Rate the Dick Pick

[Parataxis]

We took arguably the BPA who was also at a position of need. Tough not to be happy with that.

[S.W.A.N]

We took arguably the BPA who was also at a position of need. Tough not to be happy with that.

Yet some idiots will tell you this was a bad fit


If one wanted to be argumentative Cam was BPA but he obviously had a medical red flag.

With Wallace and Bilal off the board this is a pretty easy pick for the front office.

[Kingsway_fan]

Reggie Miller.. come on down!!!

[mkot]

A cat person.

I like.

[Chandan]

You mean "Grade de Dick"

[TheFutureMM]

Luke Kennard wishes he was 6'8.

When your 6'8 with a 34" vert that is not limited. You don't need to be a Skywalker when you're 6'8

Where is this 6'8 measurement coming from? He measured at 6'6.25 at the combine. With shoes he's probably a bit over 6'7.

So even by your math you wanted me to put 6'7.5 instead of 6'8 ?

No I wanted you to put 6'7.25 which is closer to 6'7 than 6'8. Good rule of thumb is to let shoes add 1 inch as opposed to 1.25 - 2.00.

[ItsDanger]

We took arguably the BPA who was also at a position of need. Tough not to be happy with that.

Yet some idiots will tell you this was a bad fit


If one wanted to be argumentative Cam was BPA but he obviously had a medical red flag.

With Wallace and Bilal off the board this is a pretty easy pick for the front office.

Shouldn't call people idiots on this board. If no roster changes occur, why don't you show how many minutes each guy will get in the new lineup. And be realistic. The need was a talent skillset need: shooting.

Also, lots of non-realgm people say similar thing, it's a questionable positional fit. The pathway for a guard to get minutes would be a lot easier.

But this assumes Fred is retained, no trades occur. Other teams drafted into similar issues also.

Idiots? LMAO.

[SocialistHipHop]

Next draft you replicate the call I made there. Can't give credit where it's due huh?

everything but answering a very simple question.

ItsDanger is probably a politician. if not he missed his calling.

Colangelo’s burner account

[JShuttlesworth]

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but I don't know how anyone could say Gradey isn't a good fit with our roster. He's a great fit

[djsunyc]

A cat person.

I like.

that dick likes p***ies!

[ItsDanger]

Fred 35, Siakam 35, Poeltl 30, Scottie 33, OG 33, Trent 26, Achuwa 15 = 207 (only 240 in a game) I expect these minutes to be consistent. Add in Koloko & Boucher or some other combination at 4/5 spot, that's going to bring it up to 222 at least. That leaves 18 minutes for everyone else including Dick. Unless you decrease those 7 main rotation guys (which I don't think they should), there is not much time available for the rest. If they're big on development, playing them minutes, how? Is Porter Jr not going to play at all?

One solution is remove Fred's minutes which alleviates the minutes crunch but raises other issues.

Now, I said very similar thing last year, there aren't enough minutes to go around on this team. It causes problems. And guess what, problems occurred.

[refshateRaps]

This guy has the potential to become be a nice complimentary player around Barnes in 2-3 years if he develops.

I like the potential fit here.

If everything pans out he could become a solid 3rd option behind Barnes the 2nd option. We just need a legit 1st option that fits Barnes timeline. Easier said than done, though.

We are in the same position now with Pascal who is actually proven, whereas Barnes still has to prove.

But ya I fully agree with you if were keeping Scottie. Only way we compete again is to trade for an alpha scorer either now or hope we are in a similar situ in the future.

[WuTang_CMB]

https://deanondraft.substack.com/p/2023-draft-grades-pick-by-pick

2. Charlotte— Brandon Miller: A

Miller was the best player available and the best fit. Taking Scoot would have been a costly mistake, so credit to the Hornets for getting such a high leverage decision right.

This could arguably be an A+ considering how many people believe Scoot was the accurate pick, but Miller is probably not quite elite enough to give such a high score.

Nevertheless, Charlotte gained significant future value by getting a big decision right, this is a solid A.

