalers wrote:

HadAnEffectHere wrote:I think the gap between 9 and 4 is basically nonexistent in this draft and there's no one interesting for OKC. OKC can probably move up more cheaply to like 8 for their guy.

People talk a lot about Cody Williams because Jalen plays there, but Cody Williams is REALLY BAD on defense and is unplayable on a contender for several years. Cody needs 20 pounds of muscle and needs to get way more athletic to be playable in the NBA. He's legitimately a very bad defender in college and it's going to be a massacre in the NBA.

Holland is just a better prospect than Cody Williams and the Thunder give up a ton of stuff to get Cody Williams instead?

If we accept this premise, that Holland is considerably better than Williams, then shouldn’t OKC want to trade up to get Holland?

I don’t think we can assume there is a clearly better player and also that the clearly better player will be drafted later.

Holland is not considerably better, he's just very slightly better.

Cody Williams is just not a very good prospect (he's still a top 5 guy because this draft is awful) and he's a terrible fit with OKC because he's a ball handler (and he would never get the ball...) who plays PF but doesn't rebound (their biggest weakness...) and is way too unathletic currently to defend.

So I just think the Cody Williams to OKC meme is really bad. He's a massive project that probably wouldn't be good until year 4 if he ever gets there in general.

Yeah, I think I wouldn't be reading much into the individual names in the OP. Who is a top 4 and who is a top 10 pick always ends up fluid in hindsight from around this time of year.

Which brings it back to, would OKC go 2 for 1 to move from 10ish to 4ish and get more opportunity to control who is there for them?

I'm only focusing on this because people constantly mock Cody Williams to the Thunder because Jalen Williams is his brother and it's getting a little annoying. He's a bad fit.

Reasonable value if there’s a guy at 4 that they really like. Would def do it for Charlotte