2021 NBA Draft - Spoilers OK

[drew881]

Thor is Maker; Maker is Thor?

[TroyD92]

Seems like a great draft. Might be a really strong UDFA class too which would be really nice for the Bucks.

[ShootingtheJ]

New mock from DX.

Second round
31. Bucks (from Rockets)

Miles McBride | West Virginia | PG | Age: 20.6

Also, JT Thor is the Hammondsiest pick ever.

Yup, if we landed him at 31, I think I'd hold back some of the Tax MLE to sign him to a 4 year deal. He's such a perfect fit.

[ShootingtheJ]

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Mann is the scoring, pick and roll PG we've never had. Just don't know what the defense will look like, especially as a rookie. McBride might be the safer play because he can defend now. I'll just be happy if we get a shot at one of them.

[Fotis St]

Oh, I remember this kid, Rokas Jokubaitis from last summer, 2020 draft. He came back .... and he is on my short watch list...

Why ?
He has proper size, really good speed for the NBA... well lefties and athletic are rare. I want a leftie in our team. And I like the fact that he is playing in the highest EU level of basketball. He has great reads of the pick n roll and he looks like a hard worker. I think he can operate well under Bud's scheme. I like his potential, reminds me of Dragic, he needs to alot of work to polish his skills but I think the base and the tools are there.

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[Baddy Chuck]

Oh, I remember this kid, Rokas Jokubaitis from last summer, 2020 draft. He came back .... and he is on my short watch list...

Why ?
He has proper size, really good speed for the NBA... well lefties and athletic are rare. I want a leftie in our team. And I like the fact that he is playing in the highest EU level of basketball. He has great reads of the pick n roll and he looks like a hard worker. I think he can operate well under Bud's scheme. I like his potential, reminds me of Dragic, he needs to alot of work to polish his skills but I think the base and the tools are there.

Watch on YouTube

He also had a wild story about someone posing as him.

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[Matches Malone]

New mock from DX.

Also, JT Thor is the Hammondsiest pick ever.

Yup, if we landed him at 31, I think I'd hold back some of the Tax MLE to sign him to a 4 year deal. He's such a perfect fit.

This kid looks nice! I'd take him at 31.

A couple other guys that caught my eye, Bones Hyland (reminds me of Quickley), Quentin Grimes, and Tre Mann all look like they have a skillset we lack in the backcourt. Wouldn't mind Jared Butler falling into our laps either. I just hope we can find a legit rotation guard. Let's find Malcolm Brogdon 2.0 and go back to back as champs.

[machu46]

I think I'm starting to narrow it down to 5 or 6 guys that I like at our spot (barring someone unexpected falling to us). My rough scouting report on them:

- Miles McBride – Projects as a bulldog defensively at the point of attack. Strong and long enough to guard 2’s and maybe some 3’s in addition to 1’s. Likes to get into the mid-range for pull-up jumpers where he shot with okay efficiency. Shot the 3 very well this season, though he struggled there as a freshman. Overall, he projects to be a solid shooter with upside to be legitimately good there along with the strong defense. He’ll likely struggle around the rim and his tendency to lean on pull-up mid-rangers makes him a potentially inefficient scorer but he could theoretically turn into a starter as more of an off-ball PG.

- Herb Jones – 4 year player at Alabama. Won SEC Player of the Year and SEC Defensive Player of the Year as a senior. Great fundamentals defensively along with a ton of splash plays as well; he has tremendous upside as a defensive player. On the offensive end, he’s a good passer, solid ball-handler for his size, and a pretty good cutter/lob threat. He’d give us another strong transition player. If he learns how to shoot (he did shoot 35% from 3 this year but it’s all pretty small volume with him and his overall track record is poor), he could be the steal of the draft. At minimum, he should be a good, versatile defender that helps the team in the regular season but might be too much of a shooting liability to play alongside Giannis in the playoffs.

- Ayo Dosunmu – Bob Cousy award winner his junior season (best PG in the country) though he’s more a Jrue Holiday type guard than a pure point. There’s definitely some poor man’s Jrue in there; uses his strength and handle to get his shots in the halfcourt, though he’s not much of a leaper around the paint and won’t really blow by guys from the perimeter; he relies more on getting his man off-balance and attacking his chest. Good finisher at the rim and a pretty good scorer in the mid-range. He shot it well from 3 as a junior, but he shot fewer and fewer 3’s each season. Doesn’t really project as a great shooter but you never really know. On the defensive end, he’s not really a stocks stuffer, but he plays good, physical defense and has the size to defend 1-3 comfortably and with some development, might survive okay when he gets switched onto 4’s.

- JT Thor – One of the youngest players in the draft. Needs to get stronger, but he’s 6’9" with a long wingspan and an explosive athlete. He looks the part as a shooter, but only shot 30% from 3 as a freshman; definitely a guy where people that are high on him will use the eye test as proof of his potential in that regard. Good defender as a freshman; with his length and athleticism, he’s a serious shot blocking threat. He picked up a lot of steals as well and is athletic enough to switch pretty much everywhere (though definitely too scrawny to handle true big men right now). If you want to gamble on someone that might not help in the short-term but could be a serious difference maker in a few years, he’s probably the best we can hope for.

- Tre Mann – I don’t really think he’ll make it to our pick, but if he does, he’s gotta be one of the main guys we consider. Projects as a potentially very good PnR PG. He’s still growing taller, but at the moment, he’s a good pull-up shooter with a good floater game and solid decision-making, particularly in the PnR. The downside is he doesn’t have the athleticism to blow by guys and isn’t a particularly great ball-handler either, so without improvement in those regards, he’s likely going to be dependent on screens to free him up or as a guy that’s attacking closeouts rather than being your primary ball-handler (though we don’t really need a primary ball-handler either).

