2024 Draft Prospects

[Bassman]

But what IF there are no remaining wings at 6 who this team believes has a strong upside worth swinging at? Especially in this weak draft, the proverbial “swinging for the fences” is a HIGH risk proposition. Now…it certainly depends on who is available to draft. I still think fit is important, given that BPA is hard to be sure of.

[Diop]

Ball and miller should be our star wings

[JustBuzzin]

Ball and miller should be our star wings

Are you suggesting moving Melo to SG?

[Hornet Mania]

Ball and miller should be our star wings

I'd prefer to keep the ball in Melo's hands as the primary initiator.

I guess it could work if we got a shoot-first PG who defended well, ideally even up a position. But that's basically Terry if he could defend.

I'd also have to give up on my dream of having a super-sized lineup of Melo at PG, Miller at SG Part of my thinks we deserve that after all these years of woefully undersized backcourt duos.

[Diop]

Ball and miller should be our star wings

Are you suggesting moving Melo to SG?

its more that as point guard he can be a "star wing".

A bit like Lebron who was often the point guard of his team. Boston's point guard is more 3 n D than creativity, their star wings are the creators.

[Snidely FC]

"I know I can jump, I didn't know I was going to have the highest vertical in the NBA draft," Sheppard said. "I got to give a lot of credit to my guy Ryan at Proactive [Sports Performance]. He kind of helped us out with a little arm trick. I was able to get a couple more inches. I looked up at the board and when I saw 42 I kind of laughed because I wasn't expecting it and I know no one else was."

the ol' arm trick lol

[SWedd523]

I think it's fairly obvious he tanked some measuring to get a higher vert

[Rich4114]

Ball and miller should be our star wings

I'd prefer to keep the ball in Melo's hands as the primary initiator.

I guess it could work if we got a shoot-first PG who defended well, ideally even up a position. But that's basically Terry if he could defend.

I'd also have to give up on my dream of having a super-sized lineup of Melo at PG, Miller at SG Part of my thinks we deserve that after all these years of woefully undersized backcourt duos.

Whatever we want to label LaMelo's position as, it is whatever you'd label Luka's position as. It's the same thing with the same style, just not to Luka's level yet. Dallas has also provided a bit of a blueprint in that they run Luka and Kyrie in the backcourt. Both offer on-ball skills and less than stellar defense but they have strong defense in 3-5 position with rim runners galore. Just something to consider moving forward for how we makeup our team. I think for us though, the answer is we need to get bigger/stronger and have consistent on-ball perimeter D from someone to cover for LaMelo.

[JMAC3]

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10122747-2024-nba-mock-draft-bronny-james-makes-the-cut-in-our-full-2-round-predictions

Some interesting nuggets in here.

[fatlever]

my gut still says, in a draft this flat, lacking obvious stars, we should target high character, great teammate, work ethic, and guys who are closer to being ready to play sooner than later. i'm not sure our locker room needs more projects to develop and i'm not sure we have the infrastructure in place, yet, to really get the best out of a guy who needs 2 years.

[amcoolio]

Sarr and Risacher seem to be the top 2 at this point according to multiple people, with Atlanta leaning Risacher and Washington taking whoever is left

[JMAC3]

my gut still says, in a draft this flat, lacking obvious stars, we should target high character, great teammate, work ethic, and guys who are closer to being ready to play sooner than later. i'm not sure our locker room needs more projects to develop and i'm not sure we have the infrastructure in place, yet, to really get the best out of a guy who needs 2 years.

How do we know who the high character, great teammate, work ethic guys are though? I feel like we just make up who fits these characteristics each year because people had question marks about LaMelo, Ant Man and they were the guys that were competing for ROY, they have also both improved and proved to be worth Max contracts...

Whereas guys like MKG who was sold as the tireless worker, great teammate with crazy high character never improved.

Feel the same way a lot with the guys who are ready to play now... Lively was sold as a project and he has been a factor day 1, whereas Agbaji and Davion Mitchell were supposed to be older and ready to play day 1...

So much of this is unknown, so I try to stick to the stuff that doesn't lie.. the Stats, the Tape, the physical measurements.

[luciano-davidwesley]

my gut still says, in a draft this flat, lacking obvious stars, we should target high character, great teammate, work ethic, and guys who are closer to being ready to play sooner than later. i'm not sure our locker room needs more projects to develop and i'm not sure we have the infrastructure in place, yet, to really get the best out of a guy who needs 2 years.

