2020 Draft - Part II

[prime1time]

I think this is just another bad chapter from the Grunfeld/ Sheppherd era.
We had Paul Pierce here for over a season and the front office still couldn't figure out what good shooting form off the dribble is.

Did anyone even compare his form to Paul Pierce. Deni can not arch his back and deeply bend his hips before gathering the ball and rising into his shot. He is not functionally athletic.
Just look at Paul Pierce shooting off the dribble. Pay attention to Paul Pierce lower arched back and deeply bent hips before he catches the ball on a power dribble before he shoots.
Pay attention to where Paul's elbow is when he catched the ball off the bounce.
and mods disabled my youtube function in chat so you have to click the URL. Blame the mods!!
[youtube]_uF5k0S2cE0?t=85[/youtube]
[youtube]https://youtu.be/op8eCeJUlgY?t=66[/youtube]
https://youtu.be/op8eCeJUlgY?t=66

Now begin to look at Deni when he shoots off the dribble. It's night at day. This shows the true incompetence of the FO. Maybe someone can find me a case where Deni shows perfect Paul Pierce shooting mechanics? I doubt it. I am out. Peace guys!!! Just a bad front office that doesn't understand the product.

Watch on YouTube

Hey since mod's disabled my youtube, can you post paul piece 1:26 minute mark of this video.

Watch on YouTube

So we can compare for ourselves.

So again inclusion, he has really bad control of his lower arch before rising into his shot. This is a huge huge huge red flag, that Wizards front office completely ignored!! Same with Vesely. This is classic stamp of Grunfeld era is still here with Tommy. I hate to sound gloom but I been here for a long time. we had the chance the make the right decision and didnt.

Finally pat attention to paul pierce elbow before he gathers the ball, if his elbow is above the eyesocket. and then go look at Deni. His shot has to be rebuilt from scratch. This is years and years of work. This is the grave mistake that the front office has made. There is not sugar coating it, this is a blunder in chess. They blunder with Vesely, they semi blunder with otto, and they really really blunder with Deni.
Had they read this exact thread and comments I made, they might still have their jobs in a few years but I did what i could.
I guess you will see me when we finally get a competent GM that takes the time to study Paul Pierce shooting form, hip bend and lower back arch. Just annoyed that we had the guy here and front office still didn't learn???

viewtopic.php?f=35&t=1872549&start=1949

How was Paul's form at 19?

[payitforward]

Boiled down, Tommy’s ‘brilliant’ round two trade yesterday amounted to trading one guy who will end up playing for you for two guys who won’t.

Well, what it lacks in quality it makes up in volume

I don't agree w/ that -- but I tell you what does seem strange to me: how does Tommy know there'll be a player on the board at #53 that he's going to want?

Can there have been a mini-version of the Haliburton thing, where Winston's agent is telling teams, "don't draft my guy, we have a deal for him...."? If so, do other teams go for that kind of thing?

In that case, if Winston was the guy Tommy wanted, then it's pretty clever, don't you think? He gets his guy -- plus another pick.

[Ruzious]

Boiled down, Tommy’s ‘brilliant’ round two trade yesterday amounted to trading one guy who will end up playing for you for two guys who won’t.

Well, what it lacks in quality it makes up in volume

I don't agree w/ that -- but I tell you what does seem strange to me: how does Tommy know there'll be a player on the board at #53 that he's going to want?

Can there have been a mini-version of the Haliburton thing, where Winston's agent is telling teams, "don't draft my guy, we have a deal for him...."? If so, do other teams go for that kind of thing?

In that case, if Winston was the guy Tommy wanted, then it's pretty clever, don't you think? He gets his guy -- plus another pick.

It does seem odd. He's not a great prospect, but he does seem like the kind of person that Tommy would go for. I had him early 2nd round - before the 37th pick.

[doclinkin]

Boiled down, Tommy’s ‘brilliant’ round two trade yesterday amounted to trading one guy who will end up playing for you for two guys who won’t.

Well, what it lacks in quality it makes up in volume

I don't agree w/ that -- but I tell you what does seem strange to me: how does Tommy know there'll be a player on the board at #53 that he's going to want?

