Official 2013 Draft Thread - Part VIII

[jivelikenice]

Love the draft. Otto was an easy selection. Bennett was tempting because of his specific fit here, but it would have been a gamble and we needed to hit. As I've said before, the low upside comments on Porter are ridiculous. I expect him to put up an Iguodola type of stat line as he progresses....

Rice Jr was a great value pick. Before the lottery he is someone I was hoping we'd look at in our original slot although I knew that would be a little bit of a reach. He had a chance to mature in the D league so lets hope his problems are behind him. The D League can be a humbling experience so lets hope it sticks. Comparing him to Aaron Hernandez is just irresponsible....In terms of position, we need a backup 2 guard and this team could still use shooting so I don't see how he doesn't fit a need. Sure we need a backup pg and a stretch 4, but FA is still there. When you cmopare Rice to guys like Caldwell-Pope, Crabbe, and some of the other mid first round wings is there much of a difference in talent? I don't think there is.

I've noticed complaining and that's always going to happen. Part of it is Ernie....No matter what he does there will be people who are critical based on his past.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

I don't know CCJ, Rice was MVP of the D-league last year in the playoffs. He may be more NBA-ready than Porter is.

Taking talent without character generally comes back to bite a team.

Rice being picked out of the D-League when SO MANY BETTER YOUNG MEN WERE AVAILABLE bothers me.

Grunfeld takes talent but I suspect is devoid of depth of character himself. Rice if good is perhaps an Aaron Hernandez waiting to happen. I don't think Glen Rice is a great role model. This sounds like the Wizards had Wolters and Kazemi on their radar but somebody like Wittman wanted Robinson so that's the way they went.

I think this will turn out to be doubly bad, because the guys they passed over are good players with better character.

CCJ,

I hate to see you so upset about the 2nd round stuff, as you're typically one of the cooler-headed and optimistic posters on here. So do yourself a favor and go back and look at the past say, 10 drafts, to see how many 2nd rounders in each draft turn into good players. It'll make you feel much better.

I have.

From the 2009 draft, Danny Green turned out okay. A.J. Price did, too.

Others from that draft alone, round two: Sam Young, DeJuan Blair, Marcus Thornton, Jonas Jerebko, Jodie Meeks, Patrick Beverly, Chase Budinger, Patty Mills,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_NBA_Draft

Wolters will end up being a much better player than A.J. Price. Franklin will be much better than Rice III. Guys like Muscala and Iverson will have productive NBA careers. Rice III is the wrong kind of guy to add next to Wall and Beal. Entitled and a guy who will likely disappoint with bad choices once he becomes richer. He got kicked off a terrible Ga Tech team and makes it ahead of guys who won respect and earned good grades.

I HATE this deal worse than any of the other egregious mistakes EG has made because Wolters is the one player I like the most.

[The Consiglieri]

This seems like a "BPA" pick to me. He actually fills a small need at backup swingman but I still Muscala or Pierre were the way to go. I think they either think nobody is better than Price (which is kind of depressing if true) or they think Tomas will be worth a crap this year. To be perfectly frank, Outside of Pierre, I didn't think any backup pg will change the fortunes of this franchise in the 2nd round.

What about wolters, metrics loved him. I think he was worth a look, though I think Rice JR has a better shot of being a legit pro. I heard from at least one source that Muscala was soft as a marshmellow which is the reason he dropped a bit, Withey dropped because apparently scouts felt he had one or two skills, but was not a legit starter or even reliable backup in this league because of his limited abilities (you didn't mention him, others did).

I think the view on Satoransky is fairly reasonable, the sense I get is that NBA scouts feel he is a legit rotational backup PG in this league with reasonable athleticism. May not be ready till '14-'15, but I think he's got at least a coin flips chance of sticking in the league for several years at least as a rotational back up. He's not a "wt- auto-bust" like so many suggested. He has legit skill, athleticism, and talent.

I don't get why every year this board goes completely bonkers with second rounders the way it does, I reserve my bonkers for our first round busts, with second rounders the failure rate is what, 80-85%, and correctly guessing who we'll draft? I've never hit on a 2nd round target of ours ever, not in 25 drafts. I gave up on that train a long time ago. What's important from what I've seen over the years is either to take a guy who has legit NBA level skills and/or athleticism, or to research a Euro stash with 2-3 years down the road NBA potential. Filling needs, or filling technical skills that are needed are the surest ways to land busts. I like the Rice JR pick because I think he has better than 50% odds of still being on a roster playing reasonable minutes in this league in 2015, and 2019 and beyond. That should be the objective and I think we actually attained it.

