Where would Fultz and Ball rank in the last 5 drafts

[The_Hater]

At draft time, no, Ingram's play fell off sharply toward the latter part of the season. During the season it was a debate. DX had him mocked at #1 for 2 months

Not one GM would have taken Ingram over Simmons.

Uh in January, yes...a few gms would have.

There's always draft talk in the year leading up to the draft and youre probably right that one or two GM's would have considered it close, but I honestly think that all 30 NBA GMs would have taken Simmons. Simmons would still be the top pick in this years draft while Ingram wouldn't likely go in the top 5. That's how big the gap was.

I can remember similar talk about how Darko and even Melo might be taken ahead of Lebron but I don't think that was serious either

[HotelVitale]

What does the Sixers have to do with any of this? We're talking months before the lotto even happened, obviously RIGHT before the draft Ben Simmons was the favorite to be #1 - who is arguing otherwise? Ingram vs Simmons isn't some ESPN talk show propaganda, I got no clue where you got that from. Plus you just mentioned 3 separate entities in Yahoo Sports, DX and ESPN.

There was no debate who was going to be the number one pick all season. Ingram was never a serious candidate to be number one. Every GM was taking Simmons. Simmons was the clear best player and generational talent.

This is revisionist story of the highest caliber. Even in the 76ers board on this site, not only there was plenty of debate and on a +100 pages topic, Simmons was only ahead of Ingram by a 56%-44% margin. ANd I suspect it was far more balanced before it became clear that Simmons would be the 76ers pick.
viewtopic.php?t=1421939&start=680 I mean, come on. It was just last year. There was a Simmons vs Ingram debate going on throughout the entire season, even though Simmons was always the favourite. It's totally absurd to claim there wasn't debate. That is some "flat earth" level of absurdity.

I followed this as closely as anyone, and I think a lot of Sixers fans and general draft followers (myself included) were motivated to make the discussion more complicated than it was. For a couple reasons:
1) the Simmons hype at the start of the season was ridiculous, the average fan heard from Stephen A Smith and whatnot that he was Lebron with Magic's transition game and that led to some natural cynicism about him; especially after he leveled off in the middle of the season and his team started losing lots of conference games
2) It became more apparent that Simmons was an awkward fit, and people like myself started to warm to Ingram because we liked the IDEA of who he was: a sweet-shooting insanely long SF who could put the ball on the ground, block shots, etc; the reality of Ingram wasn't as good as that--he was mostly a set shooter, didn't have a first step, had to use his length to score in the paint, etc. It's not that he was bad (or is bad), just that we wanted to make him closer to a rival because of this idea of fit
3) before the lotto, no one wanted the draft to be 'Simmons or kill yourself' and we started talking about how it'd be great to be at #2 or fine to be at #4; some of the overselling of Ingram happened around that time

Some folks like Givony at DX still preferred Ingram but the rationale was sorta wild--he basically said that Ingram must totally change his body, become much more athletic, and become a Giannis-Durant hybrid, while Simmons would fail to get a jumper or defend and end up a middling player.

[HotelVitale]

Well of course you're going to say that because you're a Sixer fan but there were plenty or writers and others who made the arguement for Ingram also. You can pretend the evidence doesn't excise if you want....
http://www.nba.com/2016/news/features/scott_howard_cooper/05/18/2016-nba-mock-draft-1-0/
https://www.sbnation.com/college-basketball/2016/2/17/10989636/brandon-ingram-nba-draft-2016-ben-simmons-first-pick
http://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/2016-nba-mock-draft-brandon-ingram-looks-like-a-good-fit-for-sixers/

Just read these and the arguments are all about fit, and their tone is more 'the Sixers should think about this.' All three of them are from at least the month before the draft, too, before teams and fans really poured over tape and looked at who the players were. The only really researched one is from Feb (arguably Ingram's high pt of the season), and it only claims that the Sixers will have to actually look at Ingram and not just take Simmons without any thought.

All three fall more into the category of 'maybe this is more complicated than we think...' but someone with a real stake in the pick--a GM or fan of the team--never really would've taken Ingram over Simmons. The case for Ingram involves too much of who he might become with a great development, while the case for Simmons is that he was already pretty dominant and had much better and more readily implementable tools.

[HeartBreakKid]

Not one GM would have taken Ingram over Simmons.

