2022 NBA Draft Thread - Part 2

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It's interesting that none of your top 3 choices was "take Tari Eason at #10." In fact, pretty clearly you are using the #10 pick on either Griffin or Williams before you'd use it on Eason.

In fact, it looks like you might have been suggesting to take Agbaji rather than Eason at #10 -- if there was no trade down available.

Am I reading that right?

In my case, I would have taken any trade down that got us the #17 or better -- rolling the dice that we'd get Eason. I would also have traded the 10 for SA's 20, 25 & 38 -- even though I didn't think that would get me Eason. I just thought it was an incredibly deep draft, & we are an incredibly bad team.

That would have gotten us Malakhi Branham. Then the 2d trade down (with Minny) would have gotten us TyTy Washington (or Koliko if you prefer) plus 2 R2 picks, & then at #38 take Kennedy Chandler. Grab Williams at 56, & sign Kenneth Lofton Jr. undrafted.

Doing it today, I'd reverse William & Lofton. But, that's hindsight.

[doclinkin]

It's interesting that none of your top 3 choices was "take Tari Eason at #10." In fact, pretty clearly you are using the #10 pick on either Griffin or Williams before you'd use it on Eason.
.

You are right. I got chased away from Eason by teams consistently ranking him low, raising questions in my mind if he had something in his background that they were steering away from. This was what I said on Eason before then:

On defense is where Tari is most exciting. His team D is less savvy, but individually: damn. His activity, perimeter switchability, steals + blocks, and athleticism make him the dynamic disruptive outside defender we haven't had here. The kind that ignites and incites his teammates at that end.

If he is available at our pick I'm happy. I expect his measurables at the combine may elevate him out of our range. He's going to measure long whatever his height, and he is the sort of natural athlete you see in defenders like Shawn Marion, whose college stats are a strong comparator.
https://www.tankathon.com/players/compare?players=tari-eason--shawn-marion
Not jump out the gym bounce, but ease in his own body, balance, wiggle, instinct. With Eason it's not his first step that catches my eye, but his 2nd. He surges on those fast break steals. Nobody is close to catching him. And even when out of position on defense he can close out and block the shot in a step and a half.

Yes we have too many forwards already, but Eason will likely be a tier above whomever is available at our pick if he is there and we don't jump top 4. I'd wonder about whatever red flags teams discovered if he slipped to our spot. I'd still take him.

I backed off my own instinct and chickened out. Hedged my bets by saying I'd pick him plus one of my other top prospects, in case there was a reason all were knocking him. Though to the end I maintained that he would be the most talented player to fall and likely the one player that could develop in the Kawhi/Giannis mold, of guys who teams will kick themselves for passing over.

[nate33]

FWIW, I said in PIF's what would you have done thread that I would have taken AJ Griffin assuming no medical red flags, or Tari Eason if the docs told me no-go on AJ.

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Fair enough on all counts, & I didn't mean to raise the issue all over again.

Whatever else is true, so far Tari Eason looks like one of the 3-4 best prospects out of this draft, though obviously the results are altogether preliminary.

But, the key point is our management of the draft. It's broken. That much is clear. It's completely broken.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

It's interesting that none of your top 3 choices was "take Tari Eason at #10." In fact, pretty clearly you are using the #10 pick on either Griffin or Williams before you'd use it on Eason.
.

You are right. I got chased away from Eason by teams consistently ranking him low, raising questions in my mind if he had something in his background that they were steering away from. This was what I said on Eason before then:

On defense is where Tari is most exciting. His team D is less savvy, but individually: damn. His activity, perimeter switchability, steals + blocks, and athleticism make him the dynamic disruptive outside defender we haven't had here. The kind that ignites and incites his teammates at that end.

If he is available at our pick I'm happy. I expect his measurables at the combine may elevate him out of our range. He's going to measure long whatever his height, and he is the sort of natural athlete you see in defenders like Shawn Marion, whose college stats are a strong comparator.
https://www.tankathon.com/players/compare?players=tari-eason--shawn-marion
Not jump out the gym bounce, but ease in his own body, balance, wiggle, instinct. With Eason it's not his first step that catches my eye, but his 2nd. He surges on those fast break steals. Nobody is close to catching him. And even when out of position on defense he can close out and block the shot in a step and a half.

Yes we have too many forwards already, but Eason will likely be a tier above whomever is available at our pick if he is there and we don't jump top 4. I'd wonder about whatever red flags teams discovered if he slipped to our spot. I'd still take him.

I backed off my own instinct and chickened out. Hedged my bets by saying I'd pick him plus one of my other top prospects, in case there was a reason all were knocking him. Though to the end I maintained that he would be the most talented player to fall and likely the one player that could develop in the Kawhi/Giannis mold, of guys who teams will kick themselves for passing over.

Not me.

I KNEW he was the real deal. At this point he's BETTER than Kawhi was at the same point in his career. NOT SAYING HE IS BETTER THAN KAWHI LEONARD...

Yet.

Eason misses some chippy FGAs, but other than that he's really, really, really good.

Between him and Keegan Murray? Wow, tough choice IMO.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

My health/home life/death of my sister and lots of other factors had me distracted.

I recall knowing of Eason during March Madness. Dat2U's draft tier is what I quick-studied, again amidst a lot of health and well-being stuff going; BUT I KNEW WHO Santa Clara Jalen Williams (sp?) is because of Dat. Docklinkin, I knew about the bigger Arkansas Williams kid, also an OKC pickup, since last season. It's already apparent these two are future stars barring injury and coaching malfeasance or drugs whatever.