- Quentin Grimes – He seems like a very good fit for the types of players we’ve tried to surround Giannis with in recent years. He was a big time recruit coming out of high school but struggled in his freshman year at Kansas before transferring to Houston, where he turned into a stud and helped Houston become one of the best teams in the country. Won conference player of the year as a junior. Nothing to write home about in terms of height and length, but he plays very hard on the defensive end and is one of those guys that understands how much space to give his man so that he can contest jumpers while also beating his man to the spot on drives. Also a very strong rebounder for a guard, averaging 7 rebounds per 40 minutes this past season. Offensively, he projects as a good 3 point shooter; lots of volume in college and shot it pretty well, particularly his junior season where he eclipsed 40%. He can score around the rim as well. Mid-range has been a mixed bag; his ball-handling is relatively poor for a guard. You’re not going to want him creating his own looks. There’s a lot of Pat Connaughton to his game IMO, though if you recall, Pat played mostly as a big man in college whereas Grimes was a guard.

[jschligs]

My list is pretty large in part to the amount of potential fits I see:

- Jared Butler
- Tre Mann
- Joe Wieskamp
- JT Thor
- Quentin Grimes

[emunney]

Oh, I remember this kid, Rokas Jokubaitis from last summer, 2020 draft. He came back .... and he is on my short watch list...

Why ?
He has proper size, really good speed for the NBA... well lefties and athletic are rare. I want a leftie in our team. And I like the fact that he is playing in the highest EU level of basketball. He has great reads of the pick n roll and he looks like a hard worker. I think he can operate well under Bud's scheme. I like his potential, reminds me of Dragic, he needs to alot of work to polish his skills but I think the base and the tools are there.

Watch on YouTube

I have been looking at him lately and I agree with most of this except, critically, the speed comment. I think he's really slow, maybe too slow, for a NBA guard. He's probably slower than Delly and doesn't have the bulldog mentality on defense that allowed Delly to stick, but he's longer than Delly with more projectable shooting mechanics. I think if you put him in the kind of space he'll see in the NBA, he's going to be in very deep trouble, and not cause enough trouble for opposing defenses to make up for it.

[Ron Swanson]

Thor is a really intriguing dude. Could see him being a Tayshaun Prince type player in the pros if he can put it all together. He's just so raw that I wouldn't expect anything out of him the first 1-2 years. Tre Mann is still the dream, but I'm already seeing mocks catching up to the fact that he's probably going in that 20-25 range.

[neiLz]

Bucks need a pg that can take the ball handling pressure of midds jrue and Giannis. They need a guy that can thread a needle, run a pick n roll, and throw a lob. Bucks don't really have that true pg.

[Matches Malone]

I can't stop watching Bones Hyland videos. His jumpshot is kinda funky, but he swishes so many shots and has a really nice arc on the ball. Deep range potential with this kid looks promising.

[Ron Swanson]

So, how ballsy of a move would it be to use #31 and Donte to move up in the Top-20 if Jalen Johnson falls that far? I admittedly know nothing about the "red flag" stuff other than that he left Duke in the middle of the season to prepare for the draft.

[drew881]

Cannot believe you all are getting excited on Thor.
Why isn’t he returning for his 2nd year, given that he likely could improve his stock and a lot of money? He knows he is going to suck, not improve much, or maybe not fill out physically. This feels a lot like Thin Maker 2.0 and he looks like him on the court (high arcing 3, spazz energy, slightly better body control).

[Ron Swanson]

Thor wouldn't be my first choice at 31 but the "Thon" comparisons seem incredibly lazy and predictable.

[machu46]

Cannot believe you all are getting excited on Thor.
Why isn’t he returning for his 2nd year, given that he likely could improve his stock and a lot of money? He knows he is going to suck, not improve much, or maybe not fill out physically. This feels a lot like Thin Maker 2.0 and he looks like him on the court (high arcing 3, spazz energy, slightly better body control).

You have no idea at all why he isn't returning to school.

[skones]

Cannot believe you all are getting excited on Thor.
Why isn’t he returning for his 2nd year, given that he likely could improve his stock and a lot of money? He knows he is going to suck, not improve much, or maybe not fill out physically. This feels a lot like Thin Maker 2.0 and he looks like him on the court (high arcing 3, spazz energy, slightly better body control).

This has to be one of the most tone deaf things I've read on this board. Why isn't he returning for his 2nd year? Because he can go to the NBA and get paid a lot of money to do it? Like are you serious?

[emunney]

Thor is not a bad prospect at all. You have to consider that he's *actually* 18 years old, and also that he can dunk with one hand.

YMMV on how similar this is to Thon but for my money Thor was as a freshman an outstanding defender in pretty much every aspect. He's got serious instincts/feel to go with that length/athleticism. I think his shooting is kind of a mess and I wouldn't count on it, but he's got some fluidity in his upper half that you might be able to work with, and I like that he's a hop shooter. Some good habits some very bad habits.

[machu46]

Yeah, I mean, in all likelihood, Thor will end up being a bust. He has a long ways to go even if there's a lot of promising stuff in there. Just kind of how it works with pretty raw 18 year olds.

But I promise he isn't going to the NBA this season because he thinks he's going to be a bust. In all likelihood, he just wants to get paid.