Draft day, who do you choose?

[Harry10]

When Solomon Jones was selected i said "i would have perfered Paul Millsap, but i like Solomon's athletism, i'm okay with this pick"

i'm pretty much going to say the same thing about Teague, "i would have perfered Patrick Mills, but i like Teauge's athletism, i'm okay with the pick"

just hope that Mills slips to the Hawks in the second round.

[killbuckner]

I don't at all believe in drafting for need at the #19. If you get a useful player at 19 you have done a good job- the Hawks don't have any backup Bigmen under contract- I think its ridiculous to say that the Hawks are stacked at the position. And I have posted it before but I can't see how its possible to read this article and think that Blair woudl have been a bad pick at 19. http://www.basketballprospectus.com/art ... icleid=580

The Spurs got a ridiculous steal.

[_BBIB_]

I don't at all believe in drafting for need at the #19. If you get a useful player at 19 you have done a good job- the Hawks don't have any backup Bigmen under contract- I think its ridiculous to say that the Hawks are stacked at the position. And I have posted it before but I can't see how its possible to read this article and think that Blair woudl have been a bad pick at 19. http://www.basketballprospectus.com/art ... icleid=580

The Spurs got a ridiculous steal.

Blair at 19 would have been a ridiculously stupid pick. Pass on a potential starting PG of the future for a backup big man.

We would have been the laughing stock of the league once again.


And the above comparison of Solo to Jeff Teague, seriously?

[killbuckner]

I see Teague as a poor mans Maurice Williams. I see Blair as the best rebounder to enter the league in a decade. Rodman was a late first round pick because teams focused on what he didn't do well instead of looking focusing on the things that he could do.

With the 19th pick I don't at all want to draft for need- I want to take the best player. And I think that Blair is just a superior player to Teague.

[killbuckner]

Here is a list of guys drafted with the 19th pick in the last 20 years. Look at this list and you will see why I don't think you should ever be drafting to fill a need. You simply can't count on players taken in this range to pan out. If you get a useful NBA player then you have done a good job

2008 J.J. Hickson NC State Cleveland
2007 Javaris Crittenton Georgia Tech L.A. Lakers
2006 Quincy Douby Rutgers Sacramento
2005 Hakim Warrick Syracuse Memphis
2004 Dorell Wright CA HSSr. Miami
2003 Aleksandar Pavlovic Serbia 1983 Utah
2002 Ryan Humphrey Notre Dame Utah
2001 Jason Collins Stanford Houston
2000 Jamaal Magloire Kentucky Hornets
1999 Quincy Lewis Minnesota Utah
1998 Pat Garrity Notre Dame Milwaukee
1997 Scot Pollard Kansas Detroit
1996 Walter McCarty Kentucky New York
1995 Randolph Childress Wake Forest Detroit
1994 Tony Dumas UMKC Dallas
1993 Acie Earl Iowa Boston
1992 Don MacLean UCLA Detroit
1991 LaBradford Smith Louisville Detroit
1990 Dee Brown Jacksonville Boston
1989 Kenny Payne Louisville Philadelphia

[theatlfan]

Here is a list of guys drafted with the 19th pick in the last 20 years. Look at this list and you will see why I don't think you should ever be drafting to fill a need. You simply can't count on players taken in this range to pan out. If you get a useful NBA player then you have done a good job

*Sigh* we've been through this. There is a BIG difference between "drafting for need" and not "drafting to a strength". Drafting to strengths is what caused us to pass on Deron/CP3 for Marvin; drafting for need is what caused us to draft Shelden before Roy. Drafting to a strength causes the team to take minutes from more productive players and give them up to develop your draft picks. This makes the team overall worse. Drafting for need means you have so many minutes that you're desperate. With Smith, Horford, and Marvin able to take PF minutes, why go for another PF? I guess if you plan to trade 2 of them, sure. If you think that Blair could make Horford a more competent C on D, then sure. But unless there's a better plan, then you're just collecting players - not building a team. I've had enough of that under BK to bother with it again now.

