2014 Draft Thread (Early offseason panic edition).

[doclinkin]

Clearly we'll need one of these, might as well get an early jump. I like Aaron Gordon, who ya got?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXWrMc2asag[/youtube]

[Knighthonor]

Clearly Wiggins.

[Knighthonor]

Better question.

Should Wizard draft for BPA or for a frachise big if he not already the BPA?

[rockymac52]

Michael Dixon, Jr.

He will be overlooked. But he will be a good NBA PG one day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kx_L2RMzbtc

[Severn Hoos]

I don't have much to add on the very top of the draft because:

1. I don't follow the AAU circuit too closely and don't believe a lot of the hype, so typically don't pay attention to guys until at least their first NCAA game.
2. I really, really, really hope and trust the Wiz won't be picking that high again.

So I tend to go with what I know rather than what I don't know.

I know Isaiah Austin. No thanks.
I know JM McAdoo. No thanks.
I know Willie Cauley-Stein. No thanks.
I know Mitch McGary. Hmmm.... now there's a possibility. Not without his own cautions, of course - including a lost year in HS, being an "overage" prospect (already 21), not really a "two-way player". But he is as skilled and strong as any frontcourt player you could look for in the draft. Already has big-game experience. And might even be available in a mid-teens pick, if the early drafts are to be believed.

Yep, I think Mitch may be my guy for now, at least until some of the young pups step on an NCAA court.

[Note: Only looking at PF/C types, as I can't imagine the team picking another PG, SG, or SF.]

[FAH1223]

One injury to Wall and we'll be in the top 10 of the draft again.

With Ernie's moves, its a guarantee. Plus, Nene will miss at least 20-25 games too.

[pancakes3]

The top 5 is almost guaranteed to not fail. People are harkening back to the '03 draft and there's no Darko wildcard to gum up the works. Wiggins, Randle, Gordon, Parker, and the Harrison twins all have very high floors and even higher ceilings. Throw Marcus Smart, Glen Robinson Jr, and Mitch McGary into the mix and the top 10 is pretty loaded with talent.

Funny enough though, most/all of my favorite prospects are in the 2nd round. Board favorites like Patric Young, Aaron Craft, Doug McDermott, UVa product Joe Harris are in the 2nd round. DX also has 3 second round international interests:
Mouhammadou Jaiteh - a 6'11 249 lb 18 year old MVP of the French B-league. He withdrew this year because he wanted a 1st round guarantee.

Ondrej Balvin - 7'2 230lb 20 year old Czech (I know... I know...) Center that has Pekovician size.

Wang Zhelin - 7'0 251lb 19 year old Chinese. Probably the 2nd coming of Yi Jianlin but Yi wouldn't have been too bad a player to draft in the 2nd round as a bench stretch 4.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

All I want is someone other than EG as GM.

If there is a player I really like, even if he drafts that player, the current GM won't keep that player.

[FAH1223]

The top 5 is almost guaranteed to not fail. People are harkening back to the '03 draft and there's no Darko wildcard to gum up the works. Wiggins, Randle, Gordon, Parker, and the Harrison twins all have very high floors and even higher ceilings. Throw Marcus Smart, Glen Robinson Jr, and Mitch McGary into the mix and the top 10 is pretty loaded with talent.

Funny enough though, most/all of my favorite prospects are in the 2nd round. Board favorites like Patric Young, Aaron Craft, Doug McDermott, UVa product Joe Harris are in the 2nd round. DX also has 3 second round international interests:
Mouhammadou Jaiteh - a 6'11 249 lb 18 year old MVP of the French B-league. He withdrew this year because he wanted a 1st round guarantee.

Ondrej Balvin - 7'2 230lb 20 year old Czech (I know... I know...) Center that has Pekovician size.

Wang Zhelin - 7'0 251lb 19 year old Chinese. Probably the 2nd coming of Yi Jianlin but Yi wouldn't have been too bad a player to draft in the 2nd round as a bench stretch 4.

I'm just glad we have our pick. We'll be getting a good player next year since this is a deep draft plus:

1. Our season will probably be derailed due to injuries and lack of depth at PG and at PF

2. Ernie Grunfeld will be let go in April once above said happens and we miss the postseason for a 6th straight year.

3. We'll have new management and coaching.

This is the only way for this franchise to move forward and bring in people who know what the hell they are doing. One good thing about Ted is he doesn't trade 1st round picks at all so far. Too bad the guy picking them can't identify anyone with staying power outside of his top 3 obvious ones.

