nate33 wrote:As an intellectual exercise, I'd like for everyone to chime in and state who they would have taken at #32 this year given the players that were on the board. A year or two from now, we can look back and see how much (if at all) EG blundered by taking the Euro draft-and-stash rather than "my guy".
For the record, I would have taken Quincy Miller.
Miller:
My board would have read:
1. Q. Miller-He shouldn't be back to his recruit self till the late fall of 2012, so he may take some time to develop but this guy was the #4 recruit in a class that included Beal, MKG, Davis, Drummond, McAdoo, Teague and a load of others. Pre-ACL injury he was even higher, I think only Davis and Drummond were ahead of him at that point. If he's healthy, he has all the length in the world and tremendous ability. At slot 32 (or 38) where he went, he represented a potential value of +20 slots. That's freaking immense. He may bust, but for a team needing a legit small forward to develop, he was easily the highest upside guy left, and easily had the most raw talent.
2. Will Barton: Massive sleeper with huge value, and a fantastic chemistry fit with a team that needed to add players with great attitutudes and work habits. He would have helped a ton, and was a steal in the draft. There is a chance his rail thin body, and tweener issue renders him a bench guy and no better ever, but he's a high upside bet on a guy with great tools, a clear role, a great attitude and great work habits.
3. Jae Crowder: Fantastic attitude, absolute killer worker in a major conference, Crowder has shown he can compete against the very best despite not ever having ideal size or speed for his position. He plays with immense "want to", and could have added a poor man's version of Faried to our team this year. Every team, EVERY TEAM, can find room for a Faried type. My only concern is that he may never measure well enough to really be a starter, but its damn hard to imagine him being unable to contribute at the next level considering his work rate, and maximization patterns in terms of talent and upside at the college level.
4. Marcus Denmon: Only issue he has is size, he has EVERYTHING else. Would have been a great final guard for our rotation, I can definitely see him busting, but I also know he's definitively better than Satoransky right now, the only things the Czech has on him are measurements.
5. Doron Lamb: Perfect back up two guard, perfect shooter off the bench. He could have filled a role quite well.
6. Kyle O'Quinn or Tomas Satoranksy:
After those five guys, I really struggle to find guys that I view as definitively better in terms of upside, or right now ability than Satoranksy. I like Kim English, but I think Satoranksy would have offered more potentially long term. I also liked O'Quinn, but I've seen so many of his type fail at the next level, that it isn't difficult at all for me to see O'Quinn or a guy like Draymond Green, fail. I think at this point in the draft, I'd be inclined to take Satoranksy. As others have hinted at or said, I don't view Satoranksy as a busted pick, outside of our board, all the sources that have scouted/commented on him by and large considered him the #1 or #2 Euro in the draft with a lot of potential. He definitely doesnt sound like a bust. He's basically a guy who could have gone 25-45 depending upon how things had panned out this past year for him, in the end he appeared to be a target of ours at 32 and 46, and for the Warriors at 35 or 52.
I don't hate the player, i just hate the pick at 32 considering the talent available. It was the wrong pick, and it's particularly bad if the justification is that we didn't have the roster spot, or we didnt have the money. That's idiotic. We were 29th in the league last year. We don't have a room for a guy that could be a flat out stud at our biggest position of need going forward in 2 or 3 years? Really? That reasoning is beyond idiotic. Of course we had room, it's just dumb and dumber thinking we'll be fine with plug and play scrubs for the time being, and didn't want to add another kid, well there were ideal kids with fantastic BBIQ's and team chemistry assets available, as well as fantastic upside picks that trumped Satoransky. He wasn't the best player there. Its the same kind of botched thinking that blew a whole pile of second rounders across the past decade, misevaluation of our own assets as well as of our own needs.