Hal’s Draft Thread

[Curmudgeon]

Did the Celtics err by drafting and stashing Yan Madar? When you draft a 19 year old, only the guys at the apex of the triangle are ready to play in year 1. When you stash a young international player in Europe for more seasoning, that's just good sense. The mistake the Celtics made with Yabusele may have been letting him go China, where absolutely no defense is played and where the coaching is sometimes suspect.

[ICeeYou]

Players in the 20-30 range aren’t much better bets to be contributors than guys in the 30-40 range.

The guys you are excited about are worse prospects in many cases than the guys already on the roster who need development time.

Wieskamp vs. Nesmith
Boston/Jones/Grimes vs Romeo

You could, I suppose make the case for adding someone like Moses Wright to compete with Grant but the Celtics would be foolish not to add a free agent to compete with Grant for those minutes.

[Hal14]

Players in the 20-30 range aren’t much better bets to be contributors than guys in the 30-40 range.

The guys you are excited about are worse prospects in many cases than the guys already on the roster who need development time.

Wieskamp vs. Nesmith
Boston/Jones/Grimes vs Romeo

You could, I suppose make the case for adding someone like Moses Wright to compete with Grant but the Celtics would be foolish not to add a free agent to compete with Grant for those minutes.

Every single player on my wish list is a guy similar in size (or bigger) than Tatum and similar rebounding % (or higher) than Tatum which means the player would actually be taking the minutes which last season were going to Grant/Parker/Ojeleye.

Wieskamp is 6'7" with a 6'11" wingspan and a 42 inch vertical and a rebounding % of 10.3 (previous season it was 11.4).

Wieskamp, Isaiah Todd, Greg Brown, Aldama, Moses Wright, Herb Jones, Vrenz, Kessler Edwards. These are guys who short term would be solid contributors off the bench as either a big 3 or a 4. And long term could even be a starter at the 3 (with Tatum at the 4) or a starter at the 4 (with Tatum at the 3.

With that being said, your draft and stash argument could be a good idea. The 2 guys who it would make the most sense with are Vrenz and Aldama. Both Vrenz and Aldama: since they are:

-Aldama is from Spain and Vrenz is from Belgium
-on the young side, at only 20 yrs old. Also, both Vrenz and Aldama
-Aldama played in Patriot League (one of the weakest conferences in D-I and also because of COVID many of their games were cancelled last year, including all of their non-conference games vs teams from a major conference) and Vrenz played in the Belgian professional league which I've heard is definitely not one of the better pro leagues in europe so both of them could use a year or 2 in a "bridge league" to help bridge the gap between the league they have been playing in and the NBA so it's not such a big jump they are making
-Both guys could use another year or 2 in the weight room to fill out their frame, work on getting their body to be more NBA-ready
-Both guys could use another year or 2 to work on refining some things with their game in order to be more NBA-ready

Both of these guys have a ton of upside. It literally would not surprise me at all if either of them ends up being a top 10 player from this draft class. They're both oozing with potential. Vrenz could be the next Turkoglu / Kukoc and Aldama could be the next Pau Gasol / Dino Radja. Vrenz is actually 6'11" now and Aldama is now 7'0". The skill set these guys have and the way they can move on the court at their size and their age is impressive. And there's a good chance that they'll both be there at 45, although it seems like at this point it might be like a 50/50 on Vrenz still being there - he's starting to get more hype and has workouts scheduled with 5 or 6 teams.

IMO both Vrenz and Aldama - if they're developed properly and get on a good strength and conditioning program - could be starters on a championship team, and possibly even all-stars.

[Hal14]

Jokic #41,
Ginobili #57
Patty Mills #55
IT #60
Anthony Mason #53
Kyle Korver #51
Larry Kenon #50
Eddie Johnson #49
Marc Gasol #48
Paul Millsap #47
Jeff Hornacek #46
Bobby Dandridge #45
Michael Redd #42
George Gervin #40
Khris Middleton #39


Just sayin'

It’s fairly rare to hit anywhere near that level of prospect in the second round.

But it's not rare. I can see you having a leg to stand on if Curmudgeon was only able to come up with a list of 1 or 2 players. Like if literally Jokic was the only 2nd rounder who ever panned out, or maybe if there was just 1 other guy.

But he posted a list of 15 guys. That's a pretty long list - long enough that IMO it's worth it to try and find a some hidden treasure in the 2nd round.