3. Portland— Scoot Henderson: C-

Tough pick to grade, because Scoot is not a bad choice here, but trading down would have been such a better option. Surely some team would have paid way too much for him, and even without a massive haul they aren’t missing out by trading down for a number of other guys that went top 13.

If they could have gotten 6/11 from Orlando and taken Anthony Black or Cason Wallace followed by Gradey Dick or Dereck Lively (or even Jett Howard), that would have been a huge W.

4. Houston— Amen Thompson: F
5. Detroit— Ausar Thompson: F

There’s some chance these twins become something, but the process on choosing them is terrible.

They are 20 year olds who have never played serious competition in their life, and were not quite as dominant as you would hope against high school competition this past season. This makes it fuzzy if they are really talented enough to have potential in the NBA, and sets them behind the curve for learning how to play defense.

They are long, rangey, and athletic, but you cannot value them over younger prospects who played well in the proven context of NCAA or professional basketball.

This is why bad teams stay bad. They are so desperate for upside, they take blind shots in the dark on toolsy guys who need to overcome many flaws to succeed. This leads to high bust risk, and not all that much upside in the favorable outcomes.

6. Orlando— Anthony Black: A-

Black has a solid case for best player available, although I would have given the nod to Cason Wallace.

Maybe Orlando didn’t want another young guard with Fultz, Anthony, and Suggs. But if we are talking fit, Taylor Hendricks would have fit great. They already have offensive hubs in Paolo and Franz, and he would have paired with them nicely as a low friction role player. Hendricks doesn’t have Black’s upside, but Orlando didn’t really need to roll the dice on upside here.

But this is all a small nitpick. Black a really good prospect who could pay off bigly. He is in a similar boat to Paolo, in that he needs to learn to shoot to maximize his potential, and if he succeeds he has huge upside.

Black is the player who has the upside that consensus thinks the Thompsons have, so getting him after they were off the board is great value.

7. Washington— Bilal Coulibaly: C-

Why did the Wizards need to trade up here? It was a reasonable price of two 2028 2nd round picks, but still.

Coulibaly is not a bad gamble on upside, but this is a bit soon for him. He is young and toolsy, but raw and does not do that much on the floor at this time, and there were still a good handful of quality NCAA freshmen on the board.

Washington has a glut of future 2nds from the Beal trade where they did well, but it wasn’t necessary to just give them away when there is nothing that sets Coulibaly ahead of other rangey wings on the board like Walker or Hendricks.

Trading up is generally inefficient because teams fall in love with “their guy” and then often overpay when there are equal or better options available. In this case Wizards paid up to get the weakest choice among the 3 big wings that went 7/8/9

Coulibaly is at least an upgrade over prior management’s propensity to draft the most boring + low upside old guys possible in the lottery, and this gamble could pay off in the long run. But it was nevertheless not the most efficient pull— especially considering the future picks squandered.

8. Indiana— Jarace Walker: B+

Indiana sorely needed a wing on their roster, and preferably a big one to play the 4, which brings it down to Hendricks vs Jarace.

I would have taken Hendricks, but it’s close enough such that Jarace could easily turn out better. In tandem with scooping a couple of future 2nds for free, it’s hard to knock Indiana’s selection here.

9. Utah— Taylor Hendricks: A-

Utah has not much young guard talent and Cason Wallace was best player on my board, so that would have been the pick of choice. But Hendricks was next best available, and fits a solid role player mold that every team needs on their roster.

Hendricks/Lauri/Kessler is a huge frontcourt that fits well together, as Hendricks has mobility to guard 3’s defensively and should be able to shoot decently enough offensively.

Utah has one of the strongest longterm hands in the league will their hoard of future picks, and Hendricks helps make it stronger.

10. Oklahoma City— Cason Wallace: A+

Oklahoma City is stacked with young talent in the backcourt with SGA, Giddey, and J-Dub with a fragile Chet Holmgren as their only interesting frontcourt prospect, so you would think they would take a big or wing.

But Sam Presti decided to take on Davis Bertans’ contract to move UP two slots for Cason, which is a significant price to pay for such a small move.

