rockymac52 wrote:Consiglieri, I completely disagree with you.
You are right that Porter and Rice are widely regarded as two of the most NBA-ready prospects in this year's draft class. However, that doesn't mean we are in win-now mode just because we drafted them.
All other things equal, would you rather draft a player that will be a positive contributor from day one as a rookie or a player who won't be ready to contribute for a few years? The choice is obvious.
You are confusing NBA-ready with overall potential. A lot of people fall into this trap. They assume that the players who are NBA-ready are the guys who have lower ceilings as well. Sometimes that may be the case, but it's not always the truth. I have read some scouting reports that labeled Porter as having a lower ceiling, but I don't think they're correct at all. He can absolutely develop into a very very good player. He was the Big East Player of the Year for a good reason. He is a hell of a basketball player, and he's already shown incredible improvement in college. Why should we assume that he's not going to continue to improve just because he already improved once? That's completely counter-intuitive.
You are also making the false assumption that the players who are raw projects, who are also perceived as having very very high ceilings, are definitely going to reach their full potential. That couldn't be more incorrect. If you're a top 5 pick in any draft, and you are so raw and undeveloped that you aren't ready to contribute much at all your rookie year, then no matter how much potential you have, the reality is that there's a very decent chance that you never improve significantly. But an NBA-ready player has the floor of where he's already at, which is a contributing player. So worst case scenario, you're still getting something of value. And the NBA-ready player still can have more room to grow.
Porter is a fantastic fit on this team, both short-term and long-term. If it was a short-term pick, we wouldn't be drafting a SF, let alone 2 SFs, because we already have Ariza and most likely Webster. We would have tried to address one of our other bigger needs. We expect Porter to be here for the next decade. He is absolutely a long-term investment. He is now the 3rd member of our true core. The fact that he's good enough to help us win some games as a rookie should not be held against him, that's beyond ridiculous.
Quit hatin'.
I want the best player over the next ten years. That's what I want every time. I don't actually believe the things you think I believe, and you'd know that if you noted that I've repeatedly referenced Pelton's metrics based ranking of Porter as 1B, and his argument that his improvement in one year/extreme youth/length/measurables, suggest there is a much higher ceiling than many eye test scouts think. I'd quibble as I consistently see a below the rim game that lacks explosiveness in terms of first step, and finishing, but Barnes showed a great deal more explosiveness with the city this past year, than he did in Tar Heel Blue so its certainly possible.
I also know full well the pit falls of mega prospects that never lived up to their ceilings, our very own Kwame Brown being the penultimate example in '01, while our everpresent Jan Vesely is another example, with the NHL draft a few days away, we could reference Alexander Volchkov 16 years ago, who was all upside and red flags, in pro football, the second draft I ever observed featured a prominent example at #1 in Aundray Bruce, and the following year Andre Ware exemplified it.
It isn't that I'm not aware of the failure rate of these guys, it's just that after viewing the draft in all sports for the past 25 years or so, the one consistent feature I've seen is that to err on the side of athleticism and super talent, even if a bit dinged, over going conservative, will be right, more often than its wrong, and its upside, when right, is infinitely bigger too boot, than the conservative side.
Hence I err on the side of the Noel's and the Bennett's of the world, knowing full well we may be getting a Kwame, a Vesely, a Darko, a Aundray Bruce, Todd Van Poppel, Volchkov etc.
I still like Porter as a prospect, and like the team we have, I just happen to think we had a much better chance at greatness if we'd gone a different direction, then going in the direction we did go.
Trading up for Rice Jr mitigated it a little bit, because I feel like we landed a legit top 6 piece for the franchise going forward with that move. I really like Rice JR as value, and even if he busts, I'll always back it because to quote Oscar wilde, "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