[No-Man]

Washington will have a 17-22 pick and needs at Center

McGary is not a pure Center, but could work with Nenê and could be there.
Isaiah Austin could be there
AJ Hammons too.

I have my mock out if you want to check

viewtopic.php?f=38&t=1259278

Obviously is too early but is nice to check some players.

Montrezl Harrell, Payne and Birch are interesting too.

[Upper Decker]

Marcus Smart will fall in the draft. The highest he'll go is 7 after Wiggins, Randle, Gordon, Parker, and the Harrison twins. He would have absolutely been the #2 pick in the 2013 draft, no question. His slide will cost him roughly $6M. Instead OK State will likely make another $6M because Smart is there. Once again universities making money at the expense of the "student athletes".

[Upper Decker]

Ondrej Balvin - 7'2 230lb 20 year old Czech (I know... I know...) Center that has Pekovician size.

Wiz going Czech, I like it!

[Severn Hoos]

EG's like the old Payday loan stores, 'cause he'll cache Czechs every day of the week!



OK, that's an all-time low.....

[No-Man]

Marcus Smart will fall in the draft. The highest he'll go is 7 after Wiggins, Randle, Gordon, Parker, and the Harrison twins. He would have absolutely been the #2 pick in the 2013 draft, no question. His slide will cost him roughly $6M. Instead OK State will likely make another $6M because Smart is there. Once again universities making money at the expense of the "student athletes".

Lord, Gordon is overrated in this board, I don't think he'ddeclare, but if he does, he wouldnt be nowhere near top5

And Aaron Harrison is latelotto at best, he's a chucker.

[The Consiglieri]

Originally this was going to be posted in the Webster thread, but I thought it deserved it's own topic:

Ever since we were rumored to be heavily interested in Porter, and in bringing back Webster, I figured it was a reasonable way of projecting our future team building moves. Trading up for Rice Jr cemented it. With Singleton/Booker/Ves/Seraphin all either being busts, or at best bench depth, I suspect the '14 and '15 drafts will be all about taking the best available big men be they centers, PF, or stretch 4's going forward.

Last year's draft has a decent supply of said prospects, and considering my projection of where our pick will land (between 15 and 19 if healthy and 10-14 if unhealthy), there are several options available.



Projected Center Prospects 5-15:

1. Willie Cauley Stein (Walter 8, Express 15, .net 5)
2. Mitch McGary ( Walter 14, Express 11, 19)
3. Isaiah Austin ( Walter 16, Express 13, .net 30)
4. Ilimaine Diop (Walter 9)
5. Montrezel Harrel (Express 10)
6. Joel Embiid (Express 12)
7. Przemek Karnowski (14 .net)
8. AJ Hammons (15 .net)

Projected Center Prospects 16-30:

9. Kaleb Tarzewski (30 Express)
10. Patric Young (31 Express, 50 .net)
11. Mouhammadu Saiteh (Walter 30)

PF:

Projected PF Prospects 1-10

1. J. Parker (2 Walter, 2 .net, 5 Express)
2. J. Randle (5 Walter,2 Express,4 .net)
3. A. Gordon (4 Walter, 4 Express)

Projected PF Prospects 11-21

5. A. Payne (24 Walter, 23 Express, 25 .net)
6. P. Ellis (17 .net)
7. J. McAdoo (17 Walter, 14 Express, 21 .net)

Projected Power Forward Prospects 22-30:
8. A. Poythress (15 Walter, 26 Express, 33 .net)
9. J. Stokes (28 Walter, 27 Express)
10. D. Powell (25 Walter, 33 Express, 41)
11. Khem Birch (36 Express)

Walter=Walter Football 2014 Mock, Express=draftexpress 2014 mock, and .net=nbadraft.net's 2014 mock

I kinda think chatter about this topic deserves it's own thread. Once we started draft talk last fall it was hard to look back and get a good pic at where the prospects were actually ranked during the summer of '12. You had to use memory to go back and realize Oladipo and Burke didn't even have first round grades, while Otto Porter, Alex Poythress, and James McAdoo were the Forwards I listed as potential targets for us at my projected pre-lottery slot (I believe I said the floor was 4, and the ceiling was likely 10, expectation was 6-8).

This time around I'd argue that our healthy floor is likely 15th, our healthy ceiling is probably 24th, and my expectation is likely 16th to 18th if healthy. Not healthy, the best I think we can expect is probably a pick somewhere in that 9th-12th range.