After all these years on Realgm I'm still EXASPERATED when GMs cannot tell Eason's going to be great. Keegan Murray was so good that blind and dead Ray Charles could see Murray's game exploding in the NBA. Same with Eason IMO.

[queridiculo]

It was always Tari Eason for me in given the players available in our slot.

Exactly the kind of high upside pick you'd take in this slot, and he fit the teams needs to a tee.

Long, high energy defender that can cover multiple positions, underrated face up game, good shooting mechanics and a knack for finishing around the basket.

He's playing mostly on instincts at the moment, I can't fathom why the Wizards and so many other teams passed on him.

At the outset of the draft I was afraid he'd get snatched up before Washington got a chance to make a selection.

[Dat2U]

Well i wouldn't have drafed Jalen, Tari or Johnny although i certainly preferred the first two to drafting Davis.

My pick on draft night was Ousmane Dieng. The 19 yr old 6-10 skilled wing from France. I loved the advanced handle & athletic pop with flashes of shot creation with his 7-0 wingspan. He drew comparisons to Nicolas Batum but if you squint, you also see flashes of Paul George.

[payitforward]

Well i wouldn't have drafed Jalen, Tari or Johnny although i certainly preferred the first two to drafting Davis.

My pick on draft night was Ousmane Dieng. The 19 yr old 6-10 skilled wing from France. I loved the advanced handle & athletic pop with flashes of shot creation with his 7-0 wingspan. He drew comparisons to Nicolas Batum but if you squint, you also see flashes of Paul George.

It'll be interesting to see how many of the next 10 players taken (Dieng, J. Willisams, Duren, Agbaji, M. Williams, Griffin, Eason, Terry, Laravia, & Branham) turn out to be better than Johnny Davis.

If all of them do, then I guess anyone who thought Davis was a good pick certainly ought to admit to being wrong. But, I don't think it's likely that all 10 will be.

So, what about if, say, 6-7 are better than Johnny? Will anyone admit to being wrong, I wonder? How about if half or more of the following 10, the guys taken from 21-30, are also better?

Truth is, I doubt anyone will admit to being wrong. Hey, I doubt that those who thought it was a good idea when we gave a lottery pick for Markieff Morris will admit to having been wrong about that either. Or about trading a R1 pick for the expiring Bojan Bogdanovic.

Yet, it seems so easy. For example, when we picked Deni in the 2020 draft I thought that it was the best choice we could have made, the optimal pick. But, I was wrong.

[DCZards]

It'll be interesting to see how many of the next 10 players taken (Dieng, J. Willisams, Duren, Agbaji, M. Williams, Griffin, Eason, Terry, Laravia, & Branham) turn out to be better than Johnny Davis.

If all of them do, then I guess anyone who thought Davis was a good pick certainly ought to admit to being wrong.

PIF, I don’t get why you’re always so fixated on posters admitting when they were wrong. Who cares? Why does it even matter who was right or who was wrong?

As Miles Davis famously said when asked if there are wrong notes in jazz: "It's not the note you play that's the wrong note – it's the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong."

In other words, don’t worry about or look back at mistakes -- improvise and move on.

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Well... Miles is my hero -- I imagine I have told you about the time I bought him a drink at the Sutherland Lounge -- I was 15 maybe 16 years old.

But a sequence of notes is different from a sequence of trades & draft picks. When those notes have been played they are, as Erik Dolphy said of all music, "gone in the air; you can never capture them again."

Wrong decisions in different areas of life have a different structure & different effects. If you "don't worry about or look back at mistakes" in most areas of life, you make them over & over. You never become a skilled person -- or at least you make it hard to do.

Like most of us, I assume, I've made a ton of mistakes. Over the years, I came to understand that it was a good idea to take responsibility for them. That doing so would help me learn.

The Washington Wizards are a terrible basketball franchise. One of the worst in the league. &, we keep making the same kinds of mistakes over & over. "Improvise and move on" isn't going to change that.

Now, maybe there's a way that success matters less to a fan who's lucky enough to go to a ton of games. After all, basketball is only partly competition. For the rest it's entertainment. & much of that entertainment value, especially when you're at the game, may come from things that aren't heavily affected by losing games rather than winning them. In that case, no need to get upset when we average 35 wins over a period of a dozen years.

But, I'd like to see us make better decisions, become a better team, be more competitive, & maybe even someday contend for a title. We aren't going to get there w/o being willing to take responsibility for errors.

You asked me "why," Zards -- I'm trying to respond. That's the best answer I've got.

[DCZards]

PIF, moving on from mistakes doesn’t mean you don’t learn from them. It just means you don’t spend your life (and energy) in a perpetual “woulda, coulda, shoulda.”

And I’m really not sure what posters here admitting their mistakes has to do with the bad decisions made by the Zards FO.

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Has nothing to do with those bad decisions.

& if posters on a discussion board want to call for us to make moves, predict moves, & praise moves -- all mistakenly -- & then point to occasions when they were right but not mention occasions when they were wrong, that's entirely up to them.

&, the next time one of those posters calls for us to make a particular draft pick, for example, or make some other move, do you think it makes sense to point out that the last time they made a similar recommendation they were wrong?

I'd say that other than that, those bad decisions are of no interest.