How do we know who the high character, great teammate, work ethic guys are though? I feel like we just make up who fits these characteristics each year because people had question marks about LaMelo, Ant Man and they were the guys that were competing for ROY, they have also both improved and proved to be worth Max contracts...

Whereas guys like MKG who was sold as the tireless worker, great teammate with crazy high character never improved.

Feel the same way a lot with the guys who are ready to play now... Lively was sold as a project and he has been a factor day 1, whereas Agbaji and Davion Mitchell were supposed to be older and ready to play day 1...

So much of this is unknown, so I try to stick to the stuff that doesn't lie.. the Stats, the Tape, the physical measurements.

I agree with all of this. But the last sentence specifically in order: 1 the tape, 2 the stats and the 3 physical measurements.

[fatlever]

i don't actually think it's that hard to determine high character, work ethic, high iq players from watching film or taking to them in pre-draft or all scouting we should have done all year
mitch clearly placed less interest in these things than say, miami. mitch was swing for fences all the time. first time i saw both bouk and kai play, i knew they were low iq guys. it's not that hard when you have a functioning scouting dept. first time i saw nsj i knew he was me-first low iq player. bryce and thor... no clue how to play winning ball. nsj, has work ethic, but no clue how to play team ball. so, maybe don't draft those types this year.
not sure which players fall into this category this year. i'm not a scout. but if i was paid to be a scout, i'd certainly know.
mkg is bad example. he had massive confidence issues, plus injuries, plus hornets falled to see huge changes to nba 3pt landscape... and despite all that, mkg was still solid starter until injuries wrecked the last of his confidence. mkg had great on-off for us first few years. we destroyed his dev by forcing him to change his shot. his best games were rookie year when he was still shooting with an ounce of confidence.

[luciano-davidwesley]

Bust MKG has more excuses than a pregnant nun on here.

I mean how is MKG having massive confidence issues not his own fault? In addition shouldn't our scouts have theoretically picked up that he was a shrinking violet?

[JDR720]

MKG was pretty consistently our 2nd or 3rd best player, until Mahinmi fell on his shoulder. Which also undone all his jumpshot progression.

Our defense being top 5-ish or bottom 10-ish basically depended on whether or not MKG played.

[fatlever]

Bust MKG has more excuses than a pregnant nun on here.

I mean how is MKG having massive confidence issues not his own fault? In addition shouldn't our scouts have theoretically picked up that he was a shrinking violet?

sorry, maybe my point was lost in the other stuff... jmac was saying mkg was drafted for his great leadership and intangibles, when in reality, he had massive confidence issues that, looking back, weren't that hard to miss. mkg's leadership label should have been questioned a bit more. to no fault of his own, his stuttering issues growing up, really hurt his confidence, so much so that he even questioned whether or not he should go back to college for 2nd year.

[Diop]

Random thought, if they never got injured and peaked at the same time would Adam Morrison and MKG make a good duo?

Definitely would be a fun odd couple, the stench and the stutterer.

[Liver_Pooty]

Random thought, if they never got injured and peaked at the same time would Adam Morrison and MKG make a good duo?

Definitely would be a fun odd couple, the stench and the stutterer.

MKG was never good, and I was his biggest fan. He had flashes but he just didn't have it. Average at best, and Hornets even tries to get a PR thing going to get him all defense. Lol.

[Diop]

Random thought, if they never got injured and peaked at the same time would Adam Morrison and MKG make a good duo?

Definitely would be a fun odd couple, the stench and the stutterer.

MKG was never good, and I was his biggest fan. He had flashes but he just didn't have it. Average at best, and Hornets even tries to get a PR thing going to get him all defense. Lol.

Stealing from LamarMatics blog, his defense was definitely team changing good before the injury.

https://lamarmatic.com/2015/04/17/season-in-review-michael-kidd-gilchrist/

Season in Review: Michael Kidd-Gilchrist

Kidd-Gilchrist was our best player this season, no matter what’s the measurement of your preference.

Our defense, which is built on limiting drives and wings (mainly, MKG and Henderson) who keep action towards the side-lines, collapsed whenever Mike hit the bench. With Kidd-Gilchrist on the court we were the best defensive team in the league at 96.3 points given up per 100 possessions. With MKG on the bench we allowed 104.1 points, a ho-hum rating that would have you defending as the 19th best team in the league.