2020 NBA Draft

[EvanZ]

Some interesting Freshman guards that were not highly touted coming in:

Tyler Terry
TJ Weeks
CJ Frederick
Rylan Jones
Tyson Etienne

Of these Terry probably the most likely to be 1-and-done.

[clyde21]

Some interesting Freshman guards that were not highly touted coming in:

Tyler Terry
TJ Weeks
CJ Frederick
Rylan Jones
Tyson Etienne

Of these Terry probably the most likely to be 1-and-done.

i think they all come back, players don't go to Stanford just to leave after a year, and it's a pretty deep PG class already, but u never know.

[Richard4444]

About Wiseman, I fear picking a Big with a Top 10 pick. If we analise the 50 players drafted in 2013-2017 drafts with Top 10 picks, we have:

Bigs (18) -> Star 3 (Embiid, Towns, KP), Good 5 (Zeller, Randle, Zach, Lauri and Poetl), Busts 10 (Okafor, WCS, Kaminski, Bender, Criss, Maker, Bennet, Len, Noel and Vanleh).

Wings (17) > Star 3 (Ingram, Tatum, Oladipo), Good 9 (Otto Porter, Buddy, Isaac, Gordon, Wiggins, Jabari, Justise, Brown, KCP), Busts 5 (Mario, Stanley, Mclemore, Stauskas, Josh Jackson).

PG/Combos Guards (15): Stars 5 (DLo, Simmons, Jamal, Fox, CJ), Good 4 (Frank, Lonzo, Payton, Smart), Bust 6 (Mud, Fultz, DSJr, Burke, Dunn, Exum). I didnt analise the 2018 and 19 draft because its too soon, but we already know Doncic and Trae are sure stars.

I think wings are less bust risky and PGs have more odds to become stars. Bigs are risk business. Scouts apparently cant identify good prospects and a bunch of stars bigs are second rounders.

[EvanZ]

Some interesting Freshman guards that were not highly touted coming in:

Tyler Terry
TJ Weeks
CJ Frederick
Rylan Jones
Tyson Etienne

Of these Terry probably the most likely to be 1-and-done.

i think they all come back, players don't go to Stanford just to leave after a year, and it's a pretty deep PG class already, but u never know.

You think it's deep? Cole and Nico and a couple Euros?

[clyde21]

Some interesting Freshman guards that were not highly touted coming in:

Tyler Terry
TJ Weeks
CJ Frederick
Rylan Jones
Tyson Etienne

Of these Terry probably the most likely to be 1-and-done.

i think they all come back, players don't go to Stanford just to leave after a year, and it's a pretty deep PG class already, but u never know.

You think it's deep? Cole and Nico and a couple Euros?

probably the deepest group in the draft

Cole
Nico
Tre
Haliburton
LaMelo

are all lotto guys probably, and that doesn't include Maledon/Hayes..you can have have 7 PGs taken in the top20

[King Ken]

About Wiseman, I fear picking a Big with a Top 10 pick. If we analise the 50 players drafted in 2013-2017 drafts with Top 10 picks, we have:

Bigs (18) -> Star 3 (Embiid, Towns, KP), Good 5 (Zeller, Randle, Zach, Lauri and Poetl), Busts 10 (Okafor, WCS, Kaminski, Bender, Criss, Maker, Bennet, Len, Noel and Vanleh).

Wings (17) > Star 3 (Ingram, Tatum, Oladipo), Good 9 (Otto Porter, Buddy, Isaac, Gordon, Wiggins, Jabari, Justise, Brown, KCP), Busts 5 (Mario, Stanley, Mclemore, Stauskas, Josh Jackson).

PG/Combos Guards (15): Stars 5 (DLo, Simmons, Jamal, Fox, CJ), Good 4 (Frank, Lonzo, Payton, Smart), Bust 6 (Mud, Fultz, DSJr, Burke, Dunn, Exum). I didnt analise the 2018 and 19 draft because its too soon, but we already know Doncic and Trae are sure stars.

I think wings are less bust risky and PGs have more odds to become stars. Bigs are risk business. Scouts apparently cant identify good prospects and a bunch of stars bigs are second rounders.

Bigs are difficult because the NBA favors wings who can play two ways a lot more than bigs. The bigs have the hardest time adjusting. It takes experienced college bigs three years to adjust to the NBA and it takes inexperienced ones 4-5 years. Noel is just starting to play good mental defense. Kaminsky is looking effective and Poeltl has taken that leap.

It takes time. That's a position you need a grown man body for. That's why Memphis keeps JJJ at the 4. Most of these busts can't play the 4 defensively so they end up in a tough spot. I wouldn't draft an American college based center till the late 1st or 2nd round unless they are generational like Ayton.

