rookies: best, sleeper, bust

[Eduardo]

Best: exum. I think he will end up as the best player from this draft. He's got some nice tools.
Sleeper: mirotic or wiggins. Mirotic will surprise a lot of people. He would have gone top 8 in this draft imo. Him andMcDrainit will take the league by surprise. Can't wait for the drain duo. A lot of people are saying wiggins is all athleticism and no skill. I think he will find his game and become a star. He is already an elite man defender.
Bust: I think Gordon will be a typical tweener bust

[j-ragg]

Best: exum. I think he will end up as the best player from this draft. He's got some nice tools.
Sleeper: mirotic or wiggins. Mirotic will surprise a lot of people. He would have gone top 8 in this draft imo. Him andMcDrainit will take the league by surprise. Can't wait for the drain duo. A lot of people are saying wiggins is all athleticism and no skill. I think he will find his game and become a star. He is already an elite man defender.
Bust: I think Gordon will be a typical tweener bust

Best: Jabari Parker. Tailor made scoring for the NBA, 25 ppg in a few years.

Sleeper: Tyler Ennis. Always loved his game. Crazy amount of poise, great floor general reminds me a lot of Jason Kidd when he was younger.

Bust: I want to say Wiggins but I think he'll at least be valuable defensively, same with Gordon. At the very least, they'll be useful as good-great defenders. So I'll say Noah Vonleh. I think he'll be a good rebounder but not be very good at much else. He slipped a little in the draft but I think as a top 10 pick you can definitely be called the biggest bust of the draft.

[kf96]

Best - McDermott, Embiid
Sleeper - Dinwiddie, Early
Bust - Vonleh, Nurkic

[ColdBlooded]

Bust : Jabari Parker.

[j-ragg]

Bust : Jabari Parker.

I think we all know that you feel this way by now.

[samuraix]

Best: Marcus Smart
Sleeper: Kyle Anderson
Bust: Zach LaVine

[12footrim]

Best: Jabari Parker
Sleeper: PJ Harriston
Bust: Aaron Gordon

Sleeper to me has to be a guy at least in the middle to late 1st round and bust has to be a top 10 pick.

[MitchellUK]

The guy picked 1st overall is a sleeper?

I don't think that word means what you think it means.



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[nuposse04]

Best player: Embiid, Wiggins and possibly Exum.
Sleeper: Capela, K. Anderson, Vonleh (certainly doesn't have much hype for a top 10 pick), T.J. Warren
Busts: McDermott, Parker, E. Payton, Napier (Should have been a 50+ pick),

[DoubleLintendre]

I was going to make the same thread when news got even slower, good stuff OP.

Best - Jabari Parker, Joel Embiid
Sleeper - Doug McDermott, Spencer Dinwiddle, Russ Smith, Nik Staukas, Elfrid Payton, T. J. Warren, Gary Harris, Glen Robinson III, Nick Johnson, Tyler Ennis
Somewhat Bust - Andrew Wiggins, Noah Vonleh
Really Bust - Aaron Gordon, Dante Exum

I know my list might be extreme. Obviously this is all based on predicting the unpredictable, but I'm willing to live and die by this post because it's what I really feel atm.

I think Parker is way too skilled as a scorer to bust, and is going to be the best player out of the bunch out of the gate. I know there are concerns about his weight. I don't think that will be a problem, as I see him evolving as a Melo/Pierce type of scorer. A good first step is all he'll really need athletically. He'll be the best player for a while, until Embiid is able to play. Embiid will become the best player out of the whole draft in the long run. Embiid might become the best big man of his generation.

I think Wiggins and Vonleh will "bust", in that they won't become stars. They will become good starter players. Maybe Wiggins will get to the All-Star game once or twice. They won't be bad players at all and they won't be guys you wouldn't want on your team. They both will be high character, hard working guys who put up good numbers. They just won't be stars.

My sleeper list is a list of players who I think will be better than they were expected to be when drafted. I expect most of the list to become starter-quality players or better. I think McBuckets will be the most successful sleeper. I was pretty high on him even before Summer League, he's more athletic than he's given credit for and his offensive skill level is ultra high. I really like Dinwiddle, Russ Smith and GRIII, they are the definition of sleeper players. I think they'll become rotational players or better.

