StlHawksFan wrote:finestrg wrote:- Still can't believe we passed on Kyle Filipowski at 25, knowing full well we probably were going to lose Hartenstein.
Why? He doesn't project to be a good NBA player. He has very short arms (shorter wingspan than his height) which never translates well in the NBA.
In fact he's just the 10th player drafted with negative length.
https://imgur.com/a/UD92ssb
I've heard this, along with that fact that he's not a traditional C. Respectfully, I couldn't care less about either criticism, honestly... Didn't even care about the whole falling in love and getting engaged to that older woman. A little unorthodox? Sure, but nowhere near the black mark against him that it was made out to be... Come on, wasn't it all a little overblown?? Not like the poor kid shot someone dead, raped someone or robbed a bank!! I actually felt bad for him that he had to go through all of that... And that it cost him money to boot!
Bottom line for me -- we drafted Dadiet at 25. Only 18, not a position of need and judging by his uneven performance in SL, he's got a ways to go developmentally... Hey for all I know, he's gonna be a good player but we're several years away from finding out if he's a player or if he's Kevin Knox. Let's hope he's a player. No one will be rooting for him more than me.
Filipowski, meanwhile, is only 20 (so very young too -- gotta like that), and again, despite not being a traditional C, is still 7', 230. I know I don't need to tell you guys that 7 footers with his skill set don't grow on trees (agile/mobile, can score in the post, shoot 3s, handle the ball real well for someone that size, can pass the ball like Hartenstein). Not expecting Domas Sabonis rebounding the ball either but I think he'll rebound enough...W/o the stupid 'marrying-his-babysitter' stuff, I bet he wouldn't have even been there at 25... As he continually dropped, I was like oh ****, ok, come to poppa... Then we passed.
I get part of this was that we were able to get Dadiet at a little less than the max a player picked 25th would've gotten (what did we save there, like $800 - 900K? And that wound up going toward his overseas buyout anyway, right?). But ok, point taken -- still allowed us to save that amount on the cap too, I believe (and I'm sure in exchange, the Knicks agreed to take him on the NBA roster now rather than let him stay stashed in Europe, esp. as this kid is so young and had 'draft and stash' written all over him). I get that Filipowski probably wouldn't have accepted those exact terms (although who knows the way his stock kept plummeting on draft night). But I mean all we had to do then was call all the teams below us from 26 - 31 and see if we could've orchestrated a trade down to get Flip at a lower spot and then at a lower number, no? Come on, the Knicks are the masters at trading down to get their guy at a lower spot..
They just flat out didn't want Filipowski I guess and I found it baffling. Still do...I just feel it was a mistake passing on him. We didn't need Dadiet who's no sure thing anyway... WE DID HAVE A NEED for Kyle Filipowski, however... We're suddenly a win-now team, right? So with our dearth at the 5 spot, why not look to enhance the front court with an NBA ready-now player like KF with his diverse skills to pair with Mitch and let's go after this thing?!?!?
And not for anything -- another thing I still find baffling is how we passed on signing a lot of low cost Cs that also could've helped us like Thomas Bryant, Jay Huff and Omer Yurtseven (we shouldn't have lowballed Yurtseven -- should've offered him guaranteed money)...
No way anyone can convince me that this kid will have zero impact in the NBA --
RIP mags
