pcbothwel wrote:BearlyBallin wrote:He looks so smooth and under control for a 7 footer. I get the feeling that he’s not even going as hard as he could. I feel like he’s got another gear. Add some muscle and nba experience … fun to imagine what he may become.
This is why he was number one on my board. People kept viewing him of some sort of soft/skinny rim running center… Like Gafford/Claxton. But he is much closer to Giannis.
His frame/projection/skill set is basically JJJ, but with lesser defensive instincts and higher ceiling offensively.
His ceiling is clearly a star, but even if he doesn’t reach that he is already profiling as versatile big on both ends that will be in the AS discussion every year.
It's part of the reason I was just flabbergasted that Risacher was considered potentially the 1.01 because, what really was the ceiling there? League average starter? Maybe slightly above average starter? Im supposing there was a strong consensus of a reasonable floor and some unusual tools that would make him quite useful and a bit of an edge in certain scenarios but there was nothing I could imagine that could lead to him being special in any universe ever, just potentially, useful, and averagish as a starter. That's not a 1.01 to me. If you have the 1.01, you swing for a grand slam or trade down and take several hope swings, what you don't do, to me anyway, is just swing for a floor pick, basically, try and get a proverbial "walk/on base" w/that at bat and that's what Risacher was to me. I could cope with that at the 1.02, though I'd be bitter, but at the 1.01, so when he went 1.01, and Sarr dropped to us I was ecstatic. It was essentially the only (for me) grand slam swing available in the class, there may end up being a grand slam w/someone else in it, maybe more than one, but Sarr had some things that are rare, that kind of size and athleticism, that smoothness, a decent 3 etc....its unlikely he's a grand slam, more likely he's a strike out, or a double or single, almost equal thirds of any possibility with like a 5-15% chance of a home run to grand slam level kind of hit (15% is probably excessive, more like 5-10).
Which is again, why the Risacher choice was so odd to me. It was basically hoping for a double while settling for a single or a walk, at the 1.01. It was SO ODD. There was always no downside to me with Sarr. IF he was a bust, it would mean we got next to nothing from the '24 class so we'd tank spectacularly well for '25 and much better prospect, if he was good, but not elite, well, we got a complimentary piece which makes up for totally butchering our firsts in '18, and '22, and drafting basically bench fodder in '19 and '21, but it still won't change the bottom line of the team being ---- in '24-'25, and if he's a triple or a homer or a grand slam, well, that's the whole point right?
So there was no loss to me, which is one of the reasons I personally didn't get the preferences for other higher floor options. None of them, really none of them struck me as likely to reach superstar potential, or at least anymore likely than Sarr (which was highly, highly, highly unlikely) and sure, they have better floors, but we don't need floor potential, we need 3 studs, 3 mega studs, so we have to swing out of our shoes with these picks, a swing and a miss is whatev's, we're not ruining any star players "window" we have NO STAR PLAYERS, so swing for the fences, and if we miss, TRY AGAIN. That was my view, with the only addendum being that I did see some value in drafting for floor for "trade value", that, more than anything, justified going for Halliburton over Deni in '20 (back then deni was perceived as having the bigger ceiling, Halliburton the more certain "legit nba player" future), and over the years I've opened myself to the idea that sometimes it probably makes sense to pick up a guy you can flip for pieces in a better draft.
The difference for me, though, was we traded Deni for a pick we could do that for, if we wanted, the 1.02 should be for a grand slam swing, the next 1st could be for floor if they wanted, but I hoped for more, and somehow they actually split the difference and bet on floor and ceiling alike with Bub, which I loved, particularly after the Sarr pick.
So happy we got Sarr and not Risacher or one of those other guys (and I do credit the Edey fans, I liked him more than the other big who beat him in the title game because he had had to carry his team and for a lot more than that, but I also viewed Edey as just too limited, a guy who needed to go to a team that was already set up just fine, and could be an extra piece on a great team like that), I don't know what will happen with him, but it was exactly what I wanted us to do philosophically w/this build, and considering I've been watching them mostly do the opposite of that since the eighties, it was a genuine breath of fresh air.