2 other names I'd add to that list are Duncan Robinson and Bruce Bowen, both of whom went undrafted but both of them turned out to be great NBA players who started for teams who played in the NBA finals. The fact that guys like Moses Brown and Duncan Robinson have gone undrafted in the past few years just tells you

Oh, another one - Jerami Grant was the 39th pick of the draft. Pat Connaughton was the 41st pick and he's the 6th man on a Bucks team playing in the finals.

Also...
IMO this past season the NBA was loaded with more talent across the league than any season in NBA history. Why is that? Mostly because the world's population (especially US population) has grown steadily. compared to the 80's, the NBA has gone from 23 to 30 teams but that increase in team size is not anywhere even remotely close to how much the population has grown during that time. Also factor in that since the 80s there is way more international stars today, the game of basketball has grown tremendously overseas - all of this means there are are more players in the world capable of playing in the NBA now than there were in the 80's, 90s or even 2000's. Since there are way more quality NBA-level players than there are roster spots, if you scout well enough there's never been a better time to find those hidden gems, the diamonds in the rough who could potentially turn into a star player who could put your team over the top.

[ICeeYou]

The percentages of hits and misses in the second round after pick #40 speak for themselves.

You’re more likely to miss than hit by a pretty substantial margin.

Doesn’t mean it’s an impossible task, but your chances of finding a starter from 40-60 are pretty slim in any draft year (never mind a true star player).

The point is really that this team needs veterans more than it needs the #45 pick on the roster.

If I have to choose between rostering Herb Jones vs. stashing a Euro, I’m going Euro stash all day.

[Curmudgeon]

Of course you are more likely to miss at #45. But once in awhile you don't, and the smart teams miss less often.

[ICeeYou]

Of course you are more likely to miss at #45. But once in awhile you don't, and the smart teams miss less often.

When prioritizing how to build the roster I’m sure Brad and Ime are up late at night trying to figure out how they are going to clear a roster spot for the 45th pick.

Chances are whoever they draft won’t contribute this season and probably not next year either. But sure maybe Kessler Edwards with his ugly looking shot will surpass the contributions of former second round stud Semi Ojeleye.

[Curmudgeon]

Semi Ojeleye is a useful player who was a successful 2nd round pick. He defends Giannis as well as anyone. But in many ways he duplicates Grant Williams, who has a better floor game (especially as a pick setter).

[Hal14]

I’ll explain it again.

The Celtics have these young players on guaranteed contracts:

1. Pritchard
2. Rob
3. Langford
4. Nesmith
5. Grant
6. Carsen
7. Moses Brown

Then they have Yam who they might bring over which would make 8.

IF you don’t bring Yam over and trade away Edwards, you still have 6 out of 15 spots already dedicated to young players.

So, again, if they have 6 young guys on the roster, I want 9 veterans. Pretty simple math here fellas.

What you’re saying is that you’re going to dump 3 of those young guys and not bring Yam over. In that case, sure, add #45 to the roster.

Since I can’t assume that will happen and it’s not super likely they dump 3 of them (while leaving Yam overseas) I’d prefer a draft and stash.

Sure if nothing happens, there will potentially be a roster crunch.

I think what many are saying is that we need to aggressively move on from players who are creating this crunch.

They are not in many people's opinion "developing players" for our team. They are potentially putting us in a position where we waste an asset like this pick....which is what we are actually disagreeing about here.

how deep this draft is...

The 45th pick even in a deep draft isn’t much of an asset and drafting and stashing doesn’t equal “wasting” the asset either.

People can advocate dumping Carsen and Grant in one breath and then talk about the 45th pick being an asset make me chuckle. It usually takes guys drafted in the 20-60 range several years to prove they belong and can contribute.

So the jury is still out on Carsen and Grant.

Carsen and Grant have been in the NBA for 2 years. While it's true that often times a player needs more time than that to develop and prove himself, in some case you just know sooner than that whether the player has "it" or they don't.

In Carsen's case, he's a 5'11" SG. There's literally 0 good shooting guards in the NBA today who are under 6-feet. He's been here for 2 years and he hasn't shown that he deserves to keep his roster spot. Bye bye.

