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Memphis has had two very lucky lottery bounces which landed them the chance to draft JJJ and Morant.

mastermixer wrote:Nope, they have been below average at drafting. Hasheem Thabeet was a terrible pick.

They could have used that 2nd overall pick to take them them to a championship caliber team, and they blew it.

Nothing else matters, they blew it during the one moment they needed a good draft.

Relax

They have done very impressively: Not only with the drafting, but also making smart signings and trades.

-JJJ is a future stud in the making and if he can learn to stay out of foul trouble, he's gonna feast. Ja is amazing.
-The signings of Kyle Anderson and Tyus Jones to team friendly deals is pretty solid for their bench.
-Trading a second to Houston on draft night for Dillon Brooks who has developed into a solid player and then getting him on a 3/35 extension that will look like a steal should he continue to get better.
-They could have traded Marc Gasol earlier and maybe could have gotten a better return, but they got the perfect stopgap in Jonas to eat up minutes while JJJ develops physically plus they were able to flip Delon Wright to Dallas and in total get 3 second round picks.
-The Mike Conley trade is looking better as time passes by especially since Conley hasn't been a great fit in Utah so far whereas the Grizz did the following:

1. With Kyle Korver, they immediately flipped him to Phoenix to get Melton, Josh Jackson and a 2020 2nd. Melton has been solid as a 3rd pg while Jackson is a low risk/high reward player(yes he's an idiot for what he did to his daughter).
2. Using the Jazz's first round pick along with their own 2024 2nd to move up and take Brandon Clarke. Dude is looking like a steal right now. Plus they still have Utah's 2020 pick that will most likely convey in 2022.
3. Jae Crowder who was good for the young guys. They managed to not cave in with Iggy and flipped him, Solomon Hill and Crowder for Gorgui Dieng, Dion Waiters(bought out) and Justise. Very solid trade as they added another young asset in Justise who could become more if he stays healthy while Dieng is the perfect backup big.

Grizzlies got a bright future ahead.

Senor Chang wrote:Memphis has had two very lucky lottery bounces which landed them the chance to draft JJJ and Morant.

The Griz moved down two spots in 2018. They had the second worst record and should have been in a position to draft Luka. That's the opposite of lucky.

If JJJ gets his fouling under control, hes a super star.

Shock Defeat wrote:If the Grizzlies drafted well they would not have picked JJJ, Thabeet, Juice Mayo

Say what? They are lucky JJJ fell to #4.

I think it's fair to say the Mavs draft well. They drafted Luka. They could drop the ball in the next 3 drafts and they would still be winners.

Drafting Luka automatically places you in the top 10 best drafting teams IMO.

JJJ, JA and Clarke are gold. True. However, since the team moved to memphis (20 drafts ago), we have had 2 good drafts: in 2003 when we landed Battier at the 6th and traded our all-star to the Hawks for the 3rd pick (Pau Gasol) and the other one, Drafting Conley, our conductor for many years.

Other than that, we have sucked over and over. Not only the great we passed on them, also the trades. Let me remind you that right after conley, we drafted kevin love but exchanged him for OJ Mayo. Some other players like Lowry, didnt have the chance to develop here.

It is true that we have had a great strike of playoff appearances and that limited our draft options, however, that H.Thabeet bust could have turned us from a 2round-exit team to a contender. Imagine J.Harden on our line-up during the GnG era...Even Derozan would have fitted well enough.

Grizz have a horrible draft history. The fact Chris Wallace was able to hold his job for so long without EVER making the right pick. His only good pick (Conley) was the wrong pick. Should have paired Noah with Pau with Lowry already on the roster.

So yeah, hopefully this new frontoffice continues their good work but before 2018, the Grizzlies might have been the worst drafting team in the NBA. Poor drafting likely costs them a title

Prospect Dong wrote:

Shock Defeat wrote:If the Grizzlies drafted well they would not have picked JJJ, Thabeet, Juice Mayo

Pointing to JJJ at #4 as a bust seems... premature, at best. There's an obvious case for Trey instead, but not really anyone else. And even that's not a slam dunk. Let's see JJJ with another couple of years under his belt, and Trey on a team with something to play for first...

JJJ is not a bust, dude can shoot, plays solid defense, but I will say he rebounds like Trey Burke...

... I don't know if he will live up to his #4 pick but at worst he's a solid NBA starter for 12 years.

That said, Memphis's draft history... isn't fabulous. edit: Recent history isn't too bad tho.... trending in the right direction anyhow.

bobobolas10 wrote:JJJ, JA and Clarke are gold. True. However, since the team moved to memphis (20 drafts ago), we have had 2 good drafts: in 2003 when we landed Battier at the 6th and traded our all-star to the Hawks for the 3rd pick (Pau Gasol) and the other one, Drafting Conley, our conductor for many years.

I may be nitpicking here but wasn't that in 2001? IIRC Detroit owned the Memphis pick in 2003 (top 1 protected from the Otis Thorpe trade in 1996) and selected Darko 2nd overall. Memphis had two additional draft picks that year and selected Tony Banks and Kendrick Perkins but traded them to Boston for Troy Bell and another late 1st pick that year, can't remember his name.