[killbuckner]

The Hawks have no backup bigs on the roster. I just don't at all see how you consider the frontline to be such a strength that the team should avoid drafting players in those spots. Its not like Blair would be 5th string and ther eare already backup PF's that are far ahead of him. I don't think you should worry about drafting a starter with the 19th pick- you should simply try and get the best player and to me thats Blair by a huge margin.

And I 100% think the goal at #19 is just to collect players. You shouldn't worry about your needs- just collect players that can play and you will be doing a great job. Its tough enough to find players at #19 who can contribute in the league- I don't at all care who my starters are when I am drafting that late. Production you get out of the #19 pick is just a bonus.

[HoopsGuru25]

We go through this every year and it always looks dumb in hindsight. KB has been pretty consistent when it comes to taking the BPA and he's right. Two years ago no one considered Thad Young(who kb wanted) because we couldn't find a spot for him to play...but now Childress is in Europe and Marvin is a restricted free agent while Acie(4 year college player that played a position we needed)couldn't beat out AJ/Lue for minutes and ended up getting traded as filler in a salary dump. Once you get to a certain point in the draft(19 for example)-just take the guy who you think has the best chance of being a good player.

[theatlfan]

We still have rights to Zaza and Marvin and Horford and Smith are under contract. All 4 of those players would be better as an NBA PF next year than Blair - so yeah, Blair would be the 5th PF on the roster. Once again, if Blair could slide over to C for some minutes, then picking Blair makes more sense. If there was an obvious hole @ the position in a year or 2 (ala our wings if either JJ or Marvin aren't retained), then picking Blair makes more sense. If the plan is to let Zaza walk and trade one of the other 3, then picking Blair makes more sense. Even then, you've already announced your intentions and other teams can take advantage. Look @ the Rubio situation and the fact that no one was able to bowl over either MEM, OKC, SAC, or MIN (yet) to trade him. The same happens when you already have 4 PFs on the roster and draft another. You end up without any leverage and either have to dump a talented player or take less than what the market value would otherwise be.

As far as collecting players, no, the objective is always to build a team. You don't say that Mullens will never fit what our scheme is/will be, but he could be a better player than anyone else if he was in another scheme, so we'll select him. In this sense, you're building a team with a clear vision. The same holds when analyzing your roster. The result of the 2 situations is the same. You're selecting a player who'll sit the bench and another team may try and trade for him, if he's cheap... prolly cheaper than other players you could have gotten @ the same slot. For us, the only position that we have covered if we lose our FAs is PF - Smith is good for 36 mins per while Horford could slide over for the other 12. If you're the GM and carry on Sund's philosophy of analyzing his coach based on Ws, then how can you give him a team with only 1 position that's clearly of NBA caliber in terms of both quality and quantity? That's asinine. I'd consider just walking if I was the coach.

It'd be one thing if a player with a clear HOF upside fell to us and we had to adjust our strategy. If Griffin fell to #19, then, yeah, we'd have to decide who to dump to create minutes for him. Blair is not Griffin though and never was. Blair was an iffy pick by most GMs even before everyone found out he didn't have ACLs (hence, why he continued to fall through the teams that you'd figure he could help the most immediately - like POR... 3x... with 2 of those picks being of the same mold). Your entire argument is that he's a sure-thing banger, but no GM thought enough of him to select him in the 1st. So why bother to carry on the argument now?

[theatlfan]

We go through this every year and it always looks dumb in hindsight. KB has been pretty consistent when it comes to taking the BPA and he's right. Two years ago no one considered Thad Young(who kb wanted) because we couldn't find a spot for him to play...but now Childress is in Europe and Marvin is a restricted free agent while Acie(4 year college player that played a position we needed)couldn't beat out AJ/Lue for minutes and ended up getting traded as filler in a salary dump. Once you get to a certain point in the draft(19 for example)-just take the guy who you think has the best chance of being a good player.

