2009 Draft... how does someone like Steph Curry fall to #7, and be the 3rd PG selected in his draft class??

[CS707]

I wanted Ricky Rubio more than any player in that draft... I used to argue back and forth with a co-worker over Rubio and Ty Lawson.

Whoops.

[UcanUwill]

He was seem by some as undersized shooting guard with little athleticism, a tweener.

[Archerbro]

Based on consensus opinions at the time, Rubio over Curry was not a crazy pick. He played against Team USA in the 2008 Olympics when he was 17 years old and was seen as the next great international player. I remember the Rubio hype being pretty similar to the pre-draft Luka hype to be honest. Plus, people forget that Curry actually went back for his junior year at Davidson after their run to the Elite 8 during his sophomore season. He was still a top prospect, but a little bit of the shine had come off IMO.

It was taking Flynn over Rubio that was completely insane, even in the moment. If you were going to take two lead guards with your pair of top 10 picks, at least take the one that really compliments the non-shooter you just drafted. Curry had been mocked ahead of Flynn during the entire lead up to the draft but was a bit of a late riser on some big boards. Its funny to look back at mock drafts from that time, the way everyone thought about players was completely different. I remember most pundits thought the Thunder should take Rubio because Westbrook could play off ball and Durant was a good enough shooter to cover for them.

The final game in 2008 Olympics was nuts. Team USA, with guys like Kobe and Lebron, could not stop Rubio, who almost carried Spain to a win. He was the best 17 year old on the planet at that point. Don't discount Rubio as a prospect, even if he never really got any better.

Absolutely this. He was the better prospect than Curry back in 2008/2009.

He was literally a few plays away from upsetting the "redeem team."

[UcanUwill]

I wanted Ricky Rubio more than any player in that draft... I used to argue back and forth with a co-worker over Rubio and Ty Lawson.

Whoops.

Rubio was probably a GOAT 17 year old, he was transcendent talent. His rookie season was still his best NBA season IMO, after than injury his defense was not the same, but somehow he really peaked in his teens, greatest early bloomer of all time. Still, to play Bill Simmons game, if we simulate Rubios career 20 times, the career we got is probably one of the worst versions we could have gotten.

[Lalouie]

easy question easy answer, obsession and infatuation with the misguided belief that athleticism will OVERCOME weaknesses and has a higher ceiling. hence it is a safer gamble.

both are wrong imo. to begin with every draft is different and should be approahed as such. that is the common sense thing to do.

athleticism doesn't have a higher ceiling. skillset does. skills never go away. also part of "skillset" imo is smarts and smarts gets smarter

however i think the BIGGEST mistakes are made because no one wants to stick his neck out and take a chance because it could mean his job. if you choose as everyone thinks you should then you have a built in excuse.

i think scouts view curry and luka as exceptions to the rule. yes they are EXCEPTIONAL but "the rule" is bad bad one. it's a lazy rule

that being said,,in today's game if you are half-@$$ed decent a player you should succeed because the bar into the nba has set lower and will get lower every year because they will be entertaining more teenagers soon. and the more teenagers begets more teenagers and so on and so on, and the league gets younger and players enter a league filled with other players they played in aau ball. in 5yrs there will be 100 of your top draftees who played each other in high school.

[Johnny Bball]

The draft is a crap shoot, nobody can predict the future. Kobe was drafted 15. Giannis drafted 15 I believe. Joker in the second round. Manu in the second round. Agent 0 second round. Daymond second round. Regardless of how good scouting is it's not perfect and somebody is going to fall through.

I know Curry just won the title and he is a great player but I am kinda tired of these hot take threads popping up about him.

Yet some teams keep exceeding expectations year after year. Some teams just don't put enough emphasis, or any, on character and work ethic.

[GroundBound]

At the time the Wolves got killed for their draft, but it wasn't because they didn't take Steph. It was just that they took 2 point guards who didn't really compliment each other with consecutive picks (Rubio and Flynn).

Rubio had a large buyout price for his euro contract - people knew that he wasn't coming to Minny for a couple of years, I'm not sure Minny had any expectation they'd play together, Kahn got Flynn to fill the time til Rubio got there or as a plan B if Rubio didn't pan out. Anyhow, I agree with the criticism, it was real short sighted drafting from Minny...the kind of thinking that keeps you a lottery team for a decade..

[Bornstellar]

Because scouting in the NBA is a crapshoot and most teams suck at it. Look at every draft and you'll ask how on earth someone fell as low as they did. I mean how did every team, some teams twice, pass on Jokic? How did 14 teams pass up on Kawhi before the Spurs asked Indy to draft him? NBA scouting just sucks, which is why I generally don't put much stock into mock drafts or opinions on rookies outside of the consensus top 2-3 players

[LofJ]

Rubio was a prodigy at the time, it's surprising he went as late as 5th. No defense at all for Flynn getting taken before Curry though.