Grant - he's too small to play the 5. He's a 4 but to be an effective 4 in today's NBA you need to check most of these boxes, if not all of them:

1) Size = ideally 6'7" or taller with a 6'11" wingspan or longer...but Grant is only 6'6" with a 6'10" wingspan
2) Athleticism. Grant obviously has very limited athleticism, and he can barely jump
3) Quickness. Let's face it. Grant is very slow for a non-center.
4) Rebounding. He posted an impressive 13.3% rebounding % his last year of college but that simply has not translated at the NBA level where he's facing bigger guys and better competition. Ideally your 4 is posting at least 10% rebounding rate, if not 11% or higher but Grant this past season was only at 8.7% which was actually down from his rookie year when it was 9.1%
5) Rim protection. He just isn't a guy who can protect the rim, not even when he was in college
6) Shooting. This past season he shot a solid 37% from 3 which is just over the NBA league average fo 36%. So that's definitely encouraging. He shot 50.8% from 2 point range, which is ok and only 58.8% from FT line which is pretty bad.
7) Ability to put the ball on the floor, handle the ball and drive to the rim. He simply can't do this, one of the worst parts of Grant's game
8) intangibles, work ethic, good attitude, good teammate, plays hard. This of course is the strength of Grant's game. One thing you need to give him is he does play hard, and he's a very positive influence on the team, always leading the cheering from the bench, getting the guys going.

So out of 8 traits, Grant really only has 2 of them, shooting and intangibles. 2 out of 8 is not good. To really be worthy of a roster spot as a 4 man, he really should be able to check at least 5 of the boxes, preferably 6+. I'm very confident that we could get someone with the 45th pick who can do that.

[Andrew McCeltic]

Jokic #41,
Ginobili #57
Patty Mills #55
IT #60
Anthony Mason #53
Kyle Korver #51
Larry Kenon #50
Eddie Johnson #49
Marc Gasol #48
Paul Millsap #47
Jeff Hornacek #46
Bobby Dandridge #45
Michael Redd #42
George Gervin #40
Khris Middleton #39


Just sayin'

It’s fairly rare to hit anywhere near that level of prospect in the second round.

But it's not rare. I can see you having a leg to stand on if Curmudgeon was only able to come up with a list of 1 or 2 players. Like if literally Jokic was the only 2nd rounder who ever panned out, or maybe if there was just 1 other guy.

But he posted a list of 15 guys. That's a pretty long list - long enough that IMO it's worth it to try and find a some hidden treasure in the 2nd round.

2 other names I'd add to that list are Duncan Robinson and Bruce Bowen, both of whom went undrafted but both of them turned out to be great NBA players who started for teams who played in the NBA finals. The fact that guys like Moses Brown and Duncan Robinson have gone undrafted in the past few years just tells you

Oh, another one - Jerami Grant was the 39th pick of the draft. Pat Connaughton was the 41st pick and he's the 6th man on a Bucks team playing in the finals.

Ginóbili was drafted in *1999*, JFC. That’s 15 names in TWO DECADES.

Actually, five decades - with Gervin and Hornacek.

So it is rare. Point taken, undrafted and second-round players can be NBA stars or rotation guys. But you’ve listed eight of them just in this year’s draft.

[ICeeYou]

Sure if nothing happens, there will potentially be a roster crunch.

I think what many are saying is that we need to aggressively move on from players who are creating this crunch.

They are not in many people's opinion "developing players" for our team. They are potentially putting us in a position where we waste an asset like this pick....which is what we are actually disagreeing about here.

how deep this draft is...

The 45th pick even in a deep draft isn’t much of an asset and drafting and stashing doesn’t equal “wasting” the asset either.

People can advocate dumping Carsen and Grant in one breath and then talk about the 45th pick being an asset make me chuckle. It usually takes guys drafted in the 20-60 range several years to prove they belong and can contribute.

So the jury is still out on Carsen and Grant.

Carsen and Grant have been in the NBA for 2 years. While it's true that often times a player needs more time than that to develop and prove himself, in some case you just know sooner than that whether the player has "it" or they don't.

In Carsen's case, he's a 5'11" SG. There's literally 0 good shooting guards in the NBA today who are under 6-feet. He's been here for 2 years and he hasn't shown that he deserves to keep his roster spot. Bye bye.

