2025 Draft Thread - Part 3

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Outstanding draft. I think you guys clearly were hoping to get a #1 scorer and you got two of them! Riley was 10th on my Big Board, slightly behind Ace and imo if you were hoping for Ace but disappointed you didn't get him you should be happy that you got Riley. Word is, he's been cooking guys during workouts and has put on some solid muscle. I may be delusional but there's some Tatum to his game and I honestly think with some refinement and if he gets stronger he might be special.

You've got the 10th pick in the 2nd round. There's still plenty of talent still on the board.

If you want a stretch 4 there's Fleming and Markovic
If you want a center there's Kalkbrenner and Raynaud
If you want wing depth there's Thiero, Watkins, Pate, James and Penda
If you want guard depth there's Proctor, Jones, and Nembhard

good news is if you keep the pick you're guaranteed to get one of them and every single one is worth drafting and would be a good addition to the roster.

I got to say, you guys are as miserable and pessimistic as we are except you're 7 deep and counting with 19-21 y/o kids with starter potential. I don't know if so many of you are horrible talent evaluators or conditioned to disappointment so crap on the young guys as a form of self preservation or defense mechanism but snap out of it. You have needed to do this for decades and it's finally happening. Let the cream rise to the top. One more tank year and with how strong next year's class is you're almost guaranteed to get that "engine" you feel you need

THANK YOU, FarBeyondDriven.

This is an even more promising young influx of talent than John Wall, Bradley Beal, Kelly Oubre, and Otto Porter, though they hadnserious potential. Wall's contract necessitating the Porter trade and Wall's injury ended that. Porter couldn't stay healthy, but I always liked his game better than Beal's. Otto was efficient and a great rebounding SF. When Randy Wittman had all four, the Wizards were in pretty good shape, not advance in the playoffs.

You are spot on, FBD. Let the cream rise to the top.

I am glad they didn't draft Feara. Let Bub and AJ learn under CJ.

With KyShawn, he has got to battle for playing time now. Will Riley is the truth.

Tre Johnson is a bucket getter, but Bilal Coulibaly might lock him down in practice. Corey Kispert will have to step up. Middleton is the veteran and NBA champion. Smart is the best defender.

There are layers of mentors and oodles of young, long, potentially prolific young players.

This round 2 will likely be meaningful. I like those names, particularly Kalkbrenner.

Johni Broome would be terrific. Fleming is another good one. Raynaud is soft like Alex, but he can drill it and fill it.

[dobrojim]

We are now about to enter my most hated portion of the NBA season: the post draft grading period. This is the time when a bunch of people assess how well teams did in the draft while having precisely zero additional information on how good any of the players drafted actually are. It's all just a rehashing of everyone's mock drafts.

The only thing you can grade post draft is whether a team filled a need with their draft pick. We have no idea if good players "slipped" or bad players went unexpectedly high because we don't know who is good and who is bad yet.

Certain irony here

The critiques are about how teams filled needs and
addressed weaknesses but a broadly held school of
thought is that teams should draft for quality over fit. So did they fill specific holes or get better players?

[gambitx777]

If he makes it I can't see us passing up Maxine Raynaud. He's big he can shoot. He's a solid rim protecter even if his defence is an issue and he's skinny.

Sent from my SM-S926U1 using RealGM mobile app

[tontoz]

We are now about to enter my most hated portion of the NBA season: the post draft grading period. This is the time when a bunch of people assess how well teams did in the draft while having precisely zero additional information on how good any of the players drafted actually are. It's all just a rehashing of everyone's mock drafts.

The only thing you can grade post draft is whether a team filled a need with their draft pick. We have no idea if good players "slipped" or bad players went unexpectedly high because we don't know who is good and who is bad yet.

We can judge picks based on the play we've seen so far. Based on that WTF were the Nets doing?

[DCZards]

I think what I find most confusing is to hear "hard worker" and also hear that Johnson took plays off enough to such an extent that our GM called him out on it in an interview AND is a clear slacker, or just clueless on defense.

How are you both a hard worker, and also that. What about the athletic player breakdown scouting reports from coaches and scouts that include one guy saying he's exactly the same guy he's always been. That doesn't really sound like a worker either.

I'm baffled by the contradictory pieces of this, and trying to figure out how to holistically combine them: is he just a hard worker on what he's good at?

I don’t find it contradictory to say that Tre’s a hard worker and he’s also been known to take plays off.

By hard worker, I’m assuming they’re talking about working on his game and striving to get better. That’s a good thing.

By taking plays off, I’m assuming they’re referring to Tre’s in game play where there is evidence that he slacks off at times. That’s a bad thing…but it’s also something that should be pointed out (which Dawkins has apparently already done) and that a player should work at addressing.

The answers to most of your questions about Tre (or any player for that matter) will only be known in the future.

[nate33]

I watched a bunch of video on Will Riley and I can now appreciate the on-ball creation and shot making skills the guy possesses. I think it's fair to overlook his relatively poor 2P% and 3P% given his shooting volume and the degree to which many of his shots were self-created.