I don't think Wolters changes the fortunes of any franchise either. He'll basically be Ridinour...which would be fine for a backup PG spot I suppose....but it won't ruin my evening. I thought Muscala could have fit a crucial niche though. Providing excellent floor spacing and possibly some rebounding. Wouldn't expect much more out of him than that..but he wasn't going to survive until the 54 so it was moot. As didn't Kelly or Murphy I think. So maybe taking one of them early would have been nice...but we'd lose out on somebody else.

Oh and even though I'm brownish..I would not draft Kazemi. Dude can't shoot the three ball. He is efficient but he doesn't do much scoring or spacing the floor...which is what we'd need from our 2nd round pick...which is what we got with Rice (assuming he plays the 2, I can't be mad). I still believe, if we wanted to maximize value on a potentially decent player, Mitchell was the way to go. He has talent, just needs the right environment to utilize it.

I had Mitchell ranked as my #1 overall value pick (in redraft, where would he go in t he summer of '16 basically, I believe 3 years from now, if he gets any kind of opportunity, Mitchell would jump up into the top 10-12, possibly inside the top 10), and inside my top 15 overall. He was my #1 target at the time, but I was walking the dogs and had no idea we'd already worked a trade for Rice Jr until I got back, then my internet crashed lol.

[jivelikenice]

Any good sites for draft grades an analysis?

[The Consiglieri]

I don't know CCJ, Rice was MVP of the D-league last year in the playoffs. He may be more NBA-ready than Porter is.

Taking talent without character generally comes back to bite a team.

Rice being picked out of the D-League when SO MANY BETTER YOUNG MEN WERE AVAILABLE bothers me.

Grunfeld takes talent but I suspect is devoid of depth of character himself. Rice if good is perhaps an Aaron Hernandez waiting to happen. I don't think Glen Rice is a great role model. This sounds like the Wizards had Wolters and Kazemi on their radar but somebody like Wittman wanted Robinson so that's the way they went.

I think this will turn out to be doubly bad, because the guys they passed over are good players with better character.

CCJ,

I hate to see you so upset about the 2nd round stuff, as you're typically one of the cooler-headed and optimistic posters on here. So do yourself a favor and go back and look at the past say, 10 drafts, to see how many 2nd rounders in each draft turn into good players. It'll make you feel much better.

CCJ's specialty is digging out about 50% of those guys though, which is why it probably drives him insane. He has a real nack for digging up value in round 2 and late in round 1. This year was a little wacky though as it seemed like he loved about 40 different guys which kind of defeats the whole purpose.

[CLIN]

On the Noel note if anyone is still upset,

the suns medical geniuses passed on nerlens because they red-flagged his knee.

If anyone knows, it's them. good for ernie not getting star-eyed and picking him.

And i think people will be suprised by GR, although i think wolters would have been a good pick as well.

[Sonny Carson]

Don't freaking outsmart yourself, Ernie. Do the right thing -- Noel at 3!

I think Porter will be a solid 15/6/3 kind of player..
Noel has a chance to be a 13/11/3blk 1.5 stls kind of player..

Idk..we'll see...

[hands11]

Picks and summary breakdown

http://www.nbadraft.net/instant-analysis/2013

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

This was a wacky draft, Consiglieri.

DJ Stephen and Zeke Marshall didn't even get drafted. The other guys I loved did get picked and it should make your eyes open when a teams TRADES FOR WOLTERS and another pick.

I liked Iverson and told you which players I liked more than more hyped players. I liked Porter but thought trading down was better. Another team traded for the player I liked the second most, Olynyk.

Guys like Ray McCallum and Olynyk had fathers who coached. So did Karasev. Other players like McCollum and Roberson have siblings already playing professionally. Roberson has super athletic parents and is the player I said was most like Leonard/Faried--he is going to be good.

Otto Porter should be fine, but picking Rice put an exclamation on not picking any bigs or playmaking guards and drafting at a strong position, SF. I don't like picking a low character guy when extremely high character guys like Muscala were on board.

Pierre Jackson or Peyton Siva would have made a hell of a lot more sense than Glen Rice, III.