But you ignore the obvious ?: would player X have been able to develop here if he didn't get any minutes? Would he be nearly as good? There are plenty of examples of talented players who don't develop on the bench.

I wasn't a member of this site, but I was actually a proponent of drafting Young @ that time too. Marvin wasn't developing and many thought that Smith was looking clearly like he should play solely @ PFs. At the least, we had backup minutes for Young to play and see if he could develop. In this case, I disagree.

[killbuckner]

I think that Blair is a potential allstar talent that somehow slipped to the second round. Blair was a comparable player to Griffin in college. Because of his HISTORIC offensive rebounding he very well have been the more effective offensive player. To me this is absolutely a case where it made no sense that a player this good would fall to the Hawks- they were crazy to pass him up. I just think that this is one of those times when you will look back and think about what a missed opportunity it was. Think back to the Acie Law pick with Thad Young sitting right there. You would have hated taking Young at the time when he would have been the third string SF but in retrospect it would have been the far better choice.

And I am saying something now even though he dropped because there are plenty of times that guys have dropped in the draft because of overblown injury concerns. Danny Granger went far too low because of worries about his knees. Rashard Lewis dropped to the second round because of worries about his knees. I think for a player as good as blair its worth the chance. He never had any injury problems at Pitt.

The Hawks have Horford and Smith under contract. Zaza is an unresticted free agent who isn't going to get more than the MLE- the fact that the hawks have his bird rights doesn't really help them keep him. Marvin is a RFA and is a SF. But I'd be perfectly happy to do a S&T of Marvin if the right deal came along. But to me Marvin is a wing. The Hawks have only smith and Horford under contract and Blair would have a big role on the team since he would be the hawks best rebounder by a significant margin. If you want to replace Blair's production this season I think it would probably take giving a free agent the full MLE. I'd bet against Teague this year even matching the production that Flip Murray gave the hawks last season. (And I like Teague)

The 19th pick is normally such a crapshoot but I would be absolutely shocked if Blair weren't a productive NBA player. And with the 19th pick thats what I want- you can find minutes for guys who are productive.

[HoopsGuru25]

But you ignore the obvious ?: would player X have been able to develop here if he didn't get any minutes? Would he be nearly as good? There are plenty of examples of talented players who don't develop on the bench.

It's an irrelevant argument. Everyone assumed we had minutes available for Acie but it didn't matter in the longrun because he just wasn't a good player. The goal is to get a good player regardless of what position he plays. It really doesn't matter if you don't have the minutes available or player X(if he has talent)if the alternatives are bad players.

I wasn't a member of this site, but I was actually a proponent of drafting Young @ that time too. Marvin wasn't developing and many thought that Smith was looking clearly like he should play solely @ PFs. At the least, we had backup minutes for Young to play and see if he could develop. In this case, I disagree.

We really didn't have minutes for Young. We already had 3 players taking just about all the minutes at SG/SF. As for this case-I'm not as high on Blair as kb is so I can't vouch for Blair(especially with shot knees)as the definitive BPA. I do agree with him that if you think someone is w/o a doubt the best player available at 19....you pick him regardless of what position he plays. I don't see how anyone can argue otherwise.

[theatlfan]

In response to killbuckner (response too long to quote, but good stuff), I think we're at the point to agree to disagree. I see Blair as a complimentary player and we simply don't have the players to compliment him. We'd have to attempt a Shelden Williams / Al Horford type switch and attempt to make him a C - at 6'5" he isn't.

Blair did land in an ideal situation for him though. Parker and Manu will attract interior attention with their dribble penetration and Duncan is a player that'll ensure that Blair doesn't attract the opponent's top interior defender. Yeah, he'll put up good #'s with SAS. If he leaves in FA or Duncan retires, his stock will drop like a rock. Once he has to go against the opponent's top interior defender and/or doesn't have the dribble penetrators to pull his guy off him, then he'll be exposed... well, unless he has significant development to his game in that time.