I like that he shot better in the second half of the season against stiffer competition. His TS% in his first 17 games was .520 including the cupcake portion of the schedule. His TS% over the final 18 games against the teeth of the conference schedule and the two tournaments was .550. Of particular note, his 2P% rose from .466 to .521 over the second half of the season.

I'm still a little alarmed at his combine athleticism measurements and his horrifically low stocks. The guy averaged just 0.4 steals and 0.4 blocks per 36.

The best part about his statistical profile his playmaking. He averaged 3.1 assists per 36 (3.3 over the second half of the season) as a 6-8 wing, while only averaging 1.7 turnovers on fairly high usage. Playmaking plus shot creation are prerequisites for NBA stardom. He has those bases covered.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

AFM,

DQ found refuge in Zion.
There's a joke about holy ice cream in there somewhere.
I can see a Fat Boys t-tshrt
Fat Tuesday Fat Boys

On a serious tip, TROY WEAVER either nailed it this draft or blew it. Time will tell.

Jordan Poole will help.

[tontoz]

One thing to keep in mind is that some of these guys are playing college ball because they have to, not because they want to. Sometimes I got the feeling (even with Harper) that they were just killing time until the real games begin in the NBA.

Not everyone was completely invested in the college experience like Cooper.

[tontoz]

AFM,

DQ found refuge in Zion.
There's a joke about holy ice cream in there somewhere.
I can see a Fat Boys t-tshrt
Fat Tuesday Fat Boys

On a serious tip, TROY WEAVER either nailed it this draft or blew it. Time will tell.

Jordan Poole will help.

New Orleans isn't the best play to go if you struggle with weight.

[The Consiglieri]

We are now about to enter my most hated portion of the NBA season: the post draft grading period. This is the time when a bunch of people assess how well teams did in the draft while having precisely zero additional information on how good any of the players drafted actually are. It's all just a rehashing of everyone's mock drafts.

The only thing you can grade post draft is whether a team filled a need with their draft pick. We have no idea if good players "slipped" or bad players went unexpectedly high because we don't know who is good and who is bad yet.

I've never understood why people hate this and crap on it, grading is simply employed people, or freelance bloggers, looking at adp's in aggregated mocks, or simply there own and establish relative value based on where guys were expected to go, and where they were taken. Nor worse, and no better than that.

It's not some evil thing, it's just evaluating live perceptions of whether teams appear to have reached, or stolen "values". We find out in time, whether both these takes on relative value or lack thereof are correct, and how well or how badly teams worked their boards to gain asset value or not.

We don't know how good they are yet, we just know how good analytics people versus tape people think guys are, and how they ranked them respectively, so what we get from these grades is how effectively teams collected asset value.

Is anyone surprised that yet again OKC, and San Antonio appear to have done well, and yet again, other teams, notoriously stupid, like Charlotte, Brooklyn, and New Orleans, appear to have screwed up?

There's value in that.

But yeah, we aren't learning anything at all about the players, and won't until the regular season, just about how effectively teams worked their boards, and around other teams to collect as much value as possible based upon perceptions of these guys through the '24-'25 season.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

AFM,

Michael Jordan picked a Dukie! Kon Knueppel #4.

Then he doubled down on white dudes with Liam McNeely! I love it.

MJ's Cuban wife must have changed him. Then again, he played with John Paxson and Steve Kerr.

I love it because LaMelo will be LaLethal with knockdown shooters.

[The Consiglieri]

Ringer had him 4th I believe. KOC on Yahoo had him 4th. From all accounts he was ranked 3-5 on most people's big board.

If you look at that weird board someone posted around page 64, you can see what the analytics people think, and the Scout types separated out, and its pretty clear, there's a consensus top 3, a 4th guy that's generally almost consensus, and then the boards break down entirely after that with wide disagreement from the various individual analytics people, and scouts. Tre falls into the fall apart zone: Consensus guys for the scouts were Flagg, Harper, VJ and Kon as their top 4 with Ace and Tre with the only other guys that were more or less consensus top 6 (Hollinger the one guy who had both Tre and Ace much lower than the rest of the scout dudes). The Analytics guys I should say only had consensus on Flagg, Harper and VJ, after that it just breaks down, the only player after the big 3 to harness 3/6 analytics guys agreeing on a high end evaluation was CMB.

So I think a better way to break it down might be, the scouts other than Hollinger, saw this draft as clearly Flagg, Harper, VJ, Kon, Bailey and Tre, period as the top 6, while the analytics guys only had a big kind of elite tier as Flagg/Harper/VJ, with half the biggest names in that twitter post adding CMB, and half not, and a clear huge tier break after that with no consensus whatsoever.

It's a weird draft, you can be happy if you're a tape geek, scout fan with Tre because everyone other than Hollinger saw him as a top 4-6 guy, if you're an analytics guy, you're not gonna be (Tre was 9th, 11th, 23rd, 19th, 3rd and 14th according to them)....ftr, Riley was 28,5 from the analytics guys if you drop the high and low ratings (80th and 24th respectively), and 24th according to scouts if you do the same.