As for the OP, they lucked into JJJ in 2018. He should have been a top 3 pick that year but luckily for Memphis Sacramento screwed up. They also lucked into Ja Morant in 2019 who was a no brainer at 2. Trading for the picks that became Dylan Brooks and Brandon Clarke was very good.
It's too early to call them a good drafting team imo. They still need one or two really good (probably) non lottery picks to be able to compete.

Soulyss wrote:

Prospect Dong wrote:

Shock Defeat wrote:If the Grizzlies drafted well they would not have picked JJJ, Thabeet, Juice Mayo

Pointing to JJJ at #4 as a bust seems... premature, at best. There's an obvious case for Trey instead, but not really anyone else. And even that's not a slam dunk. Let's see JJJ with another couple of years under his belt, and Trey on a team with something to play for first...

JJJ is not a bust, dude can shoot, plays solid defense, but I will say he rebounds like Trey Burke...

... I don't know if he will live up to his #4 pick but at worst he's a solid NBA starter for 12 years.

That said, Memphis's draft history... isn't fabulous. edit: Recent history isn't too bad tho.... trending in the right direction anyhow.

If jaren gets fouling under control he will be a top 10 player

LA Lakers have drafted since 2014: Ingram (2), Dlo (2), Lonzo (2), Randle (7), Wagner (25), Larry Nance (27), Kuzma (27), Hart (30), Zubac (32), Bonga (39), Thomas Bryant (42), Clarkson (46) and Svi (47).

Correction. This new regime drafts well. Their rebuilding phase gone amazingly smooth with some luck and some good talent evaluation. Now all they need is a healthy Justice Winslow to grow the core together.

mastermixer wrote:Nope, they have been below average at drafting. Hasheem Thabeet was a terrible pick.

They could have used that 2nd overall pick to take them them to a championship caliber team, and they blew it.

Nothing else matters, they blew it during the one moment they needed a good draft.

You just went back 11 years to criticize an organization at being bad in the draft. Obviously the OP is more focused on the past 3 years where he’s right, they’ve been very very good.

NotMyKawhi wrote:The Gasol, Conley and Zebo trio carried them for years, since then they've hit homeruns in the draft all over the place. JJJ, Morant, Clarke late 1st rounder(he's a stud on both ends) Dillon Brooks in the 2nd round was gold


What other teams draft really well?

Of the first trio the Grizzlies only drafted Conley, Gasol was drafted by the Lakers and Zbo was drafted by Portland. JJJ, Morant and Clarke still remain to be seen but so far they’re looking great. They also whiffed hard on high draft picks like Thabeet and Mayo just off the top of my head. If we averaged it out they’d probably be somewhere in the middle of the league

Ja Morant was going 2nd no matter what. Same for JJJ, they actually missed on Trae Young. They're not bad but by no means great.

chrbal wrote:

dc wrote:

islanders11040 wrote:Knicks

That Knicks record of not giving a contract extension to a 1st round pick since 1998 (Charlie Ward!) is utterly mind blowing.

The Knicks had 3 picks in the top 20 something in 1996 ( one of the best drafts of all time) and they whiffed on all 3

The Knicks had the 18th, 19th and 21st picks that year. While it’s never good to go 0/3 they weren’t exactly picking from a crop of blue chippers at that point either as Kobe, Stojakovic, Nash and JON all went off the board right in front of them. And they likely passed on Ilgauskas in large part because they had Ewing.

The_Hater wrote:

chrbal wrote:

dc wrote:
That Knicks record of not giving a contract extension to a 1st round pick since 1998 (Charlie Ward!) is utterly mind blowing.

The Knicks had 3 picks in the top 20 something in 1996 ( one of the best drafts of all time) and they whiffed on all 3

The Knicks had the 18th, 19th and 21st picks that year. While it’s never good to go 0/3 they weren’t exactly picking from a crop of blue chippers at that point either as Kobe, Stojakovic, Nash and JON all went off the board right in front of them. And they likely passed on Ilgauskas in large because they had Ewing.

I'll add, the Knicks have had a fair number of draft picks they should have retained instead of trying to land a star and were always drafting from a low position because they either traded away or swapped picks.

Kristaps Porzingis
Tim Hardaway Jr
Danilo Gallinari
Wilson Chandler
Channing Frye
David Lee
Nate Robinson
Trevor Ariza
Iman Shumpert

Is actually a pretty solid run, considering where the picks fell. They just didn't keep any of them long term, which is unbelievable.


*Note, I did not include players still with the team.

It’s kind of a crapshoot over time. The key is drafting well over a short period of time to build a team. Very few teams consistently draft well above average.

OKC did well with Harden/KD/WB/Ibaka but that was ten years ago. What have they done since?

The Bulls drafted great with Noah/Deng/Rose/Gibson/Asik/Butler then haven’t made a decent pick since.