Jamaaliver wrote:theatlfan wrote:While I can't say I'm happy with Ferry's 1st round picks to date, I don't know if I can pull the trigger and say he's a bad drafter or not yet. Nogueira was a miss (made even brighter by the play of the next Cs taken in Plumlee and Dieng) but I can't put too big red X next to Jenkins.
Personally, I have liked all of Ferry's draft picks besides Adreian Payne. I liked Gorgui Dieng coming out of college, but admit Bebe was (is) projected to have a higher ceiling a few years from now.
I'm more disappointed in how he has failed to leverage these picks/prospects into any greater benefit. I wasn't opposed to trading Bebe. I WAS against trading Bebe for nothing.
I also am not a fan of how Bud has played young players and draftees. Dennis played sparingly, even as the season fell apart. Bebe was shipped away before ever suiting up. We even brought Muscala over early, forfeiting a big part of his rookie year...and let him rot on the bench most of March and April.
Meanwhile, fringe players with low ceilings like Mack, Pero and Cartier Martin have played a ton of minutes instead.
I don't believe it benefits the team long term to continue doing this.
I agree on Ferry, but disagree on Coach Bud.
As far as Ferry, you (pretty sure it was you) have cited a quote on this board a few times that is very apropos: Good is the enemy of great. While this is typically used to cite why we haven't taken the step from good to great, the transitive property of the word "is" in the quote can also illustrate Ferry's inability to utilize his picks more effectively IMO. I do think Ferry shopped the picks - he was heavily rumored to be looking to move up in seemingly every draft. So the problem wasn't that he wasn't trying to use the picks effectively, I think the problem was that he has always been searching for a great deal for them when a good one would suffice. This is the same complaint I think we've had with his handling of the Josh Smith as well. When it came to the final deadline, a handful of deals fell apart with us seemingly being the team that pulled out when our demands weren't being met. In a vacuum, I can't complain about us backing out of any of the deals individually, but taken as a whole, there were 7 teams supposedly interested in Smith and we still couldn't pull off the deal. At the time, Ferry was still in his honeymoon period and we forgave him, but in retrospect, maybe we should have been more keen in thinking that this was to be a sign of things to come.
In terms of Coach Bud, I don't know how much he really was involved in the roster construction, but I can't complain on how the minutes were distributed considering the talent he had. Typically, the GM is responsible for the roster construction and the coach is responsible for taking the roster and getting the most out of it. While I do think Coach Bud approved any moves that happened, I just don't know how much he did over that. How much of it is on him that we only had Antic and Brand behind Horford? Or that once Horford did go down, we didn't get anyone to replace him?
In terms of minutes to the kids, I don't know what you're expecting. As far as Schröder, the advanced stats have Schröder as being terrible last season... like arguably the worst player in the league bad. Negative player on both ends of the court - terribly inefficient and turnover prone on O and fouled too much on D. Now, yes, there are definitely some bright spots with Dennis and I do think he's a good prospect with a high upside, but he wasn't (and isn't if the SL was any indication) anywhere close to fulfilling that upside. After the roster construction fiasco that had us sign Muscala in late February (again is this on Coach Bud... the guy who actually played experienced and still young-ish Pittman in the game or 2 we had him?), Muscala played in every game was on the roster except for 5. I'd think (and did think) it was rather impressive that Coach Bud managed to get a 22 yo, who was walking directly into a stretch run where the team is trying to hang onto a playoff berth and fairly consistently throwing up negative +/-, some minutes in seemingly every game. So, what do you want Coach Bud to do? Tell a 1st time AS in Millsap "thanks and great season, but we're going to give the former 1st round pick a run about having a historically bad season"? Or tell someone like Korver "great streak and all, but we're going with this 22 yo former 2nd round pick who we signed in (basically) March 40 minutes/night"? Right, wrong, or indifferent, we weren't/aren't the 76'ers who were content to punt the season for a higher draft pick and were content to deal anyone on the roster who had even close to a positive impact on the court. We can't and shouldn't judge Coach Bud through the lens of a situation he wasn't in, we should any judge him through the lens of the situation he was in.
raleigh wrote:uuuugh, i was afraid of this, great example of hindsight is 20/20, especially for NBA fans.
Hawks' fans might actually be the worst offenders among NBA fans of this poor logic, I'm afraid. It's occasionally excusable because of the Knight/Babcock disasters, but...
...not only is it hindsight, but it's also an unfortunate ignorance of the odds a player selected where the Hawks have been drafting (mid-first at best) will be anything other than a fringe NBAer. Outside the lottery, you hope the guy can become a rotation player, but you don't lose any sleep over those who wash out.
I think it's worth remembering that Payne at 15 is the highest the Hawks have picked since Horford in 2007.
Again, this is just factually incorrect. Every recent study I've seen has the value of a mid-1st being a rotation player which is *far* from a "fringe NBA player". From the 3 picks we have some track record on - 23rd in '12 (Jenkins) and the 16th (Bebe) and 17th (Schröder) in '13 - the expected return on those picks would someone who'd average ~1000 minutes per season for the 1st 4 seasons on average. Think how we used Pero and Martin - instead of getting these minutes from an unknown street FA, the studies show that we could have reasonably expected to get these minutes from the mid-1st rounders we had. Even if we allow a pass ton last year due to injury and rookie seasons, the fact is that we've declined Jenkins option, dealt Nogueira in a salary dump, and Schröder's 4 minutes in 2 games doesn't really indicate that he has locked down a slot in the top 10. Even if Payne becomes a starter, then we'd still be a bit behind the expected return due to Jenkins' situation.
Two studies can be found
here and
here.