I'm never going to pretend to see the game like a scout. I look with my eyes. I have no idea how Kon is rated so highly. He's an excellent shooter, but he's 6'5 with a 6'6 wingspan, and the agility testing suggests he's going to have trouble on the defensive side of the ball. I think scouts and numbers guys get too enamored with shooting and thinking "just put 4 guys around him and he'll make it work." I want a guy where you put 4 guys around HIM and they'll make it work. Bball IQ gets you only so far when you're the slowest dude on the court. I'm not shooting for a glue guy at 4 or at 6 or wherever. I like Tre because he's an excellent shooter and his measurements, unlike Kon, suggest to me there is defensive potential.

Well, in fairness, the analytics people, mostly agree with you, 4 of the 6 analytics guys they had in that tweet had Kon 10th or worse in their rankings, it was the tape geeks/video scouting people who had him rated really, really high.

[AWIZZINGBULLET]

If he makes it I can't see us passing up Maxine Raynaud. He's big he can shoot. He's a solid rim protecter even if his defence is an issue and he's skinny.

Sent from my SM-S926U1 using RealGM mobile app

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

So many teams got better.

Phoenix got Maluach.

Atlanta got what will very likely be a 2026 Lottery pick.

Utah, for better or worse, got Fears and Bailey.

So far, a very enjoyale draft,

[pcbothwel]

I think what I find most confusing is to hear "hard worker" and also hear that Johnson took plays off enough to such an extent that our GM called him out on it in an interview AND is a clear slacker, or just clueless on defense.

How are you both a hard worker, and also that. What about the athletic player breakdown scouting reports from coaches and scouts that include one guy saying he's exactly the same guy he's always been. That doesn't really sound like a worker either.

I'm baffled by the contradictory pieces of this, and trying to figure out how to holistically combine them: is he just a hard worker on what he's good at?

I don’t find it contradictory to say that Tre’s a hard worker and he’s also been known to take plays off.

By hard worker, I’m assuming they’re talking about working on his game and striving to get better. That’s a good thing.

By taking plays off, I’m assuming they’re referring to Tre’s in game play where there is evidence that he slacks off at times. That’s a bad thing…but it’s also something that should be pointed out (which Dawkins has apparently already done) and that a player should work at addressing.

The answers to most of your questions about Tre (or any player for that matter) will only be known in the future.

I cant say this enough. Tre played 34 MPG on a usage of 29%. Do you know how many freshman in the last 20 years match that?
Less than 6.
I count Durant, Beasley, Blake, and Cade.

[AWIZZINGBULLET]

If he makes it I can't see us passing up Maxine Raynaud. He's big he can shoot. He's a solid rim protecter even if his defence is an issue and he's skinny.

Sent from my SM-S926U1 using RealGM mobile app

This is my guy also. Has been all year as far as bigs go.

Traditional big game with outside range, not to mention would help us dramatically on the boards. No way he’s falling to 43 though, would almost certainly have to make a play to go get him.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

AFM,

DQ found refuge in Zion.
There's a joke about holy ice cream in there somewhere.
I can see a Fat Boys t-tshrt
Fat Tuesday Fat Boys

On a serious tip, TROY WEAVER either nailed it this draft or blew it. Time will tell.

Jordan Poole will help.

New Orleans isn't the best play to go if you struggle with weight.

Lol. That's why I love this!!!

DQ better not meet Emeril Lagasse.

[AFM]

AFM,

DQ found refuge in Zion.
There's a joke about holy ice cream in there somewhere.
I can see a Fat Boys t-tshrt
Fat Tuesday Fat Boys

On a serious tip, TROY WEAVER either nailed it this draft or blew it. Time will tell.

Jordan Poole will help.

Like you, I wished he had gone to SAS or some other top tier organization. NO seems pretty dysfunctional and a team with Poole and Zion might not be the best for a young kid. I’m not really sure what they’re doing over there, but Bill Simmons called the trade last night a top 5 worst trade of the last decade.
They must really have loved Queen because they traded next years unprotected first to get him. Probably a top 5 pick next year, in what projects to be a better draft than this year.
Some other analyst pointed out the trade only makes sense if they move Zion for lottery picks.

We’ll see what happens but of course I’m rooting for the kid.

[Rafael122]

Read on Twitter

Lakers moved up 10 spots by trading 55 and cash.

That's basically the template if the Wizards want to move up.

[nate33]

We are now about to enter my most hated portion of the NBA season: the post draft grading period. This is the time when a bunch of people assess how well teams did in the draft while having precisely zero additional information on how good any of the players drafted actually are. It's all just a rehashing of everyone's mock drafts.

The only thing you can grade post draft is whether a team filled a need with their draft pick. We have no idea if good players "slipped" or bad players went unexpectedly high because we don't know who is good and who is bad yet.

Certain irony here

The critiques are about how teams filled needs and
addressed weaknesses but a broadly held school of
thought is that teams should draft for quality over fit. So did they fill specific holes or get better players?

I agree with you that BPA overrides drafting for fit, particularly for a rebuilding team. So basically, there is virtually nothing we can say now about how the draft that is more informed that it would have been 2 days ago. That's why the post-draft grading analysis is generally worthless, except perhaps for good teams looking to fill a need.