Can there have been a mini-version of the Haliburton thing, where Winston's agent is telling teams, "don't draft my guy, we have a deal for him...."? If so, do other teams go for that kind of thing?

In that case, if Winston was the guy Tommy wanted, then it's pretty clever, don't you think? He gets his guy -- plus another pick.

Winston was the guy Tommy wanted. It's a Brad Beal related move. They have the same agent, doesn't hurt to both make an ally of the agent and select a high character instant veteran to add to the locker room. It was likely Winston would be there based on the talent that was left. Fair gamble.

[payitforward]

There is something that tees me off: as I thought might be likely, Philly traded both its #34 & #36 picks. With those 2 picks, we could have had Tyler Bey & Tillman -- for sure one of them.

Worse yet -- the #33 & #35 pick were also traded. That's Oturu, Maledon, Tillman & Bey.

In fact, of the 25 picks from 16-40, only 8 of them were not traded! What that means, essentially is that a team could pretty much design their own draft!

In fact, Detroit seems to have done just that, more or less, taking home 4 rookies.

[doclinkin]

There is something that tees me off: as I thought might be likely, Philly traded both its #34 & #36 picks. With those 2 picks, we could have had Tyler Bey & Tillman -- for sure one of them.

Worse yet -- the #33 & #35 pick were also traded. That's Oturu, Maledon, Tillman & Bey.

In fact, of the 25 picks from 16-40, only 8 of them were not traded! What that means, essentially is that a team could pretty much design their own draft!

In fact, Detroit seems to have done just that, more or less, taking home 4 rookies.

Yep. That's my frustration. We can like the player we got near the top, and wish him well, but still be frustrated with the work of the day. The only plan we could make happen was what, wait for someone to fall? Or possibly put ourselves in position to piss off one of our alpha stars the day before by even entertaining the phone call for Westbrook?

And again, whatever words we say about 'we need to play defense', we made no selections or effort to obtaining the players who actually do the damn thing. Or if we tried, we still failed. Yeah granted, our cupboard is bare, we are still digging out from Ernie. But still, there are creative GMs who have done much with very little.

And the worst part is that for the next few years when these players perform well, relative to however Deni does, if he is outperformed by any single one of the Coulda-Drafted crew of 2020, we are going to have to hear about it from that PIF guy interminably, as if he were the only person who ever wanted a trade down, in the history of everything. Some years it's tough being a Wiz fan, I'll tell ya.

[WizarDynasty]

Watch on YouTube

Hey since mod's disabled my youtube, can you post paul piece 1:26 minute mark of this video.

Watch on YouTube

So we can compare for ourselves.

So again inclusion, he has really bad control of his lower arch before rising into his shot. This is a huge huge huge red flag, that Wizards front office completely ignored!! Same with Vesely. This is classic stamp of Grunfeld era is still here with Tommy. I hate to sound gloom but I been here for a long time. we had the chance the make the right decision and didnt.

Finally pat attention to paul pierce elbow before he gathers the ball, if his elbow is above the eyesocket. and then go look at Deni. His shot has to be rebuilt from scratch. This is years and years of work. This is the grave mistake that the front office has made. There is not sugar coating it, this is a blunder in chess. They blunder with Vesely, they semi blunder with otto, and they really really blunder with Deni.
Had they read this exact thread and comments I made, they might still have their jobs in a few years but I did what i could.
I guess you will see me when we finally get a competent GM that takes the time to study Paul Pierce shooting form, hip bend and lower back arch. Just annoyed that we had the guy here and front office still didn't learn???

My question is, why asn't Leonsis lured someone from Denver Nuggets front office? They clearly should have an intern that is more qualified than

viewtopic.php?f=35&t=1872549&start=1949

How was Paul's form at 19?

[youtube]MbuA-mHkSS4?t=40[/youtube] mods disabled my youtube code. https://youtube/MbuA-mHkSS4?t=40 Its at the 40 second mark. Yes, hopefully you all can take the pieces I have provided to reach your own conclusions.