[The Consiglieri]

Wrote a post about character but it vanished into the ether of bad wi fi connections. on the subject of rice jr and character, I'd just argue that we don't really know squat. Did we know a year ago when we were drafting Aaron Hernandez for our fantasy football teams that a year later he would basically have been in the midst of a serial killing spree over the intervening year? What do we really know about these guys? We know about Rice Jr because it was made public, and resulted in him getting kicked to the curb. Bad, very bad. Clearly he was an idiot. He's been a choir boy since, but it was probably not a character change so much as a don't sacrifice your NBA career change with Rice Jr probably reminding him of the awful fates of even super star NBA playes who became more trouble than they were worth (JR Rider eventually vanishing w/o a trace, Iverson going from superstar to obnoxious, loathed jerk who couldn't buy an interview for a job opening, let alone a roster spot, the T.O. effect inevitably renders a player no longer worth the trouble when they're a cancer/coach killer/don't help you win. Rice Jr didn't need that tag line, so he may have half learned his lesson.

but the key point for me is that in the 2nd round you just need to be targeting guys who can play in this league now, or in a few years via a euro stash, or in the long term via development. Character is secondary, and if it forces itself into a primary role, you can just punt said player to the curb like the spurs did S. Jackson in the most impressive way imaginable.

This is all underlined by the fact that we know nothing about the character of the vast bulk of these guys, and the criminally minded among them let alone just the every day a------ personalitie of so many of them probably defies imagination. I'm not spurning Rice Jr for a lesser player w/great character unless I think Rice Jr's character issues make him less likely to help us long term than another player. I don't see it that way, so Rice Jr made a lot of sense to me, one of the 3 or 4 highest ranked guys on my board when we picked. Nice.

[stevemcqueen1]

Cleveland has a lot of work to do, but I like their roster better than any other non playoff team in the East save ours. They're going to be a big rival once each of our respective cores mature. Philly could be good in a few years if their gambles pay off but they are a long ways away. And Charlotte is slowly, painstakingly turning themselves around. Indiana's ceiling was this year's finals appearance, their guards blow and they don't have the money or draft picks to get better here. Chicago is a beatable contender. Boston, Atlanta, and Milwaukee are done for. Toronto is a mess. Orlando still has a long way to go right now. Miami as we know it today has an expiration date. The Knicks and Nets are screwed--inflexible and not good enough to contend. Detroit's roster is a mess.

The East is a one to two team conference and it should be pretty open for the next few years. I think Cleveland and Washington fill the void sooner than later.

[Sonny Carson]

ALso...

Scouts have said Noel is healthier than Bennett and Len. (in regards to each person's relative injury)

This is the thing with drafting Noel....and the Sixers get it.

What if worst case scenario happens next year? Team starts off slow...injuries...

Well the 1st pick you drafted is waiting to play by January...welp lets make sure you rest some more..

Oh thats right. That Wiggins, Parker and Randle guys will be in the draft next year.

Only maybe Randle could play with Porter. I'm telling ya....Noel was actually the safe pick. See if the Wizards continue momentum or see if that was fools gold. Let Noel rest up...if the Wiz are for real...another piece is added if not...rest up..get the future SF.

Its playoffs or Bust for the Wiz imo. If Randy is only playing Porter 18 mins next year....His rookie year is a disappointment...Porter should be a instant impact player...

(sidenote: I like Porter. Just think it was time for the Wizards to be "most potential...thats not Jan of course.."

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Hewitt and the next coach suspended him several games.

He was kicked off the team for being in a car from whence a 9MM was discharged.

This isn't just some dude that went to the club with guys who got into it and shot at each other, Consiglieri.

I don't know about his character but this is the same team that changed its name from Bullets. There were players named Crittenton and Arenas who has hand gun related issues. Blatche was once shot but made the news a lot early in his career for being in the wrong place at the wrong time--the very thing GR III said when he was dismissed from GA TECH.

Consiglieri, I do know that he got kicked off the team. His character probably isn't stand up, like the guys they traded away for him.

[The Consiglieri]

This was a wacky draft, Consiglieri.

DJ Stephen and Zeke Marshall didn't even get drafted. The other guys I loved did get picked and it should make your eyes open when a teams TRADES FOR WOLTERS and another pick.

I liked Iverson and told you which players I liked more than more hyped players. I liked Porter but thought trading down was better. Another team traded for the player I liked the second most, Olynyk.

Guys like Ray McCallum and Olynyk had fathers who coached. So did Karasev. Other players like McCollum and Roberson have siblings already playing professionally. Roberson has super athletic parents and is the player I said was most like Leonard/Faried--he is going to be good.

Otto Porter should be fine, but picking Rice put an exclamation on not picking any bigs or playmaking guards and drafting at a strong position, SF. I don't like picking a low character guy when extremely high character guys like Muscala were on board.

Pierre Jackson or Peyton Siva would have made a hell of a lot more sense than Glen Rice, III.

