doclinkin wrote:Dark Faze wrote:The pick that soured me the most was Sengun. In the rearview, Tommy probably had some idea that John was on the way out and may have some signal that Westbrook could be the swap. Maybe it didn't work out that way, but you can see a scenario where you avoid the PG position there.
The Sengun thing is like...you clearly are in desperate need of a home run. You've got Kispert looking like the definition of a fringe roleplaying jump shooter and then you've got Sengun who looks clearly like he's got incredible offensive potential with the greatest fear being he'd be played off the floor because of his defense. But that's definitely something you live with. I wonder if he also had in mind about getting Sabonis at the time. IDK.
I don't think you ever want to say you'd pass on Haliburton in hindsight, but I can imagine a scenario where Brad is still on this team if we had landed him, and with Tommy still at the reigns having us competing for the 6/7/8. TBH, I think this front office staff might be worth more than that scenario, but there's no telling if the two would be mutually exclusive.
Haliburton was the move because he could slot in perfectly next to Brad and even play well off ball if John returned in good health (unlikely). We had gone a year without Wall, where Ish Smith played the 2nd most minutes on the team. Anyone who had lived through the Arenas knee blow-out knew the pitfalls in our continued failure to provide an understudy at the position that is the 2nd most difficult to fill. (Lead ballhandler/floor captain -vs- dominant 2-way Big). Passing on him for Avdija --another overseas player with a built-in market-- seemed like a so-Tommy and so-Ted ($) maneuver. By the time the next draft rolled around picking up a WYSIWYG role player did not seem like a total waste of a 15th pick. I liked Sengun, wanted some players further down, but by 15 the odds are not as strong that you pick a solid player. No matter what PIF will try to tell you
No disagreement, doc -- that is totally correct: the odds are not strong that you pick "a solid player" at 15.
For that matter, the odds are not strong at 10 either: in fact... they're not much better at 10 than they are at 15.
Here are all the guys taken at 10 in from 2010 through 2022:
Spoiler:
& here are all the guys taken at 15 in the same drafts:
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Are you sure that the list of #10 picks is better overall than the list of #15 picks?
I'd say the top two across both lists were taken at 15. The 3d & 4th best guys were #10 picks. I've bolded their names.
For that matter, were the guys taken all the way up at #5 much better overall than those taken at #10 or #15? You tell me:
Spoiler:
I don't think there's a player on that list as good as the best 4 taken at #10 & #15 over the same stretch -- do you agree?