Wizards have had history of drafting European players and thinking they are stars. When real players with talent like elite measurable and shooting ability pop, this FO has no clue how measure them. REally frustrating to believe this team was headed some anywhere? This just shows that a fool never keeps his money for long. We had a draft pick that had value and basically gave it away. We draft a 2nd round pick as lottery twice in the top 10 and get swindle by the mocks. I posted many many times in this same exact thread not to trust espn mock drafts. We are so use to seeing horrible picks that we don't even know how to evaluate when a horrible pick is made. People..Sheppherd is Grunfeld. He was working in the same room when Grunfeld made the decisions to bring in international players. This team has never picked an elite Euro player and they keep trying and busting. The moment you see that the kid shoots 58% percent from the line and you need perimeter shooting?.... It's a no brainer. SMH. You just have to blame Leonsis. He was the one that decided that Sheppard had better talent scouting abilities over Grunfeld yet Shepperd was part of teh same crew that has drafted bust after bust when he doesn't have a top 3 pick. Even Otto Porter we now know was a bust.

My question is, why hasn't Leonsis lured an intern from Denver to work as GM. They clearly have a much much better system that Leonsis. Isn't Leonsis tired of paying all of this luxury tax money?? For what...so his FO keep Grunfeld/Sheppard can draft bust after bust. Again, it's easy..a small forward without a 9'0 standing reach is huge negative. How hard can it be. If he doesnt' have elite length, he has to make up for with something amazing? SMH. I am loyal wiz fan but there is nothing I can say to help them from stepping in their own poo poo.

[wall_glizzy]

There is something that tees me off: as I thought might be likely, Philly traded both its #34 & #36 picks. With those 2 picks, we could have had Tyler Bey & Tillman -- for sure one of them.

Worse yet -- the #33 & #35 pick were also traded. That's Oturu, Maledon, Tillman & Bey.

In fact, of the 25 picks from 16-40, only 8 of them were not traded! What that means, essentially is that a team could pretty much design their own draft!

In fact, Detroit seems to have done just that, more or less, taking home 4 rookies.

I feel you, although to be fair I think there are two parallel critiques happening around our draft management right now
(1) we didn't optimize our picks - I think most people are satisfied with us hanging in at 9 to draft Avdija, but it's fair to wonder about what sorts of trade downs were possible, as well as what the heck was going on with our trade of #37
(2) we didn't do a good job of optimizing our assets - this is fair in general, but I've seen posts from a couple different people on here essentially criticizing the front office for trades other teams made... but which we had no chance - given our roster and asset stockpile - to get involved in

Taking the examples you gave, Philadelphia sent #36 to Dallas in the Richardson/Curry trade and #34 to OKC in the Horford dump. For all we know, Tommy might have called about both; however, Morey had very clear objectives for each trade which we simply couldn't fulfill - we don't have anybody like Curry, nor do we have the cap space to absorb the Horford deal.

On the other hand, Memphis traded up to 35 to get Tillman with #40 and a future second, a deal I wouldn't have minded out-bidding with our #37 (Tillman was my absolute top target in the second round). We might even have been able to get Winston as an UDFA. However, I can't completely rule out the possibility that Memphis was proactive here, and traded up to #35 specifically to jump ahead of our pick. In any event, the point is that the pick wasn't necessarily available for straight-up purchase; it would have taken our own #37, plus a future second - a pretty good deal for the Kings.

On the other other hand, the Knicks traded #33 one-to-one for a 2023 Pistons second rounder, probably about identical in value to the 2023 second we have from the Bulls. We'll see what 2023 brings (maybe it's now likely to be the double draft year?), but this one was certainly eminently gettable if we wanted to grab somebody. I usually choose to trust the FO in these situations, but you're right to say that if any of the #33-36 guys hit their ceilings a few years from now, we had the chance to be the ones calling their name.

[prime1time]

Hey since mod's disabled my youtube, can you post paul piece 1:26 minute mark of this video.

Watch on YouTube

So we can compare for ourselves.

So again inclusion, he has really bad control of his lower arch before rising into his shot. This is a huge huge huge red flag, that Wizards front office completely ignored!! Same with Vesely. This is classic stamp of Grunfeld era is still here with Tommy. I hate to sound gloom but I been here for a long time. we had the chance the make the right decision and didnt.

