Competent GM and you can still win through the draft

[blueadams]

It is easy to do as long as you are consistent with your draft strategy.

I say this as the guy who wanted to draft Kahwi Leonard and Isaiah Thomas instead of Brandon Knight.

You dont even need to hit gold every year all you have to do is have a strategy and be a little smarter than all the dumb teams.

With Stefanski i feel like the Pistons are back in good hands. I REALLY like the way he drafts. He got a starter in the 2nd round for Memphis last year, and hes got some good guys for us this year. He drafts for defense, athleticism, length, and playmaking. If he sticks with that, this team will get solid players in the draft every year.

I read that his second round strategy is to identify players that do one thing at the NBA level already - with the idea that at worst they can be used as a deep bench tool for the coach and thus add value to the roster. Thomas and Brown defend at the NBA level.

I also think a lot of good teams get late first steals because they draft this way as well - find something that the player does at the NBA level that their team needs and plugs them in. This leads to them being used to their strength while their weaknesses are covered by the better players around them and they're only put in situations to succeed early while the develop off the bench otherwise.

ONe thing I've read is that offense is easier to develop than defense. It makes sense. ONce you go from part time basketball to full time basketball - your shot gets better, your handle gets better, etc. But defensive mentality, mindset, IQ, talent, athleticism, length - those things are internal/God given.

If you draft someone for their "shooting" "shooting form" and "scoring" skillset but they lack the other internal/God given things, your drafting will underperform. If you take someone with all the internal/God given things, and let them develop that offensive skill that they are missing, you will draft well and build good teams.

For instance: Bruce brown - defense, hi iq, length, strong, good handle, (can't shoot.)
Khyri - defense, hi iq, length, quick feet, can shoot, (can't dribble well)

Ed picked 2 players with complete games but only missing 1 offensive skill.

SVG would have picked the guy with the best shooting form and then yelled at him to play defense.

Shooting or dribbling at an NBA level.. thats not like teaching someone how to speak Spanish. its a God given gift that cant be taught. Shooting especially. Ask Stanley.

[vege]

Last 5 top picks..

2013: #8 KCP ——-> #15 Giannis
2014: #38 Dinwiddie ——-> #41 Nikola Jokic
2015: #8 Stanley ——-> #13 Devin Booker
2016: #18 Ellenson ——-> #36 Malcom Brogdon
2017: #12 Kennard ——-> #13 Donovan Mitchell

C: Jokic
4: Giannis
3: Brogdon
2: Booker
PG: Mitchell

^ that’s a team that might actually beat the warriors.

competent gm and you can still win in the nba through the draft

that's an unrealistic hypothetical from the standpoint of you assuming the pistons draft in the exact same positions or have a need at that position

Yeah I mean with each correct pick we likely move farther down in the draft and miss out on the next year's best pick... at best Giannis, Jokic, and Brogdon could be possible hypothetically, but still not realistic

I think this is a terrible thread, The op argument is terrible, I mean, you could post almost the exact thread for GSW who has been dominating the league the past few seasons, so not only drafting with the benefit of the hindsight is a horrible argument to say we are bad at drafting (which is the main argument of the OP) but any team could have drafted most of those players.

However, your argument is also wrong . Giannis was not good when he was drafted, so he wouldn't have given us any more wins the first 2 seasons. Therefore, we could still have drafted Jokic, and then, Jokic stayed in Europe, so he would not improve our record immediately, which means we could still have drafted Booker and then no matter how much our record improved we would still be able to drafted Brogdon, since he was taken #36 and we had a 1st round pick. The only player we would miss, in this terrible hypotetical scenario would've been Donovan Michell, and honestly the team would be better without him anyways.

Jokic
Giannis
Bullock (or a better 3&D Small Forward - Robert Covington for example or Josh Richardson who was drafted #40 in 2016)
Booker
Brogdon

That team would fit like a glove and would absolutely dominate the league.

[ImHeisenberg]

The only two that were real big misses were Johnson over Booker, and the absolutely massive miss of taking Kennard over Mitchell.

Missing on Brogdon or Jokic, those were sleepers that every team in the league missed on.

[DBC10]

Yeah Booker & Mitchell were biggest gets during their respective drafts. I didn't like Booker admittedly, but I also didn't like SJ at all even more.

[Snakebites]

The title shouldn’t say “competent GM”.

It should say “super duper wizard psychic GM”.

Because it would take clairvoyance to hit on all of those guys. We should have hit on at least one, though.

[ComboGuardCity]

As a collective forum we were 1/5. Agreed we should’ve hit on one.

[whitehops]

ONe thing I've read is that offense is easier to develop than defense. It makes sense. ONce you go from part time basketball to full time basketball - your shot gets better, your handle gets better, etc. But defensive mentality, mindset, IQ, talent, athleticism, length - those things are internal/God given.

If you draft someone for their "shooting" "shooting form" and "scoring" skillset but they lack the other internal/God given things, your drafting will underperform. If you take someone with all the internal/God given things, and let them develop that offensive skill that they are missing, you will draft well and build good teams.

For instance: Bruce brown - defense, hi iq, length, strong, good handle, (can't shoot.)
Khyri - defense, hi iq, length, quick feet, can shoot, (can't dribble well)

Ed picked 2 players with complete games but only missing 1 offensive skill.