Grant - he's too small to play the 5. He's a 4 but to be an effective 4 in today's NBA you need to check most of these boxes, if not all of them:

1) Size = ideally 6'7" or taller with a 6'11" wingspan or longer...but Grant is only 6'6" with a 6'10" wingspan
2) Athleticism. Grant obviously has very limited athleticism, and he can barely jump
3) Quickness. Let's face it. Grant is very slow for a non-center.
4) Rebounding. He posted an impressive 13.3% rebounding % his last year of college but that simply has not translated at the NBA level where he's facing bigger guys and better competition. Ideally your 4 is posting at least 10% rebounding rate, if not 11% or higher but Grant this past season was only at 8.7% which was actually down from his rookie year when it was 9.1%
5) Rim protection. He just isn't a guy who can protect the rim, not even when he was in college
6) Shooting. This past season he shot a solid 37% from 3 which is just over the NBA league average fo 36%. So that's definitely encouraging. He shot 50.8% from 2 point range, which is ok and only 58.8% from FT line which is pretty bad.
7) Ability to put the ball on the floor, handle the ball and drive to the rim. He simply can't do this, one of the worst parts of Grant's game
8) intangibles, work ethic, good attitude, good teammate, plays hard. This of course is the strength of Grant's game. One thing you need to give him is he does play hard, and he's a very positive influence on the team, always leading the cheering from the bench, getting the guys going.

So out of 8 traits, Grant really only has 2 of them, shooting and intangibles. 2 out of 8 is not good. To really be worthy of a roster spot as a 4 man, he really should be able to check at least 5 of the boxes, preferably 6+. I'm very confident that we could get someone with the 45th pick who can do that.

I would say Grant’s quickness is fine for the position he plays. What I’m looking for from that position is simple - defensive versatility (toughness), defensive awareness, screen setting, and shooting out of pick and pop. The other stuff is sort of a bonus.

I think Grant still has a chance of being a 15-20 MPG role player. If you can move him in a deal for an upgrade, sure. But he’s not a guy you just dump for a conditional second rounder so you can draft Moses Wright (who can’t defend in space against college guards).

Edwards is the most likely guy to go because he has a couple guys in Madar and Pritchard who can give the game more at this point, or at least potentially in the case of Madar.

That however, does not mean he can’t be a scoring PG in this league. There are tons of guys kicking around the league who are pure scorers at the PG position. That’s good news for Boston though because to the right team looking for some offense from their guard spots, Edwards holds some trade value as a sweetener.

I know this is the draft thread so folks are gonna get jazzed up about possible guys that the Celtics can draft, even at 45.

But the reality is the draft is only one of the ways in which the team is going to be built.

If you trade Thompson out with Grant and Edwards… you still have 5 young guys on your roster who are learning how to play the NBA game in Rob, Romeo, Pritchard, Nesmith, and Moses Brown.

Then you have Smart, Horford, Brown, and Tatum. Hopefully you get at least 1 vet back for Thompson.

So that’s 5 veterans, 5 young players.

Then you have to decide on Yam. Chances are pretty decent he’s coming over so you’re back up to six young guys.

That’s 4 spots left. For my money. That’s gotta be 4 veterans of the NBA coming in. Maybe you keep Semi for small money. Add Fournier, MLE and a vet min. That gives you a chance to compete and contend.

[Half-Full]

The percentages of hits and misses in the second round after pick #40 speak for themselves.

You’re more likely to miss than hit by a pretty substantial margin.

Doesn’t mean it’s an impossible task, but your chances of finding a starter from 40-60 are pretty slim in any draft year (never mind a true star player).

The point is really that this team needs veterans more than it needs the #45 pick on the roster.

If I have to choose between rostering Herb Jones vs. stashing a Euro, I’m going Euro stash all day.

Here is an interesting article regarding the probability of drafting a decent player in the second round.

https://the-cauldron.com/the-2nd-round-and-misuse-of-probability-402639df1038

According to the article, the chance of drafting an all-star or all-NBA player in the second round is 2.4 percent. The odds of drafting a "decent" player is around 7 percent. There is only a 26 percent chance of a player sticking in the NBA for at least 3 seasons. Not the best odds, but one cannot win the lottery if one does not buy a ticket (actually, no ticket purchase required) . The article also discusses factors that contribute to a second round draft pick's success. One of which is being drafted by a good team.

