JMAC3 wrote:How confident are we that the Spurs actually make good picks at 4 and 8?
Obviously they crushed the 2023 Draft
1- Wemby
44- Sidy Cissoko - too early to know
2022 Draft- Out of 50 guys drafted they rank 47th, 49th and 50th in Vorp for Draft class
9- Sochan
20- Branham
25- Wesley
2021 Draft - gross
12- Primo
41- Wieskamp
2020 Draft- Good draft
11- Vassell
41- Tre Jones
2019 Draft
19- Luka Samanic- Miss
29- Keldon Johson- Hit
2018 Draft - Walker is 53rd in Vorp out of 57 guys drafted
18- Lonnie Walker
I know people will hate that I used Vorp, whether you love the stat hard to say these guys are exceeding expectations. So out of 9 first round picks really only 3 have been good and 1 of those is Wemby.
This is completely untrue. Their drafting has been good. I think the first thing to do is set a baseline for what constitutes 'good' drafting. To me, if you had the number 10 pick and you got the 10th best player, you did pretty well. If you got a top 5 player with the 10th pick you did exceptional. If you did any better than that you hit it out of the park.
So let's look at their picks in the post-Buford era (which is drafts 2020 to 23, but we can talk about 2019 too). I'm not going to discuss 2nd rounders that fail because the expectations there should be nil.
2019: Samanic was a bust, but they got a significantly higher value with Keldon at #29. So right off the bat that's above average on balance. But then let's look at the context. Who did they miss out on by drafting Samanic? Nic Claxton in the 2nd round, and Mann in the 2nd round, and that's basically it. Matisse, Jordan Poole and G.Will got early hype, but ppl now recognise their limitations make them subpar players on the whole. I'm not sure there even were 19 good players this draft, and in a way I admire the Spurs for trying to hit it out of the park after realising this. Yeh, it didn't work out, but they didn't miss out on anything they'll lose sleep over at 19.
2020, as you admit, was a good draft. Got 2 guys way above their draft slot.
2021 they swung big on Primo, and the guy actually showed flashes of being good. He is out of the league now for reasons having nothing to do with his playing ability. I'm surprised the Clippers even gave him a chance given his baggage, and they didn't for long.
2022 they got Sochan at 9, and he has showed a tonne of talent in his 2 years. I feel pretty confident he'll be better than the 9th best guy in this draft. Branham and Wesley have both flashed potential, we'll see how they work out long term. It's way too early to write these guys off.
So where's the issue? It seems like we'll above average drafting to me.
