bhawk wrote:Let's embrace this bad (young) team and TANK! It sucks that we have to wait until this summer and next year to improve, but that is the reality of the situation.
The 2018 draft appears to be a very, VERY good class. Dare I say generational? Yes, for those keeping track at home, I did say the same thing about the 2017 class and it turned out not to be "generational", but this time I mean it.
I think we are 8-10 deep in terms of franchise players. Bagley, Ayton, Porter (hurt), Wendell Carter, Jaren Jackson, McCoy, Donic, Knox, Sexton, Bridges, Robert Williams... Mitchell Robinson will be a steal late. These current college athletes are all as good as or better than Chriss, Bender and Jackson - RIGHT NOW.
Quick fun exercise. Rank Fultz, Ball, Tatum, Jackson, DSJ, Issac vs. your 2018 top ten + Chriss and Bender. Here is mine:
1) Bagley
2) Ayton
3) Tatum
4) Porter
5) Doncic
6) Jaren Jackson, Jr.
7) Jonathan Issac
8) Wendell Carter
9) Bamba
10) Fultz
11) DSJ
12) Sexton
13) Lonzo Ball
14) Brandon McCoy
15) Mitchell Robinson
16) Josh Jackson
17) Kevin Knox
18) Robert Williams
19) Miles Bridges
20) Dragan Bender
21) M. Chriss
Keep in mind watching players against college competition and others against pro competition is going to make them look drastically different. In some cases, given the right situation and teammates they can adapt to the NBA immediately but given the fact they usually go to bad teams it makes it tougher. I do think, however, that the top 4 or so (if Porter was healthy) all would have gone #1 last year if they were int hat draft. I doubt most of the others would have been ranked much higher than the consensus top 7 or 8. It likely would have been a mixed bag.
I mean you are ranking guys based on their college games against guys who have played 20 games or so as a pro. And then Fultz, for example hasn't really played except when he was severely impacted by injury.
