RealGM

1989 #9 Tom Hammonds (Pooh Richardson)
1990 #5 Kendall Gill (Felton Spencer)
1991 #6 Doug Smith (Luc Longley)
1992 #2 Alonzo Mourning (Christian Laettner)
1993 #4 Jamal Mashburn (Isaiah Rider)
1994 #3 Grant Hill (Donyell Marshall)
1995 #4 Rasheed Wallace (Kevin Garnett)
1996 #4 Stephon Marbury (Ray Allen)
1997 #19 Scot Pollard (Paul Grant)
1998 #16 Bryce Drew (Rasho Nesterovic)
1999 #5 Jonathan Bender (Wally Szczerbiak)
1999 #13 Corey Maggette (Will Avery)
2003 #5 Carlos Delfino (Ndudi Ebi)
2005 #13 Sean May (Rashad McCants)
2006 #5 Sheldon Williams (Brandon Roy)
2007 #6 Yi Jianlian (Corey Brewer)
2008 #2 Mchael Beasley (OJ Mayo)
2009 #3 James Harden (Ricky Rubio)*
2009 #4 Tyreke Evans (Jonny Flynn)*
2009 #17 Jrue Holiday (Ty Lawson)
2009 #27 DeMarre Carroll (Wayne Ellington)
2010 #3 Derrick Favors (Wes Johnson)
2010 #15 Larry Sanders (Luke Babbitt)
2010 #22 Elliot Williams (Trevor Booker)
2011 #1 Kyrie Irving (Derrick Williams)
2011 #19 Tobias Harris (Donatas Motiejunas)

*#3-4 vs #5-6

I hope this makes somebody feel a little bit better after last night's loss to HOU.

Is your point that if we had a better pick we'd have drafted better players?

I'd feel better if half the time we got the better player, we didn't end up trading him for a worse player.

Well, as much as I hate to fuel the crowd that whines about what didn't happen, I think it's interesting:

1. Lottery luck is a huge deal, and maybe tanking - as unethical as it seems - may not be such a bad thing.

2. It's amazing the difference in talent we would have had, just since 2009, if we had picked one higher. Irving, Jrue, Tyreke, Harden, Favors, even Larry Sanders. Now, I'm not saying that I don't like Rubio, but for people who say, "Hey, just do the OKC method!" it shows that the talent may be there, but you have to not just know your stuff, but you have to get lucky and draft in the right spot (+1 for no Oden, -1 for Jeff Green).

i'll give this thread 30 minutes before it turns into another kahn thread.

KAHN!

And the players taken just after...
1989 (Pooh Richardson) Nick Anderson
1990 (Felron Spencer) Lionel Simmons
1991 (Luc Longley) Mark Macon
1992 (Christian Laettner) Jimmy Jackson
1993 (Isaiah Rider) Calbert Chaney
1994 (Donyell Marshall) Juwon Howard
1995 (Kevin Garnett) Bryant Reeves
1996 (Ray Allen) Antoine Walker
1997 (Paul Grant) Anthony Parker
1998 (Rasho Nesterovic) Mirsad Turkcan
1999 (Wally Szczerbiak) Richard Hamilton
1999 (Will Avery) Frederic Weis
2003 (Ndudi Ebi) Kendrick Perkins
2005 (Rashad McCants) Antoine Wright
2006 (Brandon Roy) Randy Foye
2007 (Corey Brewer) Brandon Wright
2008 (OJ Mayo) Russell Westbrook
2009 (Ricky Rubio)* Stephen Curry
2009 (Jonny Flynn)* Jordan Hill
2009 (Ty Lawson) Jeff Teague
2009 (Wayne Ellington) Toney Douglas
2010 (Wes Johnson) DeMarcus Cousins
2010 (Luke Babbitt) Kevin Seraphin
2010 (Trevor Booker) Damian James
2011 (Derrick Williams) Enes Kanter
2011 (Donatas Motiejunas) Nolan Smith

I think all this data shows is that almost every GM sucks at drafting. This isn't something Kahn is exclusively terrible at. Scouting in the NBA is really bad, almost on the same level as MLB scouting, but at least NBA scouts only have to pay attention to one league for the most part so they don't have an excuse like baseball scouts.