[EvanZ]

i think they all come back, players don't go to Stanford just to leave after a year, and it's a pretty deep PG class already, but u never know.

You think it's deep? Cole and Nico and a couple Euros?

probably the deepest group in the draft

Cole
Nico
Tre
Haliburton
LaMelo

are all lotto guys probably, and that doesn't include Maledon/Hayes..you can have have 7 PGs taken in the top20

I don't think Tre is going lotto. Haliburton is on the edge. Yeah LaMelo I should have put in there.

[clyde21]

You think it's deep? Cole and Nico and a couple Euros?

probably the deepest group in the draft

Cole
Nico
Tre
Haliburton
LaMelo

are all lotto guys probably, and that doesn't include Maledon/Hayes..you can have have 7 PGs taken in the top20

I don't think Tre is going lotto. Haliburton is on the edge. Yeah LaMelo I should have put in there.

maybe but I think the point stands, it's not a good class overall but the guards are pretty deep, don't see a guy like Tyrell declaring but again who knows.

next year will be a lot better on the wings/bigs but weaker at guard, could be incentive for some of these guys to return.

[Richard4444]

i think they all come back, players don't go to Stanford just to leave after a year, and it's a pretty deep PG class already, but u never know.

You think it's deep? Cole and Nico and a couple Euros?

probably the deepest group in the draft

Cole
Nico
Tre
Haliburton
LaMelo

are all lotto guys probably, and that doesn't include Maledon/Hayes..you can have have 7 PGs taken in the top20

If we include combo guards, we could also have RJ Hampton and Tyrese Maxey in Top20.

I dont think there are so much demand for PGs (Hawks, Cavs, GSW, Memphis, Wizards, Pelicans, Portland, Kings). Logjam at PG position is not good. It can forces the team to give up valuable players. Many PGs probably will drop due to logjam concerns. We could pick one of them with a late first.

[clyde21]

You think it's deep? Cole and Nico and a couple Euros?

probably the deepest group in the draft

Cole
Nico
Tre
Haliburton
LaMelo

are all lotto guys probably, and that doesn't include Maledon/Hayes..you can have have 7 PGs taken in the top20

If we include combo guards, we could also have RJ Hampton and Tyrese Maxey in Top20.

I dont think there are so much demand for PGs (Hawks, Cavs, GSW, Memphis, Wizards, Pelicans, Portland, Kings). Logjam at PG position is not good. It can forces the team to give up valuable players. Many PGs probably will drop due to logjam concerns. We could pick one of them with a late first.

yea, i don't disagree, don't really see 'a must have PG' out of the group and the position itself is kinda losing value on top of a bunch of teams already having starting PGs like you said.

i'd be careful if I was a PG that was thinking about declaring and i'm not one of the top5-7 guys

[nolang1]

I don't subscribe to the idea that you have to play young players in a bigger role than they are prepared for in order for them to become great players. In fact, I'd argue that it's often detrimental to the development of young players. I have yet to see evidence that talented players with initially big roles on crappy teams are more likely to develop into good players than talented players with initially lesser roles on good teams. I'd actually expect that the opposite is the case more often than not, but I know many people seem to disagree with me on this.

This ignores the fact that the vast majority of draft picks end up not being great and any young player who isn't will have the most value to other teams earlier in their career (or likely even before their career starts if you're willing to trade a future unprotected pick that later becomes that particular player). Additionally, most high lottery teams (obviously the Warriors are going to be an extremely rare exception here) should be realistic in knowing that one rookie isn't immediately going to take them from 22 wins or whatever to the playoffs and that the value in learning more about how good that player can potentially become is more important than the difference between winning 25 and 33 games.

A good recent example of this would be the Kings, who were very much "durrr you gotta earn your playing time because we're trying to win" at first with Fox, and then when the next draft rolled around, they still sucked and the BPA was the same position as Fox, so they had to take the next-best guy rather than trade Fox because they'd tanked Fox's value by not playing him in a system that best suited his talents.

This also ignores very real free agency constraints; the Hawks certainly would've won more games last year starting Jeremy Lin rather than Trae Young early on, but it wouldn't have been so many more as to even make the playoffs (much less be anything more than a first-round doormat), and if you look a few years into the future I'm sure them putting their trust in him from the start will give Atlanta (especially if they aren't yet a contender) a much better chance of holding onto him than if they'd been bringing him off the bench. The truly great players are going to be great no matter where they end up, and the players who are involved from the start (Westbrook) have a much better chance of sticking around than the ones who are held back (Harden).