On one hand, this grade could be docked to an A because it’s not an ideal fit, and it may have been more efficient to stand pat at #12, take Gradey Dick if Orlando snipes Cason at #11, and avoid taking on Bertans’ deadweight.

On the other hand, they probably weren’t going to do anything special with the cap space, and you need to respect Presti’s willingness to not care about fit and take the obvious best player available.

The only player who is really set in stone as being a longterm impact player is Shai. Giddey and J-Dub have nice potential, but they still need to make improvements before that is realized. Cason has clear potential to be better than both, so may as well rotate them all now and see who emerges. Then trade whoever doesn’t fit the longterm plans for some taller help.

Overall great pick that gives OKC a nice boost to their longterm outlook.

11. Orlando— Jett Howard: B

Like most people, I had Jett Howard a tier lower than Gradey Dick and was surprised by this pick. Jett has some really gross flaws on defense, as he is soft, hates contact, and plays with lackluster effort. Because of this, it is difficult to get too excited about him.

But he also may have a bit more potential than Dick offensively, and it wouldn’t be a shock if this works out. Against the grain picks like this are always interesting because they can work terribly, but sometimes the team sees something that the public doesn’t and it works out in the end.

12. Dallas— Dereck Lively: A

This pick went great for Dallas. They got off Bertans to trade down just 2 slots, and got the best player available who is an excellent fit with Luka.

Lively has DPOY upside, and his only real flaw is that he cannot create offense to save his life. There is nobody better to pair him with than 38 usage Luka.

This all around was a super smooth pick for Dallas.

13. Toronto— Gradey Dick: A

Toronto needed shooting, and Gradey Dick is an excellent shooter and was likely the best player available. Hard to complain about this one.

14. New Orleans— Jordan Hawkins: D

Hawkins is a great shooter which everybody loves, but he is terrible on defense and can barely dribble, which makes him a not so great value proposition at age 21.

Shooters are weird, so who knows, maybe he makes > 40% on a massive volume of 3PA and isn’t a bottom 5% defensive player in the league carves out a career as a useful role player. But his absolute ceiling is JJ Redick, and there is a ton of bust risk involved here, so this is an underwhelming value proposition and a fairly significant reach.

15. Atlanta— Kobe Bufkin: B

Kobe is a well rounded SG who offers a bit of everything, with no strong weaknesses, so hard to knock this pick.

But skinny SG’s with short arms are not great molds that struggle to make major impacts, and this pick is fairly boring with Brandin Podziemski and Jaime Jaquez still available.

16. Utah— Keyonte George: C+

Key was a tough player to rank. He can shoot and create offense, and is strong and rebounds well for his position. But he is small for SG, not a great athlete, struggles to get to the rim, is turnover prone, and bad on defense.

If you squint you can see some Jamal Murray potential, but the one point that makes it difficult to fully buy is his lesser athleticism. He had 3 dunks as a freshman, and Murray had 18.

Maybe he can find a way to be that good anyway, but it seems like a longshot with a decent amount of bust risk attached. That said, he couldn’t have asked for a better landing spot as Will Hardy seems to be an excellent coach who can put him in a position to succeed.

This pick would be fine if it came a few slots later, but with Jaquez + Podz on the board it could be a regrettable one if Key is not any better than OJ Mayo.

17. LA Lakers— Jalen Hood-Schifino: F

JHS is the third SG taken in a row, and he is clearly the worst of the bunch. He was bad as an NCAA freshman, as he was inefficient, turnover prone, and played subpar defense. He is an older freshman and not very athletic, so it’s going to be an uphill climb to carve out an NBA career, and does not have much upside if he does.

Especially with Jaquez and Podz on the board, this pick may look silly in hindsight

[ItsDanger]

Why did Wizards pay for 1 spot? They perceived that OKC was a threat to get #7. Doesn't matter if its real or not, they must rely on their contacts/opinion or Indiana just telling them so that this was a real possibility. In this situation, if you value the player that highly, you pay the price to 100% guarantee it. Other GMs make the mistake of doing nothing which results in risk.