[Rainwater]

The draft is a crap shoot, nobody can predict the future. Kobe was drafted 15. Giannis drafted 15 I believe. Joker in the second round. Manu in the second round. Agent 0 second round. Daymond second round. Regardless of how good scouting is it's not perfect and somebody is going to fall through.

I know Curry just won the title and he is a great player but I am kinda tired of these hot take threads popping up about him.

Yet some teams keep exceeding expectations year after year. Some teams just don't put enough emphasis, or any, on character and work ethic.

I think you are misunderstanding my post. There is no team that is 100% at drafting, there is no team that hasn't passed up on a Joker, a Manu, a Daymond, or an Agent 0. Yes, there are teams that are good drafters but my point is there is always going to be a guy who is passed up. There is no such thing as perfect scouting.

[HMFFL]

Ricky Rubio finally entered the draft. Before the draft class he had been projected to go #1 in previous drafts. Johnny Flynn was never very special to me and there was plenty of unknowns regarding Steph at the time.

Sent from my SM-N975U using RealGM mobile app

[dc]

The answer to this OP's question is simple: David Kahn had this strange obsession with pairing Rubio and Flynn together as a backcourt. He thought this 2 ballhandler backcourt would be the next coming of Walt Frazier and Earl Monroe.

https://www.slamonline.com/archives/jonny-flynn-and-ricky-rubio-reminded-ex-timberwolves-gm-david-kahn-of-walt-frazier-and-earl-monroe/

He wanted the T-Wolves lead assistant coach (Dave Wohl) to confirm his belief. Wohl had actually played in the 70's against Frazier and Monroe. He told Kahn that a Rubio/Flynn pairing would be nothing like Frazier/Monroe.

Dave Wohl, Minnesota’s lead assistant, remembers arriving in Minnesota and Kahn asking him whether Rubio and Flynn could prosper playing together. Wohl described Flynn as a good, ambitious kid. He also said that Rubio and Curry would have made a better pairing. He didn’t believe either Flynn or Rubio could perform at shooting guard. ‘He said, ‘No, no. I want to play Jonny and Rubio. They remind me of [Walt] Frazier and [Earl] Monroe,’ Wohl said. ‘When he said that, I didn’t know what to say. I actually played during the ’70s against Earl and Clyde and there’s just no comparison.’ Wohl told Kahn that he did not think it was an accurate comparison. ‘He said, ‘Yeah, it is. They are two guys who can handle the ball,’ Wohl recalled Kahn saying.”

So even when a guy who had actually played against Frazier/Monroe straight up told Kahn that they are nothing like Rubio/Flynn, Kahn insisted that he was right.

[Mr Loggins]

How does something like that happen?

Steph Curry is going to go down as a top 10 all-time talent. Revolutionized the sport. Incredible legacy. And he's not even finished.


How on earth is this man the 3rd Point Guard selected in his draft???


Was this just very poor draft scouting???

or does Steph Curry not get enough credit for working so hard???

[DaPessimist]

I was actually upset when we drafted Curry. Thought he would be a tweener who would struggle to fill either guard position and wouldn't be able to guard anyone.

[BK_2020]

The famous lack of athleticism that we see so often when good players drop.

Pretty much everyone knew at the time that the Wolves were being stupid by taking Flynn though. That one was mind boggling.

It's not like Rubio is athletic.

[sfernald]

KAHN!!!

[Teen Girl Squad]

Its also easy to forget that 1) His injury concerns were valid (he had plenty of ankle issues early on) and 2). the shooting era (that Curry in part help create) hadn't hit the league yet so an undersized combo guard who's main ability was high volume shooting wasn't quite as valued as someone like Rubio, who had a much better handle and was a better passer. Flynn over Curry was pretty nuts at the time but Curry going higher than about 6 would have been seen as a pretty high reach back then.

[HangTime]

The real question is why did Washington trade #5 to Minny, a day before the draft.

And how could no one top this.

Traded by the Washington Wizards (as a future 2009 1st round draft pick) with Oleksiy Pecherov, Darius Songaila and Etan Thomas to the Minnesota Timberwolves for Randy Foye and Mike Miller.

[NO-KG-AI]

I wasn't even a huge fan of Curry at the time, and thought you needed a very specific PG next to him as an undersized scorer....

That said, Ricky Rubio and Curry seemed like perfect fits for each other, and seemed to be the best two guard talents for a team aching for it. Rubio was way worse as a player than my expectations, but I still think he and Curry would have been pretty legit together with love. Such a Wolves thing to do.

[Optms]

Hindsight is 20/20