SVG would have picked the guy with the best shooting form and then yelled at him to play defense.

a few points, comments...

- offensive skills are a LOT easier to develop individually, especially now that there are so many personal coaches coaching these players in the offseason. you can simulate shooting/dribbling in a game environment more easily than anything else because they don't require much in the line of teammates or opponents.

a player's defensive ability though is made up of three main things (in no order): their athletic ability, their desire to play hard on defense and their ability to process what is happening (part of bball IQ). the last point is especially important on defense because an offensive player can read what a defense does and reacts, keeping the offense flowing. if a defender, though, reacts to something the offense does they are likely too late to effectively stop what the offense wants to do. part of this is made up with athleticism, but they simply have to cover too much ground to be a step slow in processing or reacting to things. that's why while bball iq helps offensively, it is so important defensively because players that can see what's coming before it happens can change their positioning, communicate to their teammates, etc. and stop what the offense wants to do before it actually happens. lebron used to be the poster boy for this but in recent years has tried to preserve energy so he mostly does this in a communicative way, so draymond green has probably taken over that role.

- totally agree and it's a philosophy the spurs have had for a long time: they draft people, not players. they obviously have a skill threshold but their principle remains true.

- i don't think khyri has a very rounded game, he's pretty much an undersized 3+D guard (think pat beverley). definitely not the end of the world when the offense figures to run through griffin or a few other secondary options but i wouldn't trust khyri to play much more than that limited role anytime soon. brown was actually a decent shooter his freshman year (51% inside the arc, 35% outside the arc), he just fell off a cliff in his sophomore season. otherwise brown has a very well-rounded game but could really stand to work on his left hand. but even his skills aren't quite nba-calibre yet i'd say.

overall, SVG's principle was to draft skilled offensive players and teach them to play good team defense (in terms of communication and such). i feel like that would've worked better a few years ago, but now players are developing skill so quickly (jayson tatum, victor oladipo and donovan mitchell are recent examples) and the defense has to cover even more ground which puts more importance on athleticism (and IQ). ed stefanski clearly has a nose on that as our three main acquisitions so far (GRIII, thomas and brown) have plus athleticism and relatively nba-ready role projections.

[bballnmike]

that's an unrealistic hypothetical from the standpoint of you assuming the pistons draft in the exact same positions or have a need at that position

Yeah I mean with each correct pick we likely move farther down in the draft and miss out on the next year's best pick... at best Giannis, Jokic, and Brogdon could be possible hypothetically, but still not realistic

I think this is a terrible thread, The op argument is terrible, I mean, you could post almost the exact thread for GSW who has been dominating the league the past few seasons, so not only drafting with the benefit of the hindsight is a horrible argument to say we are bad at drafting (which is the main argument of the OP) but any team could have drafted most of those players.

However, your argument is also wrong . Giannis was not good when he was drafted, so he wouldn't have given us any more wins the first 2 seasons. Therefore, we could still have drafted Jokic, and then, Jokic stayed in Europe, so he would not improve our record immediately, which means we could still have drafted Booker and then no matter how much our record improved we would still be able to drafted Brogdon, since he was taken #36 and we had a 1st round pick. The only player we would miss, in this terrible hypotetical scenario would've been Donovan Michell, and honestly the team would be better without him anyways.

Jokic
Giannis
Bullock (or a better 3&D Small Forward - Robert Covington for example or Josh Richardson who was drafted #40 in 2016)
Booker
Brogdon

That team would fit like a glove and would absolutely dominate the league.

Those are good points I didn't consider, I didn't put much thought into this hypothetical situation lol.

[vege]

Yeah I mean with each correct pick we likely move farther down in the draft and miss out on the next year's best pick... at best Giannis, Jokic, and Brogdon could be possible hypothetically, but still not realistic

I think this is a terrible thread, The op argument is terrible, I mean, you could post almost the exact thread for GSW who has been dominating the league the past few seasons, so not only drafting with the benefit of the hindsight is a horrible argument to say we are bad at drafting (which is the main argument of the OP) but any team could have drafted most of those players.

However, your argument is also wrong . Giannis was not good when he was drafted, so he wouldn't have given us any more wins the first 2 seasons. Therefore, we could still have drafted Jokic, and then, Jokic stayed in Europe, so he would not improve our record immediately, which means we could still have drafted Booker and then no matter how much our record improved we would still be able to drafted Brogdon, since he was taken #36 and we had a 1st round pick. The only player we would miss, in this terrible hypotetical scenario would've been Donovan Michell, and honestly the team would be better without him anyways.

Jokic
Giannis
Bullock (or a better 3&D Small Forward - Robert Covington for example or Josh Richardson who was drafted #40 in 2016)
Booker
Brogdon

That team would fit like a glove and would absolutely dominate the league.

Those are good points I didn't consider, I didn't put much thought into this hypothetical situation lol.

Yeap I don't blame you.

[Spider156]

List of pointless threads:
1. Drafting arguments with hindsight
2. Trade ideas when there's already threads for it
3. All time team picks (oh I pick lebron no magic is better at PG)
4. Bashing the front office for players that don't want to come here during free agency