For other teams, they didn't pay enough of a price to move up, so that means they really didn't value those players much more than whoever they ended up selecting at their spot. Lot of these guys just take the next name on their lists and dress it up as they wanted him the whole time.

[Indeed]

We took arguably the BPA who was also at a position of need. Tough not to be happy with that.

Yet some idiots will tell you this was a bad fit


If one wanted to be argumentative Cam was BPA but he obviously had a medical red flag.

With Wallace and Bilal off the board this is a pretty easy pick for the front office.

He is a bad fit, particularly with Barnes on defense. Both cannot guard quick players.

[Indeed]

https://deanondraft.substack.com/p/2023-draft-grades-pick-by-pick

2. Charlotte— Brandon Miller: A

Miller was the best player available and the best fit. Taking Scoot would have been a costly mistake, so credit to the Hornets for getting such a high leverage decision right.

This could arguably be an A+ considering how many people believe Scoot was the accurate pick, but Miller is probably not quite elite enough to give such a high score.

Nevertheless, Charlotte gained significant future value by getting a big decision right, this is a solid A.

3. Portland— Scoot Henderson: C-

Tough pick to grade, because Scoot is not a bad choice here, but trading down would have been such a better option. Surely some team would have paid way too much for him, and even without a massive haul they aren’t missing out by trading down for a number of other guys that went top 13.

If they could have gotten 6/11 from Orlando and taken Anthony Black or Cason Wallace followed by Gradey Dick or Dereck Lively (or even Jett Howard), that would have been a huge W.

4. Houston— Amen Thompson: F
5. Detroit— Ausar Thompson: F

There’s some chance these twins become something, but the process on choosing them is terrible.

They are 20 year olds who have never played serious competition in their life, and were not quite as dominant as you would hope against high school competition this past season. This makes it fuzzy if they are really talented enough to have potential in the NBA, and sets them behind the curve for learning how to play defense.

They are long, rangey, and athletic, but you cannot value them over younger prospects who played well in the proven context of NCAA or professional basketball.

This is why bad teams stay bad. They are so desperate for upside, they take blind shots in the dark on toolsy guys who need to overcome many flaws to succeed. This leads to high bust risk, and not all that much upside in the favorable outcomes.

6. Orlando— Anthony Black: A-

Black has a solid case for best player available, although I would have given the nod to Cason Wallace.

Maybe Orlando didn’t want another young guard with Fultz, Anthony, and Suggs. But if we are talking fit, Taylor Hendricks would have fit great. They already have offensive hubs in Paolo and Franz, and he would have paired with them nicely as a low friction role player. Hendricks doesn’t have Black’s upside, but Orlando didn’t really need to roll the dice on upside here.

But this is all a small nitpick. Black a really good prospect who could pay off bigly. He is in a similar boat to Paolo, in that he needs to learn to shoot to maximize his potential, and if he succeeds he has huge upside.

Black is the player who has the upside that consensus thinks the Thompsons have, so getting him after they were off the board is great value.

7. Washington— Bilal Coulibaly: C-

Why did the Wizards need to trade up here? It was a reasonable price of two 2028 2nd round picks, but still.

Coulibaly is not a bad gamble on upside, but this is a bit soon for him. He is young and toolsy, but raw and does not do that much on the floor at this time, and there were still a good handful of quality NCAA freshmen on the board.

Washington has a glut of future 2nds from the Beal trade where they did well, but it wasn’t necessary to just give them away when there is nothing that sets Coulibaly ahead of other rangey wings on the board like Walker or Hendricks.

Trading up is generally inefficient because teams fall in love with “their guy” and then often overpay when there are equal or better options available. In this case Wizards paid up to get the weakest choice among the 3 big wings that went 7/8/9

Coulibaly is at least an upgrade over prior management’s propensity to draft the most boring + low upside old guys possible in the lottery, and this gamble could pay off in the long run. But it was nevertheless not the most efficient pull— especially considering the future picks squandered.

8. Indiana— Jarace Walker: B+

Indiana sorely needed a wing on their roster, and preferably a big one to play the 4, which brings it down to Hendricks vs Jarace.