Finally pat attention to paul pierce elbow before he gathers the ball, if his elbow is above the eyesocket. and then go look at Deni. His shot has to be rebuilt from scratch. This is years and years of work. This is the grave mistake that the front office has made. There is not sugar coating it, this is a blunder in chess. They blunder with Vesely, they semi blunder with otto, and they really really blunder with Deni.
Had they read this exact thread and comments I made, they might still have their jobs in a few years but I did what i could.
I guess you will see me when we finally get a competent GM that takes the time to study Paul Pierce shooting form, hip bend and lower back arch. Just annoyed that we had the guy here and front office still didn't learn???

viewtopic.php?f=35&t=1872549&start=1949

How was Paul's form at 19?

[youtube]https://youtu.be/MbuA-mHkSS4?t=40[/youtube] mods disabled my youtube code. https://youtu.be/MbuA-mHkSS4?t=40 Its at the 40 second mark. Yes, hopefully you all can take the pieces I have provided to reach your own conclusions.

It looks good but that's Paul as a Junior. If I was choosing between Paul Pierce and Deni Advija I would take Paul PIerce. But that wasn't the choice.

[prime1time]

How was Paul's form at 19?

[youtube]https://youtu.be/MbuA-mHkSS4?t=40[/youtube] mods disabled my youtube code. https://youtu.be/MbuA-mHkSS4?t=40 Its at the 40 second mark. Yes, hopefully you all can take the pieces I have provided to reach your own conclusions.

It looks good but that's Paul as a Junior. If I was choosing between Paul Pierce and Deni Advija I would take Paul PIerce. But that wasn't the choice.

Also, Paul Pierce as a freshman shot 60% from the ft line and 30.4% from three. Maybe this points to why we shouldn't make final judgements on guys that are only 18 or 19...

[Ruzious]

youtu.be? It might not be the mods that disabled your youtube codes. Try typing that with a deeper hip bend. G'head. Oooh, not that deep. Ouch.

[payitforward]

Boiled down, Tommy’s ‘brilliant’ round two trade yesterday amounted to trading one guy who will end up playing for you for two guys who won’t.

Well, what it lacks in quality it makes up in volume

I don't agree w/ that -- but I tell you what does seem strange to me: how does Tommy know there'll be a player on the board at #53 that he's going to want?

Can there have been a mini-version of the Haliburton thing, where Winston's agent is telling teams, "don't draft my guy, we have a deal for him...."? If so, do other teams go for that kind of thing?

In that case, if Winston was the guy Tommy wanted, then it's pretty clever, don't you think? He gets his guy -- plus another pick.

Winston was the guy Tommy wanted. It's a Brad Beal related move. They have the same agent, doesn't hurt to both make an ally of the agent and select a high character instant veteran to add to the locker room. It was likely Winston would be there based on the talent that was left. Fair gamble.

Well, if that's what went down, then I would guess there was exactly the kind of arrangement with Winston's agent that I suggest above.

Maybe we'll find out, maybe we won't -- doesn't matter so much. In any case, there was a plan behind it, so I don't think "long suffrin'" has this one right. (Doesn't mean it'll work out of course...)

[WizarDynasty]

[youtube]https://youtu.be/MbuA-mHkSS4?t=40[/youtube] mods disabled my youtube code. https://youtu.be/MbuA-mHkSS4?t=40 Its at the 40 second mark. Yes, hopefully you all can take the pieces I have provided to reach your own conclusions.

It looks good but that's Paul as a Junior. If I was choosing between Paul Pierce and Deni Advija I would take Paul PIerce. But that wasn't the choice.

Also, Paul Pierce as a freshman shot 60% from the ft line and 30.4% from three. Maybe this points to why we shouldn't make final judgements on guys that are only 18 or 19...

The whole point is that paul has superior form even before entering the nba. Deni's form is horrible and he doesn't have lower back arch athleticism. In other words his lower back is extremely stiff and thus he can;t easily arch. This stiffness in his lower back is extremely hard to fix. It is not his form, its his pure core athleticism that is teh problem and something the FO failed to evaluate when evaluating. In trained eye can see how stiff he is in his lower back when dribbling. That is one the most important elements of athleticism. a player ability to arch is lower back and dip his hips deeply at the same time.
Deni can not do this, paul pierce at the same point in development easily has this athleticism. Teh FO does not recognize this deficiency when drafting players. This is why we has fans suffer. Direttly related to not understanding deep hip bend and lower back arch before rising into your jumpshot. This take alot of athleticism to do and Deni does not have it.
THis is a major blunder and bust. Do we blame Deni. Nope. You blame the people who blundered for teh second time with a Euro.