If the Warriors end up keeping their high lottery pick, I don't think they will expect that player to come in and have a huge right away even if it is a player that has all star potential. Due to the talent they have on their roster, they will be able to bring the rookie along slowly and help him develop into an all star. This will allow the player to play to his strengths, without being forced to do too much. If they were to pick someone like Edwards(not saying they will or should), they could use him as a scoring 6th man initially while he develops the rest of his game. They wouldn't be putting a ton of weight on his shoulders to carry the offensive load and getting more minutes against second units will help ease his transition into the league. The player's strengths will also help contribute to winning as he should have some immediately translatable skills since he is a high draft pick unless they were to pick a huge developmental project which doesn't seem likely. Then, in future years as he develops his role will expand while the existing stars decline and cede some of their duties to him. Kerr also makes sure that he rotates in the young guys throughout the season instead of having them sit on the bench or play in the G-League even if they may not truly be ready.

A good example of a high draft pick not getting many minutes early is Jaylen Brown. He didn't get many minutes at all at the start of the season for the Celtics, and they brought him along slowly as the season progressed. He ended up averaging only 17 minutes a game for his rookie year. He slowly improved his game over the years, and now he a key starter on a contender. This also didn't have an impact on his free agency decision as he just resigned with the Celtics. The Spurs also follow this method, as they tend to not give rookies a ton of playing time early on. For every player that has developed well by playing a ton of minutes on a losing team, there is also a player that never reached his potential due to being in that situation. When players are in that situation, it makes it more likely for them to pick up bad habits since they aren't surrounded by a winning culture. It's a lot more likely for a player to reach his potential playing for a team like the Spurs, Celtics, or Raptors than the Suns, Kings, or Knicks.

The Kings are a terrible comparison to the Warriors because they were in a much different position and the King's management is/was trash. The Kings should've expected to be a high lottery team, so they should have played Fox as much as possible because that would most likely have led to more losses.

Also, Harden was traded from OKC, it's not like he walked away in free agency. We can all speculate as to why OKC traded him, but there isn't really a definite answer as to why they did it. Some say salary, some OKC didn't see Harden's ceiling, and some say OCK liked the package from the Rockets. We won't really know unless Presti comes out and says it, so to say that Harden left because he wanted to start is all speculation. He was also getting starter minutes and was a closer for OKC in their finals run, so it wasn't like they really restricted him or anything.

You really didn't get my point at all. The truly great players are going to end up being great regardless of how they're brought along, and the vast majority of players are not great enough to make much of a difference so the only thing not letting them play does is tank their trade value and prevent you from evaluating how they fit in with your current roster/system. What I bolded is just completely meaningless because you have no clue as to whether a particular player was just bad in the first place and wouldn't have developed anywhere (aka there probably was a reason the Spurs or whoever didn't draft him or try to trade for him), especially because you seem to be making a pretty elementary mistake of conflating a player reaching his potential with a player simply being more efficient due to having the luxury of playing alongside better players. At least there are concrete examples where an eventual superstar who was brought along slowly left for a franchise that could offer him more of a spotlight or where a rookie who was showcased early on got traded for what ended up being the highest their trade value ever was.

Jaylen Brown is actually a horrible example for the point you're trying to make (even putting aside that I already mentioned how teams like the Warriors and Celtics are rare exceptions that only come around once every few years and the vast majority of talented players have to start their career on bad teams). The Celtics could've gotten a player like Butler or George for Brown earlier in his career, and those two are both better than Brown is like to ever become and were also closer in age to Boston's main players. Brown didn't become a good player until after Kyrie and Horford had already left due to a lack of postseason success. So if you're actually trying to extend the championship window for Curry/Klay/Draymond rather than just be a solid playoff team until they drop off, it would be better to trade the pick sooner unless you're really positive you landed some surefire superstar in this weak draft.

[Duke4life831]

Tonight's game is a great example why Vernon Carey just isn't built for the today's NBA. VATech is a spread you out kind of offense and they just destroyed Carey. He doesn't have the foot speed to be able to defend that kind of offense. This has been an issue all season and a reason why Duke gets killed in the paint (allows the most points in the paint for any power conference team). You spread Duke out and Vernon just doesn't have the foot speed to handle it.

K benches Vernon and that is when Duke went on their run. He's a great college player, just isn't built for today's NBA.

[Marcus]

Tonight's game is a great example why Vernon Carey just isn't built for the today's NBA. VATech is a spread you out kind of offense and they just destroyed Carey. He doesn't have the foot speed to be able to defend that kind of offense. This has been an issue all season and a reason why Duke gets killed in the paint (allows the most points in the paint for any power conference team). You spread Duke out and Vernon just doesn't have the foot speed to handle it.

