2024 Draft Thread - Part II

[nate33]

I really thought San Antonio would grab him 4th. His pick-and-roll ability and height to make entry passes would be perfect for Wemby. Maybe now they'll still consider him at 8, but he'll probably slip further.

[AFM]

Hell no I aint picking him in the lottery now.

[Jay81]

What does partially torn mean?

[nate33]

What does partially torn mean?

Yeah, it sounds like it means, "we will try and rehab it first, but that won't work, so then we will need surgery anyhow".

[doclinkin]

My assessment though has him as an upgraded Anthony Black. A better defender. Stronger. With ultimately more shot creation ability and better upside at the 3pt line. Longer wingspan, better frame to add strength, thus more versatile. He is aggressive and wants to score. His toughness will earn him a reputation and repetitions.

...

A more aggressive better scoring Anthony Black or Dyson Daniels is a damned good player.

Can you link any stats or plays that support your conclusions?

Ha! No.

I should have said better finisher. Black is creative with the ball, and makes his own shots. I like his game. I think he is going to get better and better. My read is Castle is bigger, stronger, more decisive and tougher to stop when he gets inside. The 3pt shooting is based mostly on the slightly better FT% in college and that I like Castles form: high overhead, balanced, focused, repeatable. The hitch in his shot is that he tries to float and rebalance mid-air but that is fixed with reps and a shot coach. Scoring wise I liked his aggression in highschool, and think that stages up as he gets strength, success, and confidence.

[dckingsfan]

What does partially torn mean?

Yeah, it sounds like it means, "we will try and rehab it first, but that won't work, so then we will need surgery anyhow".

Yep. And if you take him lower, you need to be patient.

[doclinkin]

This is also in distinguishing someone who's still like 4-8 ish on my "board" such as it exists and someone who's probably 2nd unless his medicals really are dire. Castle is one of the more appealing options in this draft overall, but I don't think he has quite the case a few options I'd rate above him do (also I don't necessarily think Topic is a very volatile low end option setting the health stuff aside - he's been a consistent producer and his playmaking and decision making seem to set a pretty solid baseline as a useful NBA player, so I don't think I'd equate him and like Buzelis or Holland who have very high upsides but aren't sure bets to be even reasonable NBA offensive contributors at least for a while).

Huge point here. I hate sounding like I'm constantly trashing someone when they are still are a lottery pick to me.

I have stated I don't want Clingan but honestly he's 6th or 7th on my board. Even Castle is late lottery.

I agree with all of this. I like all the options at #2, to greater or lesser degree. Like, I have doubts on Sarr, but those doubts can easily be erased with growth and a program around him. Topic. Sheppard. Holland. Trade down. Trade for future picks.

The best part is I trust the FO to make a better decision than me. Which is not a feeling I had under Ernie or Sheppard. Though I will admit freely they did fine with Deni, even if I liked Hali more. We did better than my trade down scenario that year.

[Jay81]

if we dont trade down....i would take Reed Sheppard or Dillingham at 2. He could be part of a really good team down the road. There are too many questions at 2 and we cant afford to miss on this pick with such a lack of talent on the team

[closg00]

Some on this board were hot to draft Topic WITH his knee injury , glad this won’t even be a possibility now at 2.

[tontoz]

Some on this board were hot to draft Topic WITH his knee injury , glad this won’t even be a possibility now at 2.

That's because we actually waited to see what was wrong rather than stupidly making an assumption and pretending that we know what is wrong.

We knew the truth would come out before draft night.

[NatP4]

Read on Twitter

[closg00]

Some on this board were hot to draft Topic WITH his knee injury , glad this won’t even be a possibility now at 2.

That's because we actually waited to see what was wrong rather than stupidly making an assumption and pretending that we know what is wrong.

We knew the truth would come out before draft night.

Making the call to pass on Topic was based on facts, not assumptions, he suffered a knee injury (fact), then had to leave a game after suffering a non-contact injury to the same knee. F**k no, hard pass, insisting on drafting him @2 AFTER these ^ events is what’s stupid.