[Ruzious]

It looks good but that's Paul as a Junior. If I was choosing between Paul Pierce and Deni Advija I would take Paul PIerce. But that wasn't the choice.

Also, Paul Pierce as a freshman shot 60% from the ft line and 30.4% from three. Maybe this points to why we shouldn't make final judgements on guys that are only 18 or 19...

The whole point is that paul has superior form even before entering the nba. Deni's form is horrible and he doesn't have lower back arch athleticism. In other words his lower back is extremely stiff and thus he can;t easily arch. This stiffness in his lower back is extremely hard to fix. It is not his form, its his pure core athleticism that is teh problem and something the FO failed to evaluate when evaluating. In trained eye can see how stiff he is in his lower back when dribbling. That is one the most important elements of athleticism. a player ability to arch is lower back and dip his hips deeply at the same time.
Deni can not do this, paul pierce at the same point in development easily has this athleticism. Teh FO does not recognize this deficiency when drafting players. This is why we has fans suffer. Direttly related to not understanding deep hip bend and lower back arch before rising into your jumpshot. This take alot of athleticism to do and Deni does not have it.
THis is a major blunder and bust. Do we blame Deni. Nope. You blame the people who blundered for teh second time with a Euro.

No, you need to re-think that - and I'm being serious. If it's from his core, that's a good thing, because that means he just needs to strengthen his core, and form improvement follows. And at 19, he's at the perfect age to easily strengthen his core. Right? You know I'm right.

[payitforward]

There is something that tees me off: as I thought might be likely, Philly traded both its #34 & #36 picks. With those 2 picks, we could have had Tyler Bey & Tillman -- for sure one of them.

Worse yet -- the #33 & #35 pick were also traded. That's Oturu, Maledon, Tillman & Bey.

In fact, of the 25 picks from 16-40, only 8 of them were not traded! What that means, essentially is that a team could pretty much design their own draft!

In fact, Detroit seems to have done just that, more or less, taking home 4 rookies.

Yep. That's my frustration. We can like the player we got near the top, and wish him well, but still be frustrated with the work of the day. The only plan we could make happen was what, wait for someone to fall? Or possibly put ourselves in position to piss off one of our alpha stars the day before by even entertaining the phone call for Westbrook?

And again, whatever words we say about we need to play defense, we made no selections or effort to obtaining the players who actually do the damn thing. Or if we tried, we still failed. Yeah granted, our cupboard is bare, we are still digging out from Ernie. But still, there are creative GMs who have done much with very little.

And the worst part is that for the next few years when these players perform well, relative to however Deni does, if he is outperformed by any single one of the Coulda-Drafted crew of 2020, we are going to have to hear about it from that PIF guy interminably, as if he were the only person who ever wanted a trade down, in the history of everything. Some years it's tough being a Wiz fan, I'll tell ya.

"Cupboard is bare" -- i.e. maybe we don't have what's needed to trade for a R2 pick? I guess it's possible -- i.e. Philly might have gotten future R2 picks that we can't spare or don't have b/c of Ernie. Hadn't thought of that.

But, given that Elton Brand doesn't like R2 picks (& I assume he ran this draft -- way too quick for Morey to be very much involved), I'm thinking they went for cash.

Nice to have Winston; maybe he'll work out -- but there were a bunch of higher-value targets (Tillman/Bey above all -- but not just them), & we seem not to have worked hard enough to wind up with any of them.

Edit: The big question for me: does Tommy have the imagination to do these kinds of deals?

[prime1time]

It looks good but that's Paul as a Junior. If I was choosing between Paul Pierce and Deni Advija I would take Paul PIerce. But that wasn't the choice.

Also, Paul Pierce as a freshman shot 60% from the ft line and 30.4% from three. Maybe this points to why we shouldn't make final judgements on guys that are only 18 or 19...