K benches Vernon and that is when Duke went on their run. He's a great college player, just isn't built for today's NBA.

Pops definitely won't take blame for bad footwork.

"I gave you the genetics" #noexcuses

[Duke4life831]

Tonight's game is a great example why Vernon Carey just isn't built for the today's NBA. VATech is a spread you out kind of offense and they just destroyed Carey. He doesn't have the foot speed to be able to defend that kind of offense. This has been an issue all season and a reason why Duke gets killed in the paint (allows the most points in the paint for any power conference team). You spread Duke out and Vernon just doesn't have the foot speed to handle it.

K benches Vernon and that is when Duke went on their run. He's a great college player, just isn't built for today's NBA.

Pops definitely won't take blame for bad footwork.

"I gave you the genetics" #noexcuses

Haha but the genetics are some of his biggest issues. Haha if I didn't know and you told me his dad was a professional athlete, I would've said, "with those slow feet, what was he an offensive lineman".

[BongBoyKlay]

This ignores the fact that the vast majority of draft picks end up not being great and any young player who isn't will have the most value to other teams earlier in their career (or likely even before their career starts if you're willing to trade a future unprotected pick that later becomes that particular player). Additionally, most high lottery teams (obviously the Warriors are going to be an extremely rare exception here) should be realistic in knowing that one rookie isn't immediately going to take them from 22 wins or whatever to the playoffs and that the value in learning more about how good that player can potentially become is more important than the difference between winning 25 and 33 games.

A good recent example of this would be the Kings, who were very much "durrr you gotta earn your playing time because we're trying to win" at first with Fox, and then when the next draft rolled around, they still sucked and the BPA was the same position as Fox, so they had to take the next-best guy rather than trade Fox because they'd tanked Fox's value by not playing him in a system that best suited his talents.

This also ignores very real free agency constraints; the Hawks certainly would've won more games last year starting Jeremy Lin rather than Trae Young early on, but it wouldn't have been so many more as to even make the playoffs (much less be anything more than a first-round doormat), and if you look a few years into the future I'm sure them putting their trust in him from the start will give Atlanta (especially if they aren't yet a contender) a much better chance of holding onto him than if they'd been bringing him off the bench. The truly great players are going to be great no matter where they end up, and the players who are involved from the start (Westbrook) have a much better chance of sticking around than the ones who are held back (Harden).

If the Warriors end up keeping their high lottery pick, I don't think they will expect that player to come in and have a huge right away even if it is a player that has all star potential. Due to the talent they have on their roster, they will be able to bring the rookie along slowly and help him develop into an all star. This will allow the player to play to his strengths, without being forced to do too much. If they were to pick someone like Edwards(not saying they will or should), they could use him as a scoring 6th man initially while he develops the rest of his game. They wouldn't be putting a ton of weight on his shoulders to carry the offensive load and getting more minutes against second units will help ease his transition into the league. The player's strengths will also help contribute to winning as he should have some immediately translatable skills since he is a high draft pick unless they were to pick a huge developmental project which doesn't seem likely. Then, in future years as he develops his role will expand while the existing stars decline and cede some of their duties to him. Kerr also makes sure that he rotates in the young guys throughout the season instead of having them sit on the bench or play in the G-League even if they may not truly be ready.

A good example of a high draft pick not getting many minutes early is Jaylen Brown. He didn't get many minutes at all at the start of the season for the Celtics, and they brought him along slowly as the season progressed. He ended up averaging only 17 minutes a game for his rookie year. He slowly improved his game over the years, and now he a key starter on a contender. This also didn't have an impact on his free agency decision as he just resigned with the Celtics. The Spurs also follow this method, as they tend to not give rookies a ton of playing time early on. For every player that has developed well by playing a ton of minutes on a losing team, there is also a player that never reached his potential due to being in that situation. When players are in that situation, it makes it more likely for them to pick up bad habits since they aren't surrounded by a winning culture. It's a lot more likely for a player to reach his potential playing for a team like the Spurs, Celtics, or Raptors than the Suns, Kings, or Knicks.

The Kings are a terrible comparison to the Warriors because they were in a much different position and the King's management is/was trash. The Kings should've expected to be a high lottery team, so they should have played Fox as much as possible because that would most likely have led to more losses.

Also, Harden was traded from OKC, it's not like he walked away in free agency. We can all speculate as to why OKC traded him, but there isn't really a definite answer as to why they did it. Some say salary, some OKC didn't see Harden's ceiling, and some say OCK liked the package from the Rockets. We won't really know unless Presti comes out and says it, so to say that Harden left because he wanted to start is all speculation. He was also getting starter minutes and was a closer for OKC in their finals run, so it wasn't like they really restricted him or anything.

