Black and Blue wrote:
Great post. I think the point about the coach at Nova is very important.
This is what makes this particular draft class so hard for many people (and the reason for the calling out of pepe to say who he actually would like the Magic to draft): Everyone besides Wemby has big questions regarding their level of competition, role in college, lack of shooting prowess, or more. You can take any player and say, "I wouldn't touch this guy with a ten foot pole because of ____" and have it make complete sense.
The tricky thing is next year's draft thus far profiles as worse, and there are several players this year who have shown glimmers of greatness. We are forced to squint and project the future more than normal so the posts on here people make about who they LIKE are so much more useful than who they don't.
Is the athleticism the Thompson twins showed in their inferior league translatable in the NBA? How much did Cam's program work against him in college? Has Scoot showed enough to be worth mortgaging a ton to go up and grab him? Has Anthony Black shown enough to be drafted 6? Is it worth taking a person with good role player upside like Hendricks or Dick at 6?
I'd argue when in doubt you shoot for the stars. This year that unfortunately means the biggest boom or bust prospects. Role players can be had in free agency if that's all you are missing. I'm not of the opinion the Magic are 1-2 role players away from being a top team. They need something far greater, and this is their best chance to take that shot. Sometimes it fails spectacularly, like with Bamba and Isaac, but the past two years have shown how good it can work when done right.
For that reason, if you ask me who we SHOULD target, I'd say a lot of names people would probably get annoyed at because they are so high risk with lots of potential: Both Thompson twins, Scoot (with an expensive trade up), Cam Whitmore, Kobe Bufkin, Bilal Coulibaly, Keyonte George, and the like. You'll also see me pushing names further down the list where the scouting report says how they are close to a solid finished product but will never be a superstar.
Regarding drafting for upside...wouldn't you say that the Franz pick was all about his floor? He was about as solid as it got coming into the league. He already played winning basketball as a connector, super high feel for the game...kind of what people are saying about Black this year.
Paolo I suppose was a swing on upside. I think he was the best player in the draft, certainly the best college basketball player, but everyone assumed Jabari's elite shooting made him the safest pick, and plenty including myself probably considered Chet as the highest upside, even thougb Paolo's high end outcomes were very high as well (guess time will tell on this one)
There's nothing more humbling than the draft.