The whole point is that paul has superior form even before entering the nba. Deni's form is horrible and he doesn't have lower back arch athleticism. In other words his lower back is extremely stiff and thus he can;t easily arch. This stiffness in his lower back is extremely hard to fix. It is not his form, its his pure core athleticism that is teh problem and something the FO failed to evaluate when evaluating. In trained eye can see how stiff he is in his lower back when dribbling. That is one the most important elements of athleticism. a player ability to arch is lower back and dip his hips deeply at the same time.
Deni can not do this, paul pierce at the same point in development easily has this athleticism. Teh FO does not recognize this deficiency when drafting players. This is why we has fans suffer. Direttly related to not understanding deep hip bend and lower back arch before rising into your jumpshot. This take alot of athleticism to do and Deni does not have it.
THis is a major blunder and bust. Do we blame Deni. Nope. You blame the people who blundered for teh second time with a Euro.

Is it possible for someone to be a good shooter and not shoot the way you think is ideal? Also, if Paul's form was ideal why was his percentages so low?

[WizarDynasty]

Also, Paul Pierce as a freshman shot 60% from the ft line and 30.4% from three. Maybe this points to why we shouldn't make final judgements on guys that are only 18 or 19...

The whole point is that paul has superior form even before entering the nba. Deni's form is horrible and he doesn't have lower back arch athleticism. In other words his lower back is extremely stiff and thus he can;t easily arch. This stiffness in his lower back is extremely hard to fix. It is not his form, its his pure core athleticism that is teh problem and something the FO failed to evaluate when evaluating. In trained eye can see how stiff he is in his lower back when dribbling. That is one the most important elements of athleticism. a player ability to arch is lower back and dip his hips deeply at the same time.
Deni can not do this, paul pierce at the same point in development easily has this athleticism. Teh FO does not recognize this deficiency when drafting players. This is why we has fans suffer. Direttly related to not understanding deep hip bend and lower back arch before rising into your jumpshot. This take alot of athleticism to do and Deni does not have it.
THis is a major blunder and bust. Do we blame Deni. Nope. You blame the people who blundered for teh second time with a Euro.

No, you need to re-think that - and I'm being serious. If it's from his core, that's a good thing, because that means he just needs to strengthen his core, and form improvement follows. And at 19, he's at the perfect age to easily strengthen his core. Right? You know I'm right.

He does not have the flexibility in his lower back. It not something that you magically wake up and half. You need to work your whole life to be able to do it. It takes brain coordination to be able to bend your hips deeply, arch your lower back, and adjust your elbow at the same time. Muscle memory and flexibility take years to develop. It something his father should have been training him to do has a child. Just because someone wants to do it, doesn't mean they can do. Coordination takes years and years to develop just like speaking another language.
Most NBA players are gifted because they trained as little children by their parents. It's clear that Deni wasn't guided properly and he doesn't have it. It's not his fault, but there are alot of players in college who don't have it and either and don't make it to the nba.
We as fans want the best of the best players in the world because we want championships. We wont get championships if the management keeps picking inferior engine parts and thinking they are going to win with against teams with premium race cars.
There is nothing special about Deni's game except that he is from Israel. It matters more to me that we are picking elite ferrari parts, and then custom designing them into the ultimate car.
Leonsis and Grunfeld/Sheppard are getting beat up parts and hoping that slow cars can use heart and toughness and character to beat out...Formula 1 cars that other teams are building. IT's just a really flawed strategy but as long as the fans keep buying it, they are not being held accountable.

a diehard fan holds management accountable and Deni is huge red flag that nothing has changed from Ernie to Tommy. Maybe tommy needs to bring in an intern from Denver Office. Something drastic needs to be done. because ability to see deficiency in players is really really horrible.
Watching all of these clips of Deni, I immediately jumps out like a sore thumb out stiff his lower back is. If you watch closely and know what to look for... it jumps out at you like sore thumb...like blonde standing in a crowd of brunettes. It's obvious and what plan do we have to grant fix deficiency.
They couldn't detect this issue with Vesely, they coudln't detect this issue with Otto Porter, they coudn't detect this issue with troy brown. They coudn't detect this issue with Kelly Oubre. All of their picks have the same lower back arch problem and its not easy to fix. that's why these players are avaialble when wiz pick but wiz scouting is bad...as are most of the fans on this board. Not one person has pointed out how stiff his lower back looks on his moves.