I would have taken Hendricks, but it’s close enough such that Jarace could easily turn out better. In tandem with scooping a couple of future 2nds for free, it’s hard to knock Indiana’s selection here.

9. Utah— Taylor Hendricks: A-

Utah has not much young guard talent and Cason Wallace was best player on my board, so that would have been the pick of choice. But Hendricks was next best available, and fits a solid role player mold that every team needs on their roster.

Hendricks/Lauri/Kessler is a huge frontcourt that fits well together, as Hendricks has mobility to guard 3’s defensively and should be able to shoot decently enough offensively.

Utah has one of the strongest longterm hands in the league will their hoard of future picks, and Hendricks helps make it stronger.

10. Oklahoma City— Cason Wallace: A+

Oklahoma City is stacked with young talent in the backcourt with SGA, Giddey, and J-Dub with a fragile Chet Holmgren as their only interesting frontcourt prospect, so you would think they would take a big or wing.

But Sam Presti decided to take on Davis Bertans’ contract to move UP two slots for Cason, which is a significant price to pay for such a small move.

On one hand, this grade could be docked to an A because it’s not an ideal fit, and it may have been more efficient to stand pat at #12, take Gradey Dick if Orlando snipes Cason at #11, and avoid taking on Bertans’ deadweight.

On the other hand, they probably weren’t going to do anything special with the cap space, and you need to respect Presti’s willingness to not care about fit and take the obvious best player available.

The only player who is really set in stone as being a longterm impact player is Shai. Giddey and J-Dub have nice potential, but they still need to make improvements before that is realized. Cason has clear potential to be better than both, so may as well rotate them all now and see who emerges. Then trade whoever doesn’t fit the longterm plans for some taller help.

Overall great pick that gives OKC a nice boost to their longterm outlook.

11. Orlando— Jett Howard: B

Like most people, I had Jett Howard a tier lower than Gradey Dick and was surprised by this pick. Jett has some really gross flaws on defense, as he is soft, hates contact, and plays with lackluster effort. Because of this, it is difficult to get too excited about him.

But he also may have a bit more potential than Dick offensively, and it wouldn’t be a shock if this works out. Against the grain picks like this are always interesting because they can work terribly, but sometimes the team sees something that the public doesn’t and it works out in the end.

12. Dallas— Dereck Lively: A

This pick went great for Dallas. They got off Bertans to trade down just 2 slots, and got the best player available who is an excellent fit with Luka.

Lively has DPOY upside, and his only real flaw is that he cannot create offense to save his life. There is nobody better to pair him with than 38 usage Luka.

This all around was a super smooth pick for Dallas.

13. Toronto— Gradey Dick: A

Toronto needed shooting, and Gradey Dick is an excellent shooter and was likely the best player available. Hard to complain about this one.

14. New Orleans— Jordan Hawkins: D

Hawkins is a great shooter which everybody loves, but he is terrible on defense and can barely dribble, which makes him a not so great value proposition at age 21.

Shooters are weird, so who knows, maybe he makes > 40% on a massive volume of 3PA and isn’t a bottom 5% defensive player in the league carves out a career as a useful role player. But his absolute ceiling is JJ Redick, and there is a ton of bust risk involved here, so this is an underwhelming value proposition and a fairly significant reach.

15. Atlanta— Kobe Bufkin: B

Kobe is a well rounded SG who offers a bit of everything, with no strong weaknesses, so hard to knock this pick.

But skinny SG’s with short arms are not great molds that struggle to make major impacts, and this pick is fairly boring with Brandin Podziemski and Jaime Jaquez still available.

16. Utah— Keyonte George: C+

Key was a tough player to rank. He can shoot and create offense, and is strong and rebounds well for his position. But he is small for SG, not a great athlete, struggles to get to the rim, is turnover prone, and bad on defense.

If you squint you can see some Jamal Murray potential, but the one point that makes it difficult to fully buy is his lesser athleticism. He had 3 dunks as a freshman, and Murray had 18.

Maybe he can find a way to be that good anyway, but it seems like a longshot with a decent amount of bust risk attached. That said, he couldn’t have asked for a better landing spot as Will Hardy seems to be an excellent coach who can put him in a position to succeed.