Good point. I think we've wound up one pick short sometimes and missed talent that went later other times. Would be interesting to see how bad other teams have done collectively over a 10 year period as well just for a comparison. Not letting Kahn off the hook though.

Nice thread, always interesting to look back.

jfg wrote:I think all this data shows is that almost every GM sucks at drafting. This isn't something Kahn is exclusively terrible at. Scouting in the NBA is really bad, almost on the same level as MLB scouting, but at least NBA scouts only have to pay attention to one league for the most part so they don't have an excuse like baseball scouts.

Seems like it to me as well. But it is a bummer to be one pick short when there truly is a blue chip candidate that everyone can actually recognize will be good and does actually end up that way. But even some of those guys flame out (D. Coleman is the obvious example but there are plenty of them).

Tanking sucks, but I don't mind experimenting. They are finally playing C. Johnson more, which is nice, maybe the wolves could start Shved at the 2 and we start a game with a normal sized line-up? It might break him out of his funk.

It would be awesome to have Larry Sanders or Derrick Favors here right now instead of the giant NOTHING we have to show for each of those picks.

We had the 23rd pick in the Sanders draft and it shouldn't have been hard at all to move up 2-5 spots.
Sanders is looking like he is going to be an upper-echelon defensive C for a long time.
But hindsight is what it is. When your GM can't evaluate talent at even an elementary level, and caters to what his coach wants, the coach almost always will choose a veteran over youth.

And if budinger walks this summer after playing 15-20 games for us it will be a 3rd valuable draft asset that we have zero return on (4 if you count the future pick we sent to the suns to dump wesley johnson).

We are within a successful tank of having a top 3-5 pick again.
PLEASE hire someone who can evaluate talent at an elite level to make it instead of this kahn-cuckolded-by-the-adelmans fiasco we've had the last couple of years.

younggunsmn wrote:And if budinger walks this summer after playing 15-20 games for us it will be a 3rd valuable draft asset that we have zero return on (4 if you count the future pick we sent to the suns to dump wesley johnson).

In retrospect a lot of draft pick for player trades look bad, but this one doesn't seem fair considering the player got injured. If we had taken a player that had gotten hurt, you couldn't blame that on the team either. It could have gone the opposite direction with someone like Royce White too. Glad we avoided that fiasco. I hear you that now we have nothing to show for having the 18, but I do like the move we tried to make. Say he had an incredible season, we would still have the same nothing we have now come June. The only difference is now it may be easier to sign Bud back, and we should have a (understandably limited) view of what he can do.

Please let us get Noel this year... if we have to give up an asset (such as D-Will) to move up a couple of spots to guarantee this, fine. Noel is going to have a great career, and we need a defensive big (Sanders would have been perfect, but hindsight is 20/20 and Noel will likely have a very similar impact). At that point, Noel can return from his injury backing up both Love and Pek (or playing more if either is injured) and we can decide whether all three work together as a three-big rotation, or if we want to move either Love or Pek and have two bigs who complement each other perfectly (either Love/Noel or Noel/Pek are great fits at PF/C IMO).

Gideon wrote:Please let us get Noel this year... if we have to give up an asset (such as D-Will) to move up a couple of spots to guarantee this, fine. Noel is going to have a great career, and we need a defensive big (Sanders would have been perfect, but hindsight is 20/20 and Noel will likely have a very similar impact). At that point, Noel can return from his injury backing up both Love and Pek (or playing more if either is injured) and we can decide whether all three work together as a three-big rotation, or if we want to move either Love or Pek and have two bigs who complement each other perfectly (either Love/Noel or Noel/Pek are great fits at PF/C IMO).

IMO, you don't draft Noel to be a back-up but to develop him, and you don't sing Pek for around a max contract to be a back-up either.

If we draft Noel, make sign&trade with Pek to get a really good wing.

I would add that maybe it would be positive for a player like Noel (raw and so young) beginning as a reserve, but at midseason he should be playing a bigger role. Maybe this is a solution for a season, trading Pek the next, i don't know.