So based on the June 2013 rankings, our primary targets at Center and Forward will be:

Center:

1. Willie Cauley Stein
2. Mitch McGary
3. Isaiah Austin

and then 3 guys only mentioned by one website between them (Diop, Harrell and Hammons)

At Power Forward:

1. A. Payne-Michigan State's stud PF
2. Perry Ellis, not the shirt manufacturer
3. James McAdoo, the much loathed UNC prospect
4. Alex Poythress

For now it feels like Center has the better prospects unless Poythress or McAdoo dramatically improve their stock.

Thoughts?

[mhd]

Take Doug Mcdermott who will be NBA ready the day he gets drafted.

[Knighthonor]

http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/22 ... oesnt-Sign

Lots of teams tanking for 2014 lol.

Dont see why the Wizards should also go for a playoff run. seem silly really.

[Deeptu McPullup]

http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/228586/Sources-Hawks-Likely-To-Tank-If-Howard-Doesnt-Sign

Lots of teams tanking for 2014 lol.

Dont see why the Wizards should also go for a playoff run. seem silly really.

That there are so many teams that will try to be awful is a good reason for us to not try to be awful.

Anyway, as I was saying elsewhere, it's very difficult to be awful during the regular season with an elite guard on the floor:

According to what I could see in a quick glance of Basketball Reference, over the last five years, the only teams with a healthy guard registering a regular season PER over 21 that missed the playoffs were the 2013 Kyrie Irving Cavaliers (he actually missed a number of games though they wouldn't have made the playoffs with him healthy either). I think I'll go over the list again and push it out to 8 years or so, but I believe that's correct (conversely, there's been a good number of highly productive one-way bigs who rebound on terrible teams).

viewtopic.php?f=35&t=1258858&start=75#p36395707

[Knighthonor]

http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/228586/Sources-Hawks-Likely-To-Tank-If-Howard-Doesnt-Sign

Lots of teams tanking for 2014 lol.

Dont see why the Wizards should also go for a playoff run. seem silly really.

That there are so many teams that will try to be awful is a good reason for us to not try to be awful.

Anyway, as I was saying elsewhere, it's very difficult to be awful during the regular season with an elite guard on the floor:

According to what I could see in a quick glance of Basketball Reference, over the last five years, the only teams with a healthy guard registering a regular season PER over 21 that missed the playoffs were the 2013 Kyrie Irving Cavaliers (he actually missed a number of games though they wouldn't have made the playoffs with him healthy either). I think I'll go over the list again and push it out to 8 years or so, but I believe that's correct (conversely, there's been a good number of highly productive one-way bigs who rebound on terrible teams).

viewtopic.php?f=35&t=1258858&start=75#p36395707

but the teams not trying to be awful, like the contenders in the deep playoffs in the east, are not going to be defeated 4 games by the Wizards in their current form. Even if Webster steps up again, or even if Beal goes SSJ3 like Wall did at the end of the season. Even if Wall goes SSJ3 like he did at the end of the season all year long. Hey Gil was playing like SSJ3 Wall did, but all season long, yet still didnt win a championship during the more lite years of the East. No way this squad would do better in the current super team age.

its reality. I want something big in Washington as well, being a DC Sports fan that I am. But I am being realistic. Maybe getting a super star prospect would be equally as rewarding, as Championship rings are for those Super Team's fans.

Just saying.

[stevemcqueen1]

I really like what I've seen of Noah Vonleh. He's a stud and he'd be a good fit for us. But if he declared, he'd probably go too high for us. You never know though. We might crash and burn again.

I also like what I saw of Dakari Johnson and he's probably the top center in the class. Biggest talent at the position anyway. He's got NBA ready size already and is only going to get bigger. And he moves fairly well, so he won't drop but so far. In any other year, he'd be a legit threat to go #1.

I think him and Cauley-Stein will be a fascinating big man group and they should time share and keep each other from putting up crazy numbers.

Kentucky probably wins this championship in a laugher. Duke, Arizona, and Kansas are all loaded too and have great talent. Indiana, Florida, and UNC are pretty good too. But Kentucky is truly like nothing we've ever seen before. They will have at least 8 or 9 NBA players on that team next season. Lottery type talents too.

Anyone else feel like Jabari Parker is a bit overrated? I get some Carmelo type vibe in terms of his impressive skill level. But he's a bit slow. I would almost definitely take Gordon and Randle ahead of him. Goes without saying Wiggins should go ahead of him too.