You really didn't get my point at all. The truly great players are going to end up being great regardless of how they're brought along, and the vast majority of players are not great enough to make much of a difference so the only thing not letting them play does is tank their trade value and prevent you from evaluating how they fit in with your current roster/system. What I bolded is just completely meaningless because you have no clue as to whether a particular player was just bad in the first place and wouldn't have developed anywhere (aka there probably was a reason the Spurs or whoever didn't draft him or try to trade for him), especially because you seem to be making a pretty elementary mistake of conflating a player reaching his potential with a player simply being more efficient due to having the luxury of playing alongside better players. At least there are concrete examples where an eventual superstar who was brought along slowly left for a franchise that could offer him more of a spotlight or where a rookie who was showcased early on got traded for what ended up being the highest their trade value ever was.

Jaylen Brown is actually a horrible example for the point you're trying to make (even putting aside that I already mentioned how teams like the Warriors and Celtics are rare exceptions that only come around once every few years and the vast majority of talented players have to start their career on bad teams). The Celtics could've gotten a player like Butler or George for Brown earlier in his career, and those two are both better than Brown is like to ever become and were also closer in age to Boston's main players. Brown didn't become a good player until after Kyrie and Horford had already left due to a lack of postseason success. So if you're actually trying to extend the championship window for Curry/Klay/Draymond rather than just be a solid playoff team until they drop off, it would be better to trade the pick sooner unless you're really positive you landed some surefire superstar in this weak draft.

Sure guys like Lebron and KD are going to be great no matter what the situation is, but none of the players in this draft are generational talents like that. The point you are trying to make does not apply to this draft because none of the players in this draft seem like players that will reach their potential no matter what team they go to. So yes the pick will have more value before the player plays, but it's not like this year's pick has insane value because there isn't someone like Zion in this draft.

I also said nothing about not playing the player that the Warriors draft. I said that they can use him in a role that utilizes the player's strengths, while the rest of the player's skills are developed. This still allows the team to evaluate the player's fit with the current roster, and as he improves the team can expand his role.

What are your "concrete examples" of stars leaving due to being brought along slowly because your Harden example was just wrong? Stars leave teams for a variety of reasons, and I can't think of one single start that said he was leaving because he didn't get enough minutes early in his career.

Not really sure where the part I bolded is coming from because that is not what I meant at all. Nowhere did I combine those things. I'm saying that if a player is in a situation where he has good players around him, then he will be able to focus on his strengths while he is playing.

Jaylen Brown is actually a perfect example for my point considering this entire conversation is about the Warriors' pick. It's foolish to compare the Warriors to a team like the Kings when they are in fact much more similar to the Celtics. There was also no chance that the Celtics could have traded Brown straight up for someone like George or Butler. They would have had to include other assets because Brown was the third pick in a draft that was considered to have only one true superstar in Simmons. He also wasn't even a lock at 3, and there were many people that thought he was a reach at three at the time.

Brown didn't become a good player until after Kyrie and Horford had already left due to a lack of postseason success.

You obviously must not have watched Brown play in the playoffs because he was one of the three best players on a playoff team that was one game away from going to the finals. His rookie year, if you go back and watch series with the Cavs he was also the only person on the team that competed with Lebron. He provided defense for a contender while he was young because that was his main strength coming into the league. Now that he has improved his game he is contributing in a variety of ways and is a key piece on offense. This is the trajectory that I can see the Warriors taking since they don't need another star player to become contenders. They can take a high potential player, like a Jaylen Brown, and put him in a position to succeed by bringing him along slowly, while still helping the current team contend.

[DirtyDez]

Bad game for Nico but he didn’t practice all week with back issues. In hindsight he shouldn’t have played. Before the game I said he was getting overrated as a prospect because his foot speed isn’t great. It would be less of an issue if he had a quicker shot like Trae.

[clyde21]

not good games for Lewis or Green, but both of these guys are NBA players, college bball isn't for them.

[MemphisX]

This is just not a good draft. Not terrible but as far as franchise changers...probably zero.

[clyde21]

EJ Montgomery finally looking like I thought he would this year, albeit against a nobody...

[Duke4life831]

Another horrible offensive game for Lewis today. A season low 3 points on just 1-2 shooting and 1-4 from the line. He has shown 0 ability to create with the ball for himself or others and is shooting really bad. Defensively the kid is a dynamo, but man has he been beyond anemic on the offensive end.