This pick would be fine if it came a few slots later, but with Jaquez + Podz on the board it could be a regrettable one if Key is not any better than OJ Mayo.

17. LA Lakers— Jalen Hood-Schifino: F

JHS is the third SG taken in a row, and he is clearly the worst of the bunch. He was bad as an NCAA freshman, as he was inefficient, turnover prone, and played subpar defense. He is an older freshman and not very athletic, so it’s going to be an uphill climb to carve out an NBA career, and does not have much upside if he does.

Especially with Jaquez and Podz on the board, this pick may look silly in hindsight

I wonder if they have the Hawkins summary not applied to Dick, where Dick has even less potential to be above average due to his lateral quickness.

Sure, Dick is a better shooter with his IQ, but I got to question if he can be a net plus on both ends.

[theonlyeastcoastrapsfan]

Grade eh dick

[Vampirate]

You said all of this before. And we won a title. You’ll say it all again. Rinse and repeat.

thanks for proving my point...this is how jaded this board is.

They really believe lightening will strike twice because they seen it happen once.

A miracle trade happened once so therefore its bound to happen again is the "logic" the majority of this board is banking on. It's like a person who won the lottery blowing all their money and telling people they can't say sh*t to him because he was right about hitting the lottery before and therefore it will happen again lol good luck with that!

Who would you have taken at 13?

Trade up.

Don't be at pick #13.

Move Siakam to Portland for the #3 pick, try and get at least Simmons/Sharpe + Filler, if you can't, see what else Portland is willing to trade with the #3 pick.

Basically kills 2 birds with 1 stone.

We avoid the Siakam supermax dilemma and get a potential All Star to pair with Barnes.

My issue really is, is that we actually stayed at #13 itself.

If we trade Siakam before he hits UFA, (going into a real rebuild) and wants that supermax, i'll like the Gradey pick much more.

[Jim Todd Jr.]

thanks for proving my point...this is how jaded this board is.

They really believe lightening will strike twice because they seen it happen once.

A miracle trade happened once so therefore its bound to happen again is the "logic" the majority of this board is banking on. It's like a person who won the lottery blowing all their money and telling people they can't say sh*t to him because he was right about hitting the lottery before and therefore it will happen again lol good luck with that!

Who would you have taken at 13?

Trade up.

Don't be at pick #13.

Move Siakam to Portland for the #3 pick, try and get at least Simmons/Sharpe + Filler, if you can't, see what else Portland is willing to trade with the #3 pick.

Basically kills 2 birds with 1 stone.

We avoid the Siakam supermax dilemma and get a potential All Star to pair with Barnes.

My issue really is, is that we actually stayed at #13 itself.

If we trade Siakam before he hits UFA, (going into a real rebuild) and wants that supermax, i'll like the Gradey pick much more.

If you listen to Bobbys interview and the media reports, the #3 for siakam trade was not close. Outside of maybe Anthony Black there is nobody in the 4-12 range I wouldve paid to move up for that is significantly better then GD imo.

[S.W.A.N]

We took arguably the BPA who was also at a position of need. Tough not to be happy with that.

Yet some idiots will tell you this was a bad fit


If one wanted to be argumentative Cam was BPA but he obviously had a medical red flag.

With Wallace and Bilal off the board this is a pretty easy pick for the front office.

He is a bad fit, particularly with Barnes on defense. Both cannot guard quick players.

That is crazy.

Dick wasn't a terrible defender in college at all. He posted a 2.9 DBPM which is better than a lot of the so called better athletes in the draft.

He is also the PERFECT fit for Scottie on Offense. A big time shooter who also is a good instinctive cutter.

And when you look at the rest of the roster, we have plenty of defensive players that can help cover defensive mistakes. OG, Pascal, Yak, Precious, etc etc. Drafting a guy who projects to be an average defender with elite shooting is not a bad fit in any world.

I'm more worried about Fred's defenses fit than I am Dicks. We can hide a 2-3 easily enough. Hiding a bad defensive pg is where things get hard.