Uh in January, yes...a few gms would have.

There's always draft talk in the year leading up to the draft and youre probably right that one or two GM's would have considered it close, but I honestly think that all 30 NBA GMs would have taken Simmons. Simmons would still be the top pick in this years draft while Ingram wouldn't likely go in the top 5. That's how big the gap was.

I can remember similar talk about how Darko and even Melo might be taken ahead of Lebron but I don't think that was serious either

No, it wasn't anything like comparing Melo to James - Ingram vs Simmons was a debate until midway into the college season, I am not talking about some arbitrary argument the #2 prospect might get taken #1, I mean this is more similar to how Beasley was considered to be a threat to Rose for a while. By the time the draft came around Simmons was the clear #1, but it was not unanimous at all during the college season - the gap between Simmons and everyone else was not comparable to say the gap between Davis and everyone else in his class.

There was no debate who was going to be the number one pick all season. Ingram was never a serious candidate to be number one. Every GM was taking Simmons. Simmons was the clear best player and generational talent.

This is revisionist story of the highest caliber. Even in the 76ers board on this site, not only there was plenty of debate and on a +100 pages topic, Simmons was only ahead of Ingram by a 56%-44% margin. ANd I suspect it was far more balanced before it became clear that Simmons would be the 76ers pick.
viewtopic.php?t=1421939&start=680 I mean, come on. It was just last year. There was a Simmons vs Ingram debate going on throughout the entire season, even though Simmons was always the favourite. It's totally absurd to claim there wasn't debate. That is some "flat earth" level of absurdity.

I followed this as closely as anyone, and I think a lot of Sixers fans and general draft followers (myself included) were motivated to make the discussion more complicated than it was. For a couple reasons:
1) the Simmons hype at the start of the season was ridiculous, the average fan heard from Stephen A Smith and whatnot that he was Lebron with Magic's transition game and that led to some natural cynicism about him; especially after he leveled off in the middle of the season and his team started losing lots of conference games
2) It became more apparent that Simmons was an awkward fit, and people like myself started to warm to Ingram because we liked the IDEA of who he was: a sweet-shooting insanely long SF who could put the ball on the ground, block shots, etc; the reality of Ingram wasn't as good as that--he was mostly a set shooter, didn't have a first step, had to use his length to score in the paint, etc. It's not that he was bad (or is bad), just that we wanted to make him closer to a rival because of this idea of fit
3) before the lotto, no one wanted the draft to be 'Simmons or kill yourself' and we started talking about how it'd be great to be at #2 or fine to be at #4; some of the overselling of Ingram happened around that time

Some folks like Givony at DX still preferred Ingram but the rationale was sorta wild--he basically said that Ingram must totally change his body, become much more athletic, and become a Giannis-Durant hybrid, while Simmons would fail to get a jumper or defend and end up a middling player.

The debate isn't who is the better prospect, or if Ingram's improvements were based on hope or logic, the debate is if there was ever a serious ARGUMENT and there obviously was.


Personally, I am not even sure why we're discussing this. This is the NBA DRAFT forum, we HAVE threads where people literally argued for Brandon Ingram, and not just a few people. There is an entire mock draft section that show cases as much. So the argument that "no one" thought that Ingram had an argument over Simmons is just false, and if anything that is true revisionist history.


People can prop up Simmons all they want, but he was never widely considered a generational prospect, and the year before he entered college he wasn't even considered to be that great of a projected #1.

[Unbreakable99]

Uh in January, yes...a few gms would have.

There's always draft talk in the year leading up to the draft and youre probably right that one or two GM's would have considered it close, but I honestly think that all 30 NBA GMs would have taken Simmons. Simmons would still be the top pick in this years draft while Ingram wouldn't likely go in the top 5. That's how big the gap was.

I can remember similar talk about how Darko and even Melo might be taken ahead of Lebron but I don't think that was serious either

No, it wasn't anything like comparing Melo to James - Ingram vs Simmons was a debate until midway into the college season, I am not talking about some arbitrary argument the #2 prospect might get taken #1, I mean this is more similar to how Beasley was considered to be a threat to Rose for a while. By the time the draft came around Simmons was the clear #1, but it was not unanimous at all during the college season - the gap between Simmons and everyone else was not comparable to say the gap between Davis and everyone else in his class.