[Hal14]

The following players have withdrawn their name from this year's draft:

Julian Champagnie
Max Abmas
Johnny Juzang
Marcus Bagley
Terrence Shannon
Ochai Agbaji
Isaiah Mobley

[ICeeYou]

The following players have withdrawn their name from this year's draft:

Julian Champagnie
Max Abmas
Johnny Juzang
Marcus Bagley
Terrence Shannon
Ochai Agbaji
Isaiah Mobley

The draft is getting less deep by the day it seems.

[playa-hater]

The following players have withdrawn their name from this year's draft:

Julian Champagnie
Max Abmas
Johnny Juzang
Marcus Bagley
Terrence Shannon
Ochai Agbaji
Isaiah Mobley

they withdrew because of how deep this draft is/was. with only 2 mocked to go before 45 at times. Still want Boston to get another 2nd rder if possible.

[BostonCouchGM]

The following players have withdrawn their name from this year's draft:

Julian Champagnie
Max Abmas
Johnny Juzang
Marcus Bagley
Terrence Shannon
Ochai Agbaji
Isaiah Mobley

they withdrew because of how deep this draft is/was. with only 2 mocked to go before 45 at times. Still want Boston to get another 2nd rder if possible.

none of them were ready and another year would help their draft stock. It's not like these are first round talents right now so they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by staying. Another fun year in college, a year to develop, play a lot, try to make a name for themselves. I could see a couple of them possibly putting themselves into the late 1st next year and at the very least ensure they get drafted in what they hope is a shallower draft.

[Curmudgeon]

My original list was just all star caliber players. If I had included solid rotation players who played for a decade (or close to it) the list would have been much longer. It's ok to hit singles and doubles. Just don't strike out.

Even in 2000, widely viewed as the weakest draft in NBA history, the second round included not only Michael Redd, but also Eddie House, Edwardo Najera and Brian Cardinale.

In 2001 ( stronger draft), the second round produced Gilbert Arenas, Brian Scalabrine, Mehmet Okur, Earl Watson, Bobby Simmons and Jarron Collins.

And so it goes.

[winsomme2]

I guess I will concede that if the player they have rated at or near the top of their list when they pick at 45 is an international player, I don't have an issue with them drafting and stashing.

I just don't want them to pass on someone they really like because they don't have a roster spot because that is kinda absurd given our complete lack of depth at just about every position.

[ICeeYou]

I guess I will concede that if the player they have rated at or near the top of their list when they pick at 45 is an international player, I don't have an issue with them drafting and stashing.

I just don't want them to pass on someone they really like because they don't have a roster spot because that is kinda absurd given our complete lack of depth at just about every position.

I mean, they don’t really lack depth at any position aside from PF and Tatum has been pretty much a full time PF for a couple seasons.

What the team lacks is proven, playoff caliber depth, which, as I’ve pointed out numerous times, is really really hard to find that deep into the second round.

At PG they have Smart-Pritchard-Edwards-Yam
At SG-SF they have Brown-Nesmith-Romeo-Fournier (if they decide to pay him)
At SF-PF they have Tatum-Grant-Parker
At C they have Rob-Horford-Thompson-Brown

So they could use someone in that 2-4 mold and there are guys in that mold in this draft. With Champagnie and Juzang dropping out there’s a little less depth there.

Will be interesting to see where Todd, Trey Murphy, and Wieskamp go. Not that high on Herb Jones and haven’t really given much of a look to Gray or Livers.

But yeah, draft and stash will be a strong possibility if we see the stock of Murphy, Wieskamp and Todd rise.

[RickyDizzle]

http://www.tankathon.com/mock_draft
Interesting updates from there guys.

JT Thor down to 40! Chuck Bassey at 59. Moses Wright and Vrenz, two of my favorites, undrafted...

I think there'll be some guys with solid chances to be a rotation player there at 45 and a ton of guys undrafted that have way more potential to contribute in the future to the Celtics than Tacko Fall, Tremont Waters, and Carsen Edwards.

They're nice enough guys and all, but I think #45 tales Semi's spot... we try to get rid of Carsen to free up another slot for a veteran (potentially Kornet and Parkers spot to be replaced by better vets too) and then take advantage of the depth of this draft by taking flyers on some new 2-way guys that don't hear their names called. Especially with 7'2" Moses Brown in the fold, I just don't see a path to Tacko seeing the floor. Instead of a novelty there might be some real upside guys that don't get drafted.

Vrenz, a Euro, probably has no interest in the D League... if he goes undrafted you could just sign him to the roster though, right?