[tontoz]

A partially torn ACL still sounds bad to me. I have a hard time believing that it wont hurt his draft position.

[tontoz]

Some on this board were hot to draft Topic WITH his knee injury , glad this won’t even be a possibility now at 2.

That's because we actually waited to see what was wrong rather than stupidly making an assumption and pretending that we know what is wrong.

We knew the truth would come out before draft night.

Making the call to pass on Topic was based on facts, not assumptions, he suffered a knee injury (fact), then had to leave a game after suffering a non-contact injury to the same knee. F**k no, hard pass, insisting on drafting him @2 AFTER these ^ events is what’s stupid.

You may not be aware of this but injuries can vary in severity.

You didn't want to draft him before the 2nd injury and you just used that as an excuse to say we shouldn't draft him.You aren't fooling anyone other than possibly yourself.

[NatP4]

A partially torn ACL still sounds bad to me. I have a hard time believing that it wont hurt his draft position.

This was somewhat expected I think. It was always some kind of sprain/partial tear that was on the line of requiring surgery/not. Seems like Topic pushed it earlier in the year in order to play for his dream club, Crvena/Euroleague, and tweaked it again at the wrong time.

Seems clear that he’s going to need surgery now, they are just trying to withhold that information until after the draft.

[J-Ves]

If we can pry Sac’s late lotto pick from them I’d consider Topic there, but absolutely no way at 2

[NatP4]

Sheppard/Clingan/trade down for me.

Still a great fit for Topic. Tank hard next year, let him rehab/redshirt. A patient team can really benefit from a situation like that.

[doclinkin]

So if I understand this correctly, we actually don't know if Castle is elite defensively because it's entirely possible it may be skewed by a guy like Clingan stopping everything. So if Castle's shooting isn't there yet, and we have true questions about his defense...what is his NBA calling card then?

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

Show me where Clingan is the cause of Castle's defense.

If anything it's the other way around. There's a significant sample size of games where Clingan was out with injury. We can see his effect in these games, including an uptick in minutes jumping to 30+ minutes a game, with increased rebounding, scoring, etc.

Thing is Castle helped Clingan a ton by picking up the ball handlers full press end to end, which slowed the attack to allow the slower footed Clingan to get in position under the basket. Likewise his stopping penetration allows UConn to play a drop coverage big and gave Clingan time to recover when he did challenge outside. You see how slow Clingan's lane agility scores are, so how is it he was able to recover to get into position all the time. You can talk about UConn's scheme, but Castle's full court dominance was a huge part of that scheme.

EDIT: In my dream we land Castle and Edey. Noting Edey's deceptively good lane agility scores. And Castle's excellent post entry passing game. Next to Bilal or Deni to snuff outside shooting and slow dribble drive attacks. Put Vuk as a stretch 4. We'd be huge.

He is a mountain to climb on a defense. Edey was in the 90th percentile among all draft prospects in block percentage, according to CBB Analytics, and in the 83rd percentile in blocks plus steals.

“I think it just comes with kind of realizing who I am,” he said. “I’m never going to be the wiry seven-foot guy who can — like Kevin Durant, that is never going to be me, guys like that. I’m a 7-foot-4, 300-pound guy. I’m built to be in the paint, to carve out space to protect my area. And that’s what I’m gonna keep doing. I think there’s a lot of people in the NBA that do stuff like that. (Jonas) Valančiūnas, (Ivica) Zubac, Steven Adams; guys who had a lot of success in the NBA being those paint presences. I’m going to stick to who I am and I kind of know who I am.”

But yeah, somebody would need to learn to shoot from outside LOL.

[gesa2]

It’d be funny if after all this debate here the Wiz take Clingan at #2, the one player none of us seem to think they’ll go for.

[pancakes3]

idk how it got into my head but i can't shake it now. Castle reminds me of Dahntay Jones. ::shrug::