[WizarDynasty]

Also, Paul Pierce as a freshman shot 60% from the ft line and 30.4% from three. Maybe this points to why we shouldn't make final judgements on guys that are only 18 or 19...

The whole point is that paul has superior form even before entering the nba. Deni's form is horrible and he doesn't have lower back arch athleticism. In other words his lower back is extremely stiff and thus he can;t easily arch. This stiffness in his lower back is extremely hard to fix. It is not his form, its his pure core athleticism that is teh problem and something the FO failed to evaluate when evaluating. In trained eye can see how stiff he is in his lower back when dribbling. That is one the most important elements of athleticism. a player ability to arch is lower back and dip his hips deeply at the same time.
Deni can not do this, paul pierce at the same point in development easily has this athleticism. Teh FO does not recognize this deficiency when drafting players. This is why we has fans suffer. Direttly related to not understanding deep hip bend and lower back arch before rising into your jumpshot. This take alot of athleticism to do and Deni does not have it.
THis is a major blunder and bust. Do we blame Deni. Nope. You blame the people who blundered for teh second time with a Euro.

Is it possible for someone to be a good shooter and not shoot the way you think is ideal? Also, if Paul's form was ideal why was his percentages so low?

there is no question that paul pierce form wasn't ideal. Deni's is not. You look at Deni's lower back before he rises into his shot. Paul pierce was amazing off the dribble shooter and shot and made contested jumpers because of his form. there is no way Deni is going to make contested jumpers with his form. His lower back give him very little control over his mechanics.
Just trust me that Paul Pierce has amazing shot mechanics. He is going to the hall of fame for a reason. Wizards would have been wise to hire him for an extremely large amount of money as a consultant but they didn't and it shows with who they have targeted in trades and in free agency and in draft picks.

[trast66]

Wait, the Admiral is gone? Just sort of glossed over that. What about our development program?

So trade down + Admiral for a Mem 2024 2nd rounder per what I can tell.

[The Consiglieri]

Anyone else who was on team Okongwu-Haliburtion (didn't consider the possibility of Deni sliding, but would have put him in between the two) seeing these reports that Haliburton told the top 10 teams not to draft him? i.e. steered himself specifically to... the Kings?!

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I have to say, as someone who grew up two hours/100 miles West of Sacramento, and has spent his whole life essentially 100 miles West till age 30, and 100 miles east since age 30, ummm, why?

No offense to Haliburton, but the chief selling point of Sacramento is that it's a touch less than two hours away from San Francisco Spring through Fall, and a bit less than two hours away from the Ski Slopes of Lake Tahoe for the Winter. I know of literally NO ONE who goes to Sacramento for any purpose other than for lunch on the way to the Bay Area, or for lunch while traveling up to Lake Tahoe/Reno (and this isn't really even true because generally people would stop at the Nut Tree or the Milk farm for lunch in Vacaville and Dixon back in the day, or Ikeda's in Auburn, if they were headed up to Lake Tahoe, people still passed through Sacramento w/o a second thought, even w/regards to lunch, which is definitely facilitated by a freeway system that throws you right by Sacramento w/o barely even noticing the town itself beyond it's urban sprawl).

Sacramento is a town w/o an identity or anything of interest of any sort. It's a city basically in the middle of the San Joaquin Valley (think of it as a Valley that stretches hundreds of miles north and south, is incredibly flat, but is surrounded by the Sierra Nevada Mountains East of it, and the Coastal Mountain Ranges west) but there's like, nothing actually in the city itself. I imagine it started because the San Joaquin, American, and Sacramento rivers all intersect there, so it was a nice place to build a city if you were too tired from traveling and didn't want to go another hundred miles West to God's country, but really, there's a reason people call it Suckramento and other less kindly nicknames (of course people called another neighbor town of mine, "Pacifica", Pathetica, and Pasyphilis when I was growing up, so it least they didn't land that fate).


Needless to say, being fixated on Sacramento has got to be the strangest thing I've ever heard of. like only wanting to play Hockey in Regina, or Saskatoon, it's just bizarre and I say this as someone currently living along the Reno/Verdi border, which is basically considered the ugly $20 hooker cousin of the hot $10,000 a night Mandalay Bay hooker which is Vegas.