I saved the best for last. I think Gordon and Exum are going to megabust. Gordon will be a forever raw hustle athlete that can't seem to find an offensive/defensive identity, even though he'll be a good role playing rebounder. Exum, Mr. Lightning first step, says he's a PG, but isn't a gifted passer or playmaker. He doesn't really have a good shot either. So, he's a really frail 6'6 PG that can't do PG things, shoot, or finish at the rim through any contact.

That honestly sounds like the definition of a bust, "post-busting". I like the character of the guy and I like what he could become (Penny Hardaway 2).. but his ceiling's height isn't nearly as low as his floor's depth. I won't change my opinion of him until I see him develop in the direction of the hype. He has literally only ONE quality right now.. a great first step. Maybe 2. He has a great video game name.

[Takingbaconback]

Best: LaVine
Sleeper: Dinwiddie, Russ Smith
Bust: Embiid (with hampering injuries throughout career)

[Massamba]

Best - Wiggins,
Sleeper - McDermott, Gordon
Bust - Vonleh, Embiid

[JellosJigglin]

Best: Randle
Sleeper: Randle
Bust: Vonleh

[cochiseuofm]

The guy picked 1st overall is a sleeper?

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Not just picked first overall but a guy who already has so much value that he can return Kevin Love and some people still think Minnesota got the better end of the deal. Wiggins is by no means a sleeper candidate.

[76ciology]

Best: Embiid
Only guy in the draft who is franchise caliber player. Can carry a team's offense and defense. And is overlooked because he needs to take a one year (actually just 8 months) of recovery for his foot, but he doesn't have chronic or degenerative injuries.

Sleeper: Tj Warren or McDermott
Most difficult category so I admit I have to base it on summer league performance.

Semi-Bust: Wiggins
High expectation but more show and less substance. Not a fan of him based on analytics and eyetest. FWIW, LBJ even isn't that much high on him.

Bust: Aaron Gordon
Tweener, high risk high reward player and drafted really early. Almost perfect recipe for bust.

[chuckdevlin]

Best: Bruno
Sleeper: Bruno

[bran muffin]

Sleeper: mirotic or wiggins. Mirotic will surprise a lot of people. He would have gone top 8 in this draft imo. Him andMcDrainit will take the league by surprise. Can't wait for the drain duo.

People gotta quit sleeping on Mirotic.

[j-ragg]

Shocking so far that most people have picked their team's rookie to be the best/sleeper.

Not counting Bruno, in that case it's probably true.

[Notanoob]

Best: Embiid, assuming he stays healthy, zero question. He's the best prospect in the draft by a country mile. I suppose Noel techincally could go here too, assuming that he too stays healthy I like him to be a high impact defender at PF.

Bust: Parker (his scoring game is overrated and he can't/doesn't pass), Wiggins (I think he'll just be an average SF, though he was better off in CLE), LaVine (just an athlete with a handle, so much wrong with his game), Ennis (no ability to get his shot off at all and not a good enough jump shooter to make up for it; Kendell Marshall was a stud floor general too but he's a scrub), Randle (just a rotation player, not a star)

Sleeper: Spencer Dinwiddie- hyper-efficient combo-guard out of Colorado? Chauncey Billiups anybody? Dude shoots well, draws fouls well, runs the pick and roll, is very intelligent, and has a size advantage on most PGs. He shouldn't have fallen to the second round. I was very high on him well before my team drafted him.

Sleepers who my team didn't draft: Jordan Adams, Mitch McGary (huge sleeper, OKC got a steal), Jarnelle Stokes (I think he'll be about as good as Randle), Russ Smith (he's better than Napier but got no hype pre-draft), Kyle Anderson (I was mad that the Spurs got him, it's not fair!), Lamar Patterson (I think he could stick around), Adreian Payne (stretch four with the athleticism to play defense and rebound? Sign me up)

[heat4life]

Best: Jabari Parker (Bucks)
Sleeper: James Ennis (Heat)
Bust: Dario Saric (76ers)