MrBigShot wrote:HotelVitale wrote: For those to lazy to follow the link, ALL of the twelve most renowned mock sites (aside from DX) had Embiid out of the top 3 after his second injury announcement. The mocks eballa posted were way before that injury or else were some weird exceptions. By the day of the draft, it's completely, unequivocally clear that a vast majority of the major mocks had Embiid sliding past #3. End of story.
Exum was an unknown, and after the top 2 nobody else was in Embiid's stratosphere in terms of talent/potential. There's no doubt in my mind 29/30 GMs would've taken him at 3rd. I say 29 because there's always one guy that ends up outsmarting himself.
Don't know what more I could say here: the only reasonable evidence we have here is overwhelmingly clear that Embiid was considered a big enough risk that, at the very least, he wasn't a clear no-conscience pick at #3. There's no question that Embiid was considered by most the single best overall prospect, but there's also no question that the type and extent of his injuries were so concerning that most informed people thought he was too big a risk that high in the draft. Whatever is currently in your mind, you have nothing to rely on for the supposition that 29 of 30 GMs would've taken him there, and plenty of evidence to support that informed draft professionals thought he was too big a risk there.
(If you remember at the time, many people were convinced that it was medically impossible for a human of that size to overcome his foot and back injuries, and they were quoting all sorts of stuff about problems with his bone structure, etc. This was nothing remotely close to a Nerlens Noel situation where teams were pretty sure they'd just have to wait a year or so to get back a reasonably healthy player).