This is revisionist story of the highest caliber. Even in the 76ers board on this site, not only there was plenty of debate and on a +100 pages topic, Simmons was only ahead of Ingram by a 56%-44% margin. ANd I suspect it was far more balanced before it became clear that Simmons would be the 76ers pick.
viewtopic.php?t=1421939&start=680 I mean, come on. It was just last year. There was a Simmons vs Ingram debate going on throughout the entire season, even though Simmons was always the favourite. It's totally absurd to claim there wasn't debate. That is some "flat earth" level of absurdity.

I followed this as closely as anyone, and I think a lot of Sixers fans and general draft followers (myself included) were motivated to make the discussion more complicated than it was. For a couple reasons:
1) the Simmons hype at the start of the season was ridiculous, the average fan heard from Stephen A Smith and whatnot that he was Lebron with Magic's transition game and that led to some natural cynicism about him; especially after he leveled off in the middle of the season and his team started losing lots of conference games
2) It became more apparent that Simmons was an awkward fit, and people like myself started to warm to Ingram because we liked the IDEA of who he was: a sweet-shooting insanely long SF who could put the ball on the ground, block shots, etc; the reality of Ingram wasn't as good as that--he was mostly a set shooter, didn't have a first step, had to use his length to score in the paint, etc. It's not that he was bad (or is bad), just that we wanted to make him closer to a rival because of this idea of fit
3) before the lotto, no one wanted the draft to be 'Simmons or kill yourself' and we started talking about how it'd be great to be at #2 or fine to be at #4; some of the overselling of Ingram happened around that time

Some folks like Givony at DX still preferred Ingram but the rationale was sorta wild--he basically said that Ingram must totally change his body, become much more athletic, and become a Giannis-Durant hybrid, while Simmons would fail to get a jumper or defend and end up a middling player.

The debate isn't who is the better prospect, or if Ingram's improvements were based on hope or logic, the debate is if there was ever a serious ARGUMENT and there obviously was.


Personally, I am not even sure why we're discussing this. This is the NBA DRAFT forum, we HAVE threads where people literally argued for Brandon Ingram, and not just a few people. There is an entire mock draft section that show cases as much. So the argument that "no one" thought that Ingram had an argument over Simmons is just false, and if anything that is true revisionist history.


People can prop up Simmons all they want, but he was never widely considered a generational prospect, and the year before he entered college he wasn't even considered to be that great of a projected #1.

People did call Simmons a generational talent and the best prospect since LeBron. Doug Gottlieb and Jay Bilas come to mind. He was on another level. He was never a threat to be drafted second.

[HotelVitale]

Personally, I am not even sure why we're discussing this. This is the NBA DRAFT forum, we HAVE threads where people literally argued for Brandon Ingram, and not just a few people. There is an entire mock draft section that show cases as much. So the argument that "no one" thought that Ingram had an argument over Simmons is just false, and if anything that is true revisionist history. People can prop up Simmons all they want, but he was never widely considered a generational prospect, and the year before he entered college he wasn't even considered to be that great of a projected #1.

Looks like we might all be working with different terms for this debate. I don't think you could deny there was an 'argument' for Ingram at #1, but I also don't think it's useful to say it was legit or strong enough at draft time to be considered as valid as the argument for Simmons. There's an argument for Jackson over Fultz this year that I can understand, and that I wouldn't be crazy surprised if it turns out being right, but it's nowhere close to being convincing enough that Jackson's going to rise up most people's drat boards.

I guess I'm trying to establish that there was never serious hesitation about Ingram being better, at least not among people who were actually watching tape and not running on little side agendas for their teams. I mean, the Sixers needed a wing WAY more than another big last year, and a shooter WAY WAY more than a non-shooting big, but there was never any serious lingering in the debate just because Simmons was obviously a better and less pie-in-the-sky prospect. I tried really hard to talk myself into Ingram--you can check my posts from like Jan to June of last year--but it was a really easy decision once the draft was upon us. ('Generational' is also not that productive--if a generation is about 15 years, of course Simmons wasn't the best prospect in 15 years. Simmons was a dominant college player with tremendous physical tools and some serious reservations; it's tough to evaluate where he would go in a redraft of the last 15 years since his upside is so huge while the weight of those reservations would be different for every GM.)