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With college basketball starting up tomorrow, Vecenie and Givony released early 2021 rankings this morning:

Vecenie:
1 - Cade Cunningham (Oklahoma State)
2 - Jalen Green (G-League)
3 - Brandon Boston (Kentucky)
4 - Jonathan Kuminga (G-League)
5 - Keon Johnson (Tennessee)
6 - Evan Mobley (USC)
7 - Ziaire Williams (Stanford)
8 - Terrence Clarke (Kentucky)
9 - Scottie Barnes (Florida State)
10 - Usman Garuba (Real Madrid)

Givony:
1 - Cunningham
2 - Green
3 - Boston
4 - Mobley
5 - Williams
6 - Jalen Johnson (Duke)
7 - Keon Johnson
8 - Barnes
9 - Cuminga
10 - Caleb Love (UNC)

Vecenie wrote...

Asmentioned above, I love the talent at the top of the 2021 NBA Draft. It’s a considerably deeper draft within the top half of the lottery than the 2020 iteration was. And yet, I still think of it as “The Cade Cunningham Draft” at this stage. He’s not only one of the best prospects I’ve evaluated at the high school level, but also one of my favorite players to watch. Everything about Cunningham looks likely to translate at a high level in the NBA, and he gets better every time I see him.

Cade’s first game will be on ESPN tomorrow at 3pm cst.

Presti plz, ask to Cade to play like **** this season.

Dadouv47 wrote:Presti plz, ask to Cade to play like **** this season.

Reading the article, there are definitely other guys that are very good and can put themselves as comparable prospects. Everything about Cade makes sense as the guy to hope for but it’s way too early to fall in love with one guy. Jalen Green and BJ Boston look pretty good too.

ThunderBolt wrote:

Dadouv47 wrote:Presti plz, ask to Cade to play like **** this season.

Reading the article, there are definitely other guys that are very good and can put themselves as comparable prospects. Everything about Cade makes sense as the guy to hope for but it’s way too early to fall in love with one guy. Jalen Green and BJ Boston look pretty good too.

sure there are a lot of good players. I feel like Green is the only one that is close to Cade but I can be wrong.

Dadouv47 wrote:

ThunderBolt wrote:

Dadouv47 wrote:Presti plz, ask to Cade to play like **** this season.

Reading the article, there are definitely other guys that are very good and can put themselves as comparable prospects. Everything about Cade makes sense as the guy to hope for but it’s way too early to fall in love with one guy. Jalen Green and BJ Boston look pretty good too.

sure there are a lot of good players. I feel like Green is the only one that is close to Cade but I can be wrong.

Maybe but Boston is a guy that went up vecenies board in the last few months. Players make big leaps right now in their development.

How much would you be willing to give up to get Cade? Would it be worth it? I feel like if he is a Luka/Zion level prospect you give up almost anything. Luckily for us we have a bunch to give up although I'm not sure if Presti is wired that way to give up half our farm for 1 guy.

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namlede wrote:How much would you be willing to give up to get Cade? Would it be worth it? I feel like if he is a Luka/Zion level prospect you give up almost anything. Luckily for us we have a bunch to give up although I'm not sure if Presti is wired that way to give up half our farm for 1 guy.

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It’s hard to say right now. If he’s as good as advertised, yes you give up what you need to. However are we trying to move up from number 2,5 or 9? How good do the other prospects look? Can we get there with only picks? Do we have to give up shai? What kind of year will shai have just had?

I'm an OSU fan and I'll go on record right now that I would very strongly doubt Cade ends up the top pick. Might not even end up top three. Just putting too much on one dude with mediocre teammates, a so-so coach, and a fairly tough conference schedule.

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Old Man Game wrote:I'm an OSU fan and I'll go on record right now that I would very strongly doubt Cade ends up the top pick. Might not even end up top three. Just putting too much on one dude with mediocre teammates, a so-so coach, and a fairly tough conference schedule.

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What’s different about Cade’s situation than Anthony Edwards at UGA or Ben Simmons at LSU?

ThunderBolt wrote:

namlede wrote:How much would you be willing to give up to get Cade? Would it be worth it? I feel like if he is a Luka/Zion level prospect you give up almost anything. Luckily for us we have a bunch to give up although I'm not sure if Presti is wired that way to give up half our farm for 1 guy.

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It’s hard to say right now. If he’s as good as advertised, yes you give up what you need to. However are we trying to move up from number 2,5 or 9? How good do the other prospects look? Can we get there with only picks? Do we have to give up shai? What kind of year will shai have just had?

the issue is that other teams will ask for SGA, no less. I would give up someone like Bazley (if he has a decent/good season) and a FRP if we are +/-4th in the draft. Teams will probably pass though

Dadouv47 wrote:

ThunderBolt wrote:

namlede wrote:How much would you be willing to give up to get Cade? Would it be worth it? I feel like if he is a Luka/Zion level prospect you give up almost anything. Luckily for us we have a bunch to give up although I'm not sure if Presti is wired that way to give up half our farm for 1 guy.