Sounds like Muscala will basically be a very limited offensive punch bench role player. Seems like a scouting consensus that he absolutely hates contact inside, and doesn't enjoy working in the paint at all. Doesn't sound likely to bring him a lot of success at the next level, though I do think he has a translatable skill (scoring). Siva is a flat out "will never start a single game" player in my view, while Jackson is deeply intriguing, but his size issue is a massive concern. I think Rice JR made far more sense than any of those guys and I don't think he's gonna be a 3, I think he's gonna get the bulk of his minutes as a Beal back up, and a few at the 3, but not the bulk of them and we needed a third guard since we only have two quality ones.

My guess is that youth in the front court is the priority with our '14/'15 free agent monies and draft picks, which is why I preferred Noel at 3. Noel on a rookie contract is far far cheaper, cost effective, and team building/cap management savvy than spending a mountain of cash on a high in demand FA big. Now we have to hit on a stud in the admittedly outstanding '14 draft at C or PF, otherwise we're going to have to join the speed dating game which is NBA free agent and RFA recruiting every July when the NBA presses play on Marvin Gaye's, "Let's get it on," and GM's, agents, and players begin the process of whispering sweet nothings in one anothers ears.

[The Consiglieri]

Cleveland has a lot of work to do, but I like their roster better than any other non playoff team in the East save ours. They're going to be a big rival once each of our respective cores mature. Philly could be good in a few years if their gambles pay off but they are a long ways away. And Charlotte is slowly, painstakingly turning themselves around. Indiana's ceiling was this year's finals appearance, their guards blow and they don't have the money or draft picks to get better here. Chicago is a beatable contender. Boston, Atlanta, and Milwaukee are done for. Toronto is a mess. Orlando still has a long way to go right now. Miami as we know it today has an expiration date. The Knicks and Nets are screwed--inflexible and not good enough to contend. Detroit's roster is a mess.

The East is a one to two team conference and it should be pretty open for the next few years. I think Cleveland and Washington fill the void sooner than later.

If Cleveland had taken Valunciunas instead of Thompson (as I said at the time), I would have regarded their foundation as the best in the east in terms of youth movements by a wide margin, as is, it's still better than ours, and they have plenty of booty for the amazing '14 draft as well. They will be in better position than us, and already have a better long term roster.

[The Consiglieri]

nice piece on Rice Jr relayed from bulletsforever

http://www.thedreamshake.com/2013/6/1/4 ... on-rockets

[nuposse04]

I have.

From the 2009 draft, Danny Green turned out okay. A.J. Price did, too.

Others from that draft alone, round two: Sam Young, DeJuan Blair, Marcus Thornton, Jonas Jerebko, Jodie Meeks, Patrick Beverly, Chase Budinger, Patty Mills,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_NBA_Draft

Wolters will end up being a much better player than A.J. Price. Franklin will be much better than Rice III. Guys like Muscala and Iverson will have productive NBA careers. Rice III is the wrong kind of guy to add next to Wall and Beal. Entitled and a guy who will likely disappoint with bad choices once he becomes richer. He got kicked off a terrible Ga Tech team and makes it ahead of guys who won respect and earned good grades.

I HATE this deal worse than any of the other egregious mistakes EG has made because Wolters is the one player I like the most.

I'd say Young, Blair, Jerebko, and maybe Meeks either haven't been given the fairest shot in the league to perform...but they really are non factors so far in the NBA and easily replaceable. Had Granger not been hurt...Young wouldn't have gotten meaningful minutes I imagine.

While GR III does have some issues...I don't think there is anything wrong with swining for upside in the 2nd round. I don't see how Wolters has more upside then GR III. He has more cerebral stability I suppose...but on the court I don't see it.

I still think Mitchell should have been the pick. I did not think he'd last that long.

[The Consiglieri]

Pelton apparently had Rice Jr ranked #12 overall according to his Warp system, and if he had been able to prorate it and ignore the sample size issue, apparently he said Rice Jr would have been ranked 2nd in this draft class.

WOW

[The Consiglieri]

Hewitt and the next coach suspended him several games.

He was kicked off the team for being in a car from whence a 9MM was discharged.

This isn't just some dude that went to the club with guys who got into it and shat at each other, Consiglieri.

I don't know about his character but this is the same team that changed its name from Bullets. There were players named Crittenton and Arenas who has hand gun related issues. Blatche was once shot but made the news a lot early in his career for being in the wrong place at the wrong time--the very thing GR III said when he was dismissed from GA TECH.

Consiglieri, I do know that he got kicked off the team. His character probably isn't stand up, like the guys they traded away for him.

Absolute epic jack arse moves, and these were the last straws, not the first, or second, so yeah, beyond idiotic.

I wont white wash or air brush the selection. But in the 2nd round, I'm willing to take a chance on his talent. Would have taken Tony Mitchell ahead of him, and maybe Wolters, but that's it.

[truwizfan4evr]

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1678 ... comparison