I still think the Young argument is bad and has some revisionist history. Marvin was coming off his 1st year as starter and was starting to develop a "bust" label. Chills was decent (I disagree with evildallas here, Chills was/is better than he gives him credit for), but wasn't at the point where we thought he should be considered a player that we could hang our hat on. There could have been decent competition @ SF for minutes. The same isn't true @ PF this year - Smith is prolly our 2nd best player and 3 proven (well, at least somewhat) veterans should be competing for his backup minutes. Those are 2 different situations.

I also disagree over some of the players on our team. Marvin is a fairly average SF in terms of athleticism. From what I've seen, he should be an athletic PF so that he can use his outside shot and dribble penetration against the lesser athletes @ PF. It is a testament his game that he's still the best SF we've got even though he's playing out of position. Also, I think Zaza would prefer to stay and we can count on him coming back as long as we're motivated to do so. Yeah, his rights prolly don't amount to much leverage, but he's settled here and recently had his 1st kid. As long as we're competitive with other offers, he'll give us the home-town discount.

It's an irrelevant argument. Everyone assumed we had minutes available for Acie but it didn't matter in the longrun because he just wasn't a good player. The goal is to get a good player regardless of what position he plays. It really doesn't matter if you don't have the minutes available or player X(if he has talent)if the alternatives are bad players.
[...]
We really didn't have minutes for Young. We already had 3 players taking just about all the minutes at SG/SF. As for this case-I'm not as high on Blair as kb is so I can't vouch for Blair(especially with shot knees)as the definitive BPA. I do agree with him that if you think someone is w/o a doubt the best player available at 19....you pick him regardless of what position he plays. I don't see how anyone can argue otherwise.

??? It's an irrelevant argument because someone busts? I said you have to give minutes to develop a player - not necessarily that those minutes will ensure that he does develop as expected. Yeah, if the guy you draft sux, then it won't matter if there are minutes or not, he's still not any good.

As pointed out above, I disagree about the Young argument. Marvin was getting the bust label (and he'll never shake it as long as they play him @ SF), Chills was a backup, and even JJ is older than the rest of our core and could have been traded for fair value. Besides, a 4th wing should still see some minutes on a team - a 5th PF shouldn't.

The last part is the interesting part. I think everyone would agree that you should always draft the BPA, but what is the BPA? Define it. This definition of this is the core of the debate I believe. To me, the BPA is the prospect with the greatest probability to take your team to a championship (or at least closer to one) - both immediately and eventually. If these conflict, I tend toward the immediate, since the eventual generally carries more risk (that isn't a hard and fast rule though, there are many exceptions). If a prospect has a high bust potential and/or a low ceiling (Law had both due to his average to below athleticism), then the probability that he'll help the team in either case goes down significantly. Being blinded by need is the big problem with the selection of Law. This also leaves open the chance to select the obvious faller. If Griffin fell to us (impossible, I know, but stay with me), then he would have to be the choice. Regardless of who we have @ PF, he would give us the best chance of being the best team than any other prospect available.

This is why I consistently argue against drafting to a strength. With very few exceptions, there are a handful of players that are close to each other in terms of talent @ any particular position in the draft. You can select a player of similar talent that fits your team better than the player that someone may see as marginally better, but would be buried on the bench...

[killbuckner]

I see Blair as a better player than Kevin Love. Blair is a better rebounder, better defender, and will help on offense more though in other ways. If the Hawks passed on Kevin Love for Jeff Teague it would be a massive mistake no matter who else is on the roster for the Hawks.

This is a player who singlehandedly turned Pitt into a top 3 offense in the nation. When Blair was off the court they were a ton worse/ I just don't think people understand the ridiculous impact he had.

Time will certainly tell on this. I really hope the Hawks do not live to regret passing on Blair as much as I believe that they will.

