Thank Nation! Pre-Lottery: Denver 9th, NY pick 7th (PART 4)

[0 - 100]

Dont even go comparing Sab to Hansbrough, Sabonis is all about his buisness.

stop trolling it's annoying.

[kron100]

I'm not even sure Skal is worthy of being a 1st rounder let alone 2nd

[Sakkreth]

If we pick 10th i think we have at chance at Sabo

A chance? I don't even see him being picked in the lottery at all, he's closer to an 18-20 range selection

http://www.nbadraft.net/2016mock_draft

[arbsn]

I'm starting to think if we don't get a top 2 pick (very, very unlikely) or Jamal Murray/Buddy Hield don't slip to us then we should trade the pick. I don't see any other prospects being real wins. It's kind of like the year we lost Harrison Barnes in a coin flip to the GState warriors... We are 1 or 2 picks out of the elite prospects.

We have so many projects already (Bebe, bruno, delon, powell) how many more can we realistically have? Maybe we take one more big man with our late 1st - a thon maker/AJ hammons/diamond stone/yabusele but that's all I can see.

[Tortiglioni]

I'm not even sure Skal is worthy of being a 1st rounder let alone 2nd

And Sabonis is a top-10 prospect...OK, good to know.

[Sakkreth]

I'm not even sure Skal is worthy of being a 1st rounder let alone 2nd

And Sabonis is a top-10 prospect...OK, good to know.

http://www.nbadraft.net/2016mock_draft

[deeps6x]

I have to agree with you here. Luwawu is not special by any means and taking him at 9 would be safe, but mediocre. This year we have a chance to truly swing for the fences for a guy ranked in the lottery. It's hit and miss, but you don't win championships with mediocre players. If I'm going safe at 9 I'd take Taurean Prince every time over Luwawu. Anyways, the point is to swing for the fences. You can't steal a base unless you don't fear being thrown out. Sure, Thon Maker or Skal Labissiere might be out of the NBA at the end of their rookie deals, and Luwawu might be a quality defender on a playoff team, but there's also the chance that Thon/Skal become defensive, shot blocking, floor stretching bigs while Luwawu is still just that solid defender. Screw that. You don't win championships by being safe and mediocre. Go hard or go home.

I'm not so sure Luwawu is mediocre. Excellent athlete, 3 point shot and good defender and excellent frame. I think his potential goes way beyond being just a quality defender.

The thing about Thon and Skal it they haven't shown anything yet. After combine and workouts I may warm up to them but right now they are about as Bruno as it gets. Complete high potential mysteries.

I don't believe you need to jump at every unknown to find high end talent. If we pick luwawu, Prince, Rabb, etc etc. it doesn't matter to me. I think we have a team in place that is very good at what it does.

If they pick Thon or Skal cool. But I'm not going to cheer for it without seeing something. At least with Luwawu and Sabonis I can see a body of work.

I shouldn't say Luwawu's ceiling is just a quality defender. I'd say his ceiling is someone like Danny Green or Josh Richardson, which is not a bad player by any means. I just feel like it's better to swing for the home run and miss than swing for a double and only make it to first.

With Thon it's the regular situation with high school prospects in that he's doing what he did against MUCH inferior competition to anyone else in this draft, and high school players always were and always will be humongous risks. Then again, some of the greatest players in league history have been drafted out of high school.

In terms of Skal, I posted in an earlier thread his stats when playing over 20 minutes per game. The most telling thing of all however was the fact that there was only a 10 game sample size! When given minutes Skal performed well. So, that tells me that Calipari really jerked him around this season. And to be honest, every game I watched for UK this season it seemed like as soon as he was getting a rhythm he found himself back on the bench. IIRC when he played over 20 minutes he averaged 13ppg, 4-5rpg, 3blk on 57% shooting. So, he leaves a lot to be desired rebounding wise but performs everywhere else that he needs to. His jump shot also leads me to believe that he'll be able to extend it to the NBA 3 with time. So what you end up getting is a shot blocking, stretch 4 which is very valuable in today's NBA.

Lastly, my fondness for Ivan Rabb is well documented. If I'm picking a solid player at the NYK/DEN I'd go with Rabb first, then Taurean Prince. But overall as of right now I'd go with Skal, Rabb, Thon and then Prince in that order.

P.S. if OG Anunoby declares those rankings change and he tops my list

High School is NEVER a good spot to draft players. Your claim that some of the greatest players ever were drafted right out of high school is technically correct, however that was back when every team could draft HS kids. Every team was looking to beat every other team to the kids with potential first.

