Knightro wrote:Black and Blue wrote:Here is the thing though - What do you do if you recognize you need a Point Guard long term, and your scouts have determined that the best prospect in the draft happens to be a super raw prospect that will need a redshirt year? Do you go for it to potentially find the best fit for your young roster for the next 10 years? Or do you draft at another position or a lesser player because they are safer?
Also keep in mind that the Magic going into that draft weren't considered anywhere near ready to compete for a title (last seed in the playoffs is never the ultimate goal), SG wasn't as much of a concern with Suggs and Harris there, Weltman has been the posterchild for getting raw prospects who flourish into stars a la Giannis, and the team appeared to intentionally only draft "nice guys" without problematic personalities. That eliminated a lot of draft prospects as possibilities right off the bat.
It's never a problem for a team to wind up with a better record than its own front office expects, but this past season blew them all away in the wake of that Black/Howard draft. If they knew then what they knew now, drafting players with less upside but way more capable of helping now would certainly have been more palatable. Weltman has been quoted several times mentioning that the team had to "adjust their timeline" in the wake of last season.
I wasn't a fan of the Black and Howard draft when they happened (and I'm still not entirely convinced either will reach the potential their draft spots suggested), but I do understand the thought processes behind drafting both. It shows Weltman has an insane amount of faith in his organization's development team to grow prospects from nothing into something.
Where I'm going to be critical of the team is right now. They now know they have a small window to really propel this team into a contender, and doing the long term "trust us this will work out later" thing they've done forever isn't going to fly now. If they do zilch this offseason and hit us with how their plan for improving is the "continued development of their stars", I'll be first in line to call them idiots.
There's no such thing as a redshirt year in professional sports IMO. This isn't college. You don't get 5 years of eligibility to play 4 seasons.
Guys gotta play IMO. If they don't play, it's a lot more likely because they are actually really bad than it is any sort of planned developmental track.
With enough talent there definitely is a redshirt year teams are willing to factor into their assessment. Take Nikola Topic, the surefire top-5 pick in this upcoming draft who just tore his ACL and will still absolutely get picked in the top 20, or Joel Embiid who was picked 3rd overall despite most teams recognizing he wouldn't play at all his rookie year. Those players weren't able to even develop their first year because they were hurt, but the long term talent and prospect of it being under team control was too tantalizing to pass up.
If we expand this out to professional sports as you mention, many rookie QBs sit and learn behind established veterans for their first year. Some do it for multiple years, like Aaron Rodgers and Jordan Love until they are ready/opportunity knocks. And in hockey and soccer the teams are practically drafting 5 year olds into their farm systems.
I will totally concede that a redshirt year spent in the G-League is a new thing that NBA teams are just now trying out. For years a redshirt rookie year was limited to NBA practices and pointless 5 minute stretches at the end of blowouts. It's anyone's guess longterm how well the G-League will aid in development. And I totally agree with you that playing in the G-League typically has negative connotations that suggest a player just isn't very good and failed at the NBA level. That said, the Magic literally drafted Jett Howard and said he would start in the G-League from day 1. That suggests it was at a stage in his game where it always baked in as part of his drafting plan for the Magic to develop him there.
I think you and I have common ground that these two prospects are super raw and it is dicey at best to just assume either is a lock to turn into anything. We also agree that it's not the smartest use of the 6 and 11 picks to double down on two players that are this wildly boom or bust. But where we differ is that I agree with the team that the best course of action is to bring them along slowly and bake into their rookie contracts a year where they ramp up before being thrown into regular NBA action. When they got drafted, every expert loudly announced they weren't going to contribute anytime soon, and I readied myself to not see them until 24-25. The fact AB got some run this year (and was okay) MEGA surprised me.
It'll be fun to watch AB and Jett this upcoming season to see how well this slow, largely MIA first year prepared each of them. I really enjoy this debate, so we'll have more data to talk through as things progress!