[HoopsGuru25]

tlheat-I don't agree with your views on the draft in general. I don't want to get into a big debate but Marvin being getting labeled a bust is kind of a joke. He was 20 years old averaging 34 mpg-did you really think the Hawks thought the 11th pick in the draft was going to put a significant dent in his minutes. The Joe getting older comment also makes no sense..you don't let the 11th pick in the draft influence whether or not you should look to trade a 25 year old SG who just scored 25 ppg and made the allstar team. Another thing-you keep referring to Blair as a 5th PF but I see two NBA caliber big men on the Hawks and one of them is an undersized PF.

KB...I also disagree about Blair being better than Love. Love has better post moves and is just way better in the pick and roll. Blair hasn't proven he can hit free throws yet...let alone have range out to the college 3 like Love. Love was also 1st in the NBA in offensive rebounds per minute. I like Blair and thought(before reports about his knees)that he was a legit lottery pick but I don't think I am am as high on him as an NBA player as you are.

[theatlfan]

kb, I know I'll eat crow this year since I do think Blair is in the ideal situation for him, but I can't see the Love comparison. I think Love doesn't need as much around him to put up his numbers, whereas Blair will. Much like the small, quick SGs need a taller PG who can guard SG; undersized, bulky PFs need a certain type C to compliment them as well. AI's teams didn't really start winning big until Eric Snow; Blair has his compliment in Duncan. We just don't have that type of C.

Guru, I guess we can agree to disagree and I can drop the debate hereafter. I still disagree over Marvin and just think that the minutes would have been there for Young. I'm guess that you prolly didn't bother to look at the conversation kb and I had earlier in this thread, but I do think that even 10 minutes is enough to justify a selection - this is doubly true when you have ?s on the starter. A 4th wing can get those minutes - especially with versatility we have/had at those positions; it's hard to justify minutes to a 5th PF - especially when our versatility there isn't the best (it's prolly Smith only position and it seems to be our "convergent" position when talking about versatility - Marvin could move over to get more minutes to other wings; Horford and Zaza could move in if we land a FA C... but none of the players would fit at the next position over.). The other thing here where I can't see the point is that now we have young vets @ the position in ?; then we had struggling prospects. I just don't see the situations as similar.

[killbuckner]

HG- Kevin love had a spectacular year on the offensive glass this year with a 15.1% offensive rebound rate. When on the court Love rebounded 15.1% of all the misses his team had. Thats a great number. This past season at Pitt Blair had a 25.1% offensive rebound rate. Thats a ridiculous number. To give you a comparison at UCLA Loves DEFENSIVE rebound rate at UCLA was 28.5. Love's offensive rebound rate was under 15.4. Blair's OR% absolutely crushes what anyone else in basketball has done in the past 5 years. Rebounds translate most of all the stats to the pro games- I think that Blair is going to be a rodmanlike rebounder. You adjust his OR% from this past season and he would set an NBA record. His offensive rebounding was unprecedented and its not like he did it against bad competition. He absolutely abused Thabeet when they played.

Blair is a ton stronger than Love- his low center of gravity and long arms are going to make him very tough on defense. He is a good passer after the rebounds so he will generate a ton of offense just by hitting the outlet to start the break or crashing the offensive glass. He doesn't have the range of Love which is just fine by me- I want him setting picks and being in position to crash the offensive glass. I think he lets you have one player crash the glass while the other 4 get back on defense and your team will still be a very strong offensive rebounding team.

I think the point is exactly that Blair doesn't need a lot of help at all- without calling any plays at all for him he is going to help the offense a ton. He is a wide body and his picks will be solid. He has good hands and doesn't turn the ball over a lot.

We shall see how his career goes. I have no insight into his knees at all. But I think that too many teams were focused on the things that Blair is not and missed the big picture of how ridiculously productive he was. He was a force both on offense and defense. I think it was a huge mistake to pass him up.