In high school you might be a kid with potential playing in a group of 200,000 other high school kids. 99% of those kids are gonna be useless garbage players who will never sniff an NBA game unless they buy a ticket to one. But if you can make it to college, suddenly you are one of 2,000 players and you are going up against peers with similar talents. Against the best 1% of the high school kids you used to dominate against. Now if you can keep dominating against these college kids, and still be in the top 2% of all of these older/better kids, well then you might just get some scouts attention and maybe even make a draft list or two - assuming you are consistent in your domination all season. If you aren't in the top 10% of this list of 400 dominant kids, you aren't getting drafted. But you can stay in college, keep improving if you are lucky, and hope to be in the top 10% of next year's 400 dominant college kids. If you still can't make the cut, try again for two more years. You might get through your 4th year before making the leap - like Buddy Hield, or you might be on the cusp every year, but never quite attracting enough attention - like Perry Ellis. You might be good enough to be drafted in year 1 or 2, but decide to stay in college, graduate with some kind of a piece of paper for your wall and keep incrementally improving your game year after year - like Denzel Valentine.

Without that extra filtering process that the college experience gives you, you might as well be buying 1000 lotto tickets and praying one of them beats the 14 million to one odds that your kid is the next star.

College greatly narrows the list of potential players and greatly increases the odds that the kid you draft will succeed.

[MEDIC]

Sabonis is a taller glorified Hansbrough. No athletic ability, kinda stiff. Definitely not a top 10 player.

To be fair, TH was drafted 13th overall in a pretty solid draft & I think Sabonis will have a better NBA career than TH.

[CoachJReturns]

There's nothing wrong with drafting high school kids. The thing to keep in mind is the guys who succeeded right out of high school were the high school players of the year or runners up. Garnett, Kobe, even Monte were not just great in high school. They were freaking legendary!
The NCAA is far from an ideal training ground. As mentioned above it weeds out players, but as has been written before many teams don't do much about developing the individual skills guys need at the next level. That's why I occasionally go on a rant about how there should be no age limit and a full minor league system. But that's a whole other conversation.
The only way to judge Maker that is fair, is to grade him against the guys he was in high school with this year. If he's top 5 in that group he's probably a good pick. If he's 15-30, which seems more likely from what I've seen pf the other guys, he's a late first rounder at best.

[kron100]

Think Jaylen brown will have a fantastic career better than Sabonis, If Masai can move up a couple spots I'd be all for it otherwise I'm ok with drafting Sab.

[Mark_83]

I'm really tempted to take Taurean Prince with the NYK pick if no one really good drops. He's only 21 (young for a Senior and only a year older than Luwawu), and he's far more developed and ready to help now. His measurements aren't far off at 6'8 with 6'11 wingspan compared to 6'7 with a 7'0 wingspan (probably the same standing reach). I also like that he's tough and initiates and likes contact on both offense and defense, as opposed to Luwawu who is said to avoid it. He has also shown he can shoot off the bounce and not just off the catch and shoot. If our pick is in the 10-11 range and no one like Hield, Murray, or Brown drops and Masai doesn't like any of the PF in Rabb, Skal, Davis, then I would strongly consider taking Prince, dumping JJ, and trading Ross. I think his floor is very high, and he would fit the direction of this team towards toughness, defense, and work ethic.

[Syd-TK3]

Is this Sabonis talk foreal or are you guys just trolling?
I'll gladly have another team take him before us and give us a chance at the top talent though

[BoyzNTheHood]

I'm not so sure Luwawu is mediocre. Excellent athlete, 3 point shot and good defender and excellent frame. I think his potential goes way beyond being just a quality defender.

The thing about Thon and Skal it they haven't shown anything yet. After combine and workouts I may warm up to them but right now they are about as Bruno as it gets. Complete high potential mysteries.

I don't believe you need to jump at every unknown to find high end talent. If we pick luwawu, Prince, Rabb, etc etc. it doesn't matter to me. I think we have a team in place that is very good at what it does.

If they pick Thon or Skal cool. But I'm not going to cheer for it without seeing something. At least with Luwawu and Sabonis I can see a body of work.

I shouldn't say Luwawu's ceiling is just a quality defender. I'd say his ceiling is someone like Danny Green or Josh Richardson, which is not a bad player by any means. I just feel like it's better to swing for the home run and miss than swing for a double and only make it to first.

With Thon it's the regular situation with high school prospects in that he's doing what he did against MUCH inferior competition to anyone else in this draft, and high school players always were and always will be humongous risks. Then again, some of the greatest players in league history have been drafted out of high school.

In terms of Skal, I posted in an earlier thread his stats when playing over 20 minutes per game. The most telling thing of all however was the fact that there was only a 10 game sample size! When given minutes Skal performed well. So, that tells me that Calipari really jerked him around this season. And to be honest, every game I watched for UK this season it seemed like as soon as he was getting a rhythm he found himself back on the bench. IIRC when he played over 20 minutes he averaged 13ppg, 4-5rpg, 3blk on 57% shooting. So, he leaves a lot to be desired rebounding wise but performs everywhere else that he needs to. His jump shot also leads me to believe that he'll be able to extend it to the NBA 3 with time. So what you end up getting is a shot blocking, stretch 4 which is very valuable in today's NBA.