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It’s hard to say right now. If he’s as good as advertised, yes you give up what you need to. However are we trying to move up from number 2,5 or 9? How good do the other prospects look? Can we get there with only picks? Do we have to give up shai? What kind of year will shai have just had?

the issue is that other teams will ask for SGA, no less. I would give up someone like Bazley (if he has a decent/good season) and a FRP if we are +/-4th in the draft. Teams will probably pass though

Well depending on what transpires this year, it might be worth it. I’m a huge fan of shai but he still has areas he need to grow. If shai improves enough that it’s not worth it to trade him to move up, that’s a good thing too. It’s too early to worry about the success of the rebuild hinging on if we get Cade or not.

ThunderBolt wrote:

Old Man Game wrote:I'm an OSU fan and I'll go on record right now that I would very strongly doubt Cade ends up the top pick. Might not even end up top three. Just putting too much on one dude with mediocre teammates, a so-so coach, and a fairly tough conference schedule.

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What’s different about Cade’s situation than Anthony Edwards at UGA or Ben Simmons at LSU?

Well, I'm not familiar with what the scuttlebutt was in their situations. I'm just saying from years of following OSU hoops I have significant doubts about the season he'll be able to put together. We lost Yor Anei to transfer for one and I'm not sure anyone can step into that role. If the team struggles I'm afraid Cunningham's stock will take a hit.

Also, NCAA banned us from the tournament over that Lamont Evans b.s., so it's guaranteed he'll miss the chance to showcase himself whereas the kid at Kentucky will likely get to.

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Didn't Simmons miss the tourney on merit

Okay feeling a little less confident about my Cunningham prediction after watching him play a bit. He hits these jobbers with that in and out dribble on a delayed break and gets straight to the rim. Guy is clearly next level for this level of ball.

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Really impressed with his defense, very nice iq. Looked a little sloppy offensively but that was probably nerves. I'd expect more polish in the 2nd half.

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Old Man Game wrote:Okay feeling a little less confident about my Cunningham prediction after watching him play a bit. He hits these jobbers with that in and out dribble on a delayed break and gets straight to the rim. Guy is clearly next level for this level of ball.

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I didn’t get to see most of the game, just the last bit of the second half and highlights. He just seems like a guy that can control the pace of the game and will have an even greater impact than his numbers suggest.

Old Man Game wrote:Okay feeling a little less confident about my Cunningham prediction after watching him play a bit. He hits these jobbers with that in and out dribble on a delayed break and gets straight to the rim. Guy is clearly next level for this level of ball.

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I should stop watching his games. will be pissed if we don't get the first pick.

So I was thinking about the teams that are our competition for Cade.


Orlando- drafted a pg in Anthony and will be in contention for playoffs as roster stands.
Charlotte- see above/Lamelo.
Chicago- they have enough young guys with experience they should be in playoff contention. I don’t think white is their future pg.
Cleveland- they’ll be bad but they had 2 point guards already on the roster with Garland and Sexton.
Detroit- they should be bad but it’s almost as of they think they won’t be, especially if Blake is healthy. Just drafted a pg, Killian Hayes.
NYK - they’ll be bad and a legitimate threat to draft Cade.
Memphis- have Morant and should be better than us
Sac- have fox and should be better than us, but maybe not by much.
Washington- if healthy they shouldn’t be in contention for Cade despite being bad last year.
New Orleans-they should be toogood for the top pick but would likely take Cade.
San Antonio- spurs have been rumored to be willing to move on for Murray but we know Popovich won’t tank.


My point isn’t that all of this is probable but some of it could be possible.

I do think a lot of these teams that would want to draft him will be better than us, so the lotto odds are in our favor.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some teams like Sacramento or Memphis would draft for fit and pass on Cade in favor of Green since they already have Fox and Morant. Others like Cleveland and Charlotte might do the same. For the pistons let’s hope Killian Hayes is really good and they join the group that drafts for fit.

Teams like the Bulls, Magic, and Pelicans should be better than us but I doubt they feel they have their point guards of the future with White, Anthony, Fultz and Ball. It doesn’t hurt us if those guys play really well this year.

The Knicks are probably the one team that I can’t find the silver lining that they’ll either be in playoff contention or might not want the best pg in the draft.

ThunderBolt wrote:

Old Man Game wrote:Okay feeling a little less confident about my Cunningham prediction after watching him play a bit. He hits these jobbers with that in and out dribble on a delayed break and gets straight to the rim. Guy is clearly next level for this level of ball.

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I didn’t get to see most of the game, just the last bit of the second half and highlights. He just seems like a guy that can control the pace of the game and will have an even greater impact than his numbers suggest.

Watching him I was reminded of Luka saying scoring in the NBA was easier than Europe. upfront that sounds ridiculous but then you consider how much better his teammates are on average in the NBA versus the league he's playing in currently and it starts to seem like it makes a sort of sense.

I kind of got the same feeling watching Cade. Defense was able to just kind of load up on him and I don't think they'll be able to get away with that kind of stuff at the next level to the same extent.

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