Lastly, my fondness for Ivan Rabb is well documented. If I'm picking a solid player at the NYK/DEN I'd go with Rabb first, then Taurean Prince. But overall as of right now I'd go with Skal, Rabb, Thon and then Prince in that order.

P.S. if OG Anunoby declares those rankings change and he tops my list

High School is NEVER a good spot to draft players. Your claim that some of the greatest players ever were drafted right out of high school is technically correct, however that was back when every team could draft HS kids. Every team was looking to beat every other team to the kids with potential first.

You say "NEVER", but then go on to agree that some of the greatest players have been selected out of high school. And the jury is still out on Thon. Who knows if teams will be jumping over one another to select him on draft night. I sure don't.

In high school you might be a kid with potential playing in a group of 200,000 other high school kids. 99% of those kids are gonna be useless garbage players who will never sniff an NBA game unless they buy a ticket to one. But if you can make it to college, suddenly you are one of 2,000 players and you are going up against peers with similar talents. Against the best 1% of the high school kids you used to dominate against. Now if you can keep dominating against these college kids, and still be in the top 2% of all of these older/better kids, well then you might just get some scouts attention and maybe even make a draft list or two - assuming you are consistent in your domination all season. If you aren't in the top 10% of this list of 400 dominant kids, you aren't getting drafted. But you can stay in college, keep improving if you are lucky, and hope to be in the top 10% of next year's 400 dominant college kids. If you still can't make the cut, try again for two more years. You might get through your 4th year before making the leap - like Buddy Hield, or you might be on the cusp every year, but never quite attracting enough attention - like Perry Ellis. You might be good enough to be drafted in year 1 or 2, but decide to stay in college, graduate with some kind of a piece of paper for your wall and keep incrementally improving your game year after year - like Denzel Valentine.

That's the life of a potentially professional athlete.

Without that extra filtering process that the college experience gives you, you might as well be buying 1000 lotto tickets and praying one of them beats the 14 million to one odds that your kid is the next star.

The draft is the lottery. Performing well in college means very little based on past experiences. It's a crap shoot. Go tell Adam Morrison, Ed O'Bannon, Thomas Robinson, etc etc etc (xInfinity) that dominating in college makes you a better pro. At the same time tell Andre Drummond. DeAndre Jordan, etc etc etc (xInfinity) that underperforming in college makes you a worse pro.

Like I said, the draft is a crapshoot and nothing is ever predetermined. No one is a sure thing and anyone who thinks they can find a sure thing is full of it.

College greatly narrows the list of potential players and greatly increases the odds that the kid you draft will succeed.

That's a pretty obvious statement. That limb is very strong. But at the same time it's not like we're talking about drafting high school scrubs or even mediocre high schoolers. Thon is a blue chip prospect and the fact that he's on the NBA radar while in high school shows that. But like I said, nothing is a sure thing. He has as much chance of being great as he does of being a bust.

[JJ From Deep]

If we pick 10th i think we have at chance at Sabo

A chance? I don't even see him being picked in the lottery at all, he's closer to an 18-20 range selection

http://www.nbadraft.net/2016mock_draft

their draft is all over the place right now, they don't even have their order of selection correct, sabonis is not a top 10 pick, this draft is much more accurate of the state of things right now: http://www.draftexpress.com/

[kron100]

A chance? I don't even see him being picked in the lottery at all, he's closer to an 18-20 range selection

http://www.nbadraft.net/2016mock_draft

their draft is all over the place right now, they don't even have their order of selection correct, sabonis is not a top 10 pick, this draft is much more accurate of the state of things right now: http://www.draftexpress.com/

We have our own Kriss Dunn in Delon wright i'm all good with him being ranked 5th.

[Steelo Green]

nbadraft.net is a horrible place for the draft

[CoachJReturns]

Is this Sabonis talk foreal or are you guys just trolling?
I'll gladly have another team take him before us and give us a chance at the top talent though

Right there with you. I like Sabonis a lot, but there will be better prospects in our spot. Rabb or Luwawu both look like better options at this point.

[metafisical]

**** man can the Bucks, Kings, or Pelicans just win a **** game or two!? I get excited seeing the Nuggets dropping games just to see these other teams losing just as many

It's pissing me off too. It's not unreasonable to expect the Bucks, Kings and Magic to win a game or two every now and then, especially since the Nuggets seem to be in free fall now. The problem is these damn teams aren't winning at all. Not even winnable games. I'm convinced that the Bucks, Kings and Magic would lose to us, even if our starting lineup and second unit were resting. They are just THAT bad.

[kron100]

Who could we offer to move up in the draft?

[0 - 100]

Who could we offer to move up in the draft?

you and a bag of peanuts