Official 2020 NBA Draft Thread

[Knightro]

And I'd add Doncic and Young weren't out of our range. We very easily could've had either player, but our front office spent the year evaluating and we ended up picking sixth. So I don't like the defense that they were already off the board when we picked. Doncic was still available on draft night.

There are plenty of things to justifiably criticize this front office about, but this one seems unfair.

Are you criticizing the Magic's front office because they didn't lose more in Year 1? I mean they only won 25 games in Weltman and Hammond's first year. Yes, it was silly for them to publicly call it an "evaluation" year, but they still were still really bad and it was essentially a tanking season. They were one of the five worst teams in the league.

It was just unfortunate luck that a bunch of other teams were also in the tanking business that year. Nine teams finished with sub 30 wins, which was the most in nearly a decade.

Could they have actively tried to tank harder? Maybe, but can you really blame the front office for beating the Mavericks and Wizards late in the year when guys like Purvis and Artis were playing huge minutes?

[MagicMatic]

Good to see my point being proven as this thread continues with examples of their “draft strategy”.

They simply aren’t aggressive. They value defense and length over any other metric even when it doesn’t make sense in the context of the roster. IF this FO didn’t get lucky with Fultz, as a gift from the short sighted 76ers, they would be rightfully crucified right now.

Knowing all of this, Orlando continues to rank (on season average) bottom 5-10 on offense. They better pray that NAW doesn’t pan out to anything better than Chuma considering that’s who a majority of fans thought made sense as the pick.

[Skybox]

You’re christening NAW as a star who played 12 mpg and scored 5ppg on 35% fg...I think he’ll be good but how about occasionally giving our own guys the benefit of the doubt?

So the FO greatest sin was not yelling at the players to tank harder against other tankers? The idea that Doncic was ours for the taking is far from a solid fact and probably repeated on every lottery team’s board.

Who says Fultz was lucky? Great calculated risk that seems to be working out. Doncic and Trae had lots of doubters, Ayton, Bagley had big fans...who really got lucky? Even DAL couldn’t have predicted Doncic was Larry Bird right out of the gate.

If you can’t see anything good developing with this FO, idk what to tell you. Far from perfect but looks pretty solid overall.

[PrimeThyme]

I'm prepared to die on the NAW "will be very good" hill. I still think his skillset is going to prove to be valuable in this league, and one we could have absolutely used. It's hard to make much out of his time with the Pelicans so far, due to them easily having the deepest backcourt in the league filled with Vets like Reddick/Holliday/Moore and up and coming young guys like Ball/Jackson/Hart.

[Xatticus]

And I'd add Doncic and Young weren't out of our range. We very easily could've had either player, but our front office spent the year evaluating and we ended up picking sixth. So I don't like the defense that they were already off the board when we picked. Doncic was still available on draft night.

There are plenty of things to justifiably criticize this front office about, but this one seems unfair.

Are you criticizing the Magic's front office because they didn't lose more in Year 1? I mean they only won 25 games in Weltman and Hammond's first year. Yes, it was silly for them to publicly call it an "evaluation" year, but they still were still really bad and it was essentially a tanking season. They were one of the five worst teams in the league.

It was just unfortunate luck that a bunch of other teams were also in the tanking business that year. Nine teams finished with sub 30 wins, which was the most in nearly a decade.

Could they have actively tried to tank harder? Maybe, but can you really blame the front office for beating the Mavericks and Wizards late in the year when guys like Purvis and Artis were playing huge minutes?

Precisely. And I would argue that it has been the most egregious mistake they have made as everything thereafter can only be rationalized when you fail to appreciate the context that led to those subsequent decisions.

We didn't tank the season. We were just really bad. It would've been exceptionally easy for our front office to ensure that we had one of the top picks. If you were to believe some around here, we could drop 15 games in the standings just by trading away Vucevic. We knew that draft was loaded and had potentially generational talents at the top. We could've traded away some of our vets for future assets. Vucevic's contract, in particular, was very movable. I waited for some activity up til the deadline, but our front office sat on their hands and evaluated. The margin between fourth and sixth in the draft proved minuscule in the end, but it didn't have to be. Not for us. That margin was the difference between Doncic or Young and Bamba. Everyone points to the Dallas game, but we had an entire season to embrace an obvious opportunity and waited just long enough to blow it.

It didn't take much foresight to appreciate the opportunity at the time, yet here we are. Nobody would choose our vets over Doncic, but through a series of shortsighted decisions, that is essentially what we have done.

[Xatticus]

Good to see my point being proven as this thread continues with examples of their “draft strategy”.

They simply aren’t aggressive. They value defense and length over any other metric even when it doesn’t make sense in the context of the roster. IF this FO didn’t get lucky with Fultz, as a gift from the short sighted 76ers, they would be rightfully crucified right now.

Knowing all of this, Orlando continues to rank (on season average) bottom 5-10 on offense. They better pray that NAW doesn’t pan out to anything better than Chuma considering that’s who a majority of fans thought made sense as the pick.

I don't think it's just the draft we are talking about. I think Weltman is just really conservative. A bird in the hand and all that crap. A lot of people just try to avoid looking stupid. Weltman seems like one of those guys to me. That's just my opinion. You can rationalize each decision independent from the others, but taken together... there just isn't a plan there.

[MagicMatic]

You’re christening NAW as a star who played 12 mpg and scored 5ppg on 35% fg...I think he’ll be good but how about occasionally giving our own guys the benefit of the doubt?

So the FO greatest sin was not yelling at the players to tank harder against other tankers? The idea that Doncic was ours for the taking is far from a solid fact and probably repeated on every lottery team’s board.

Who says Fultz was lucky? Great calculated risk that seems to be working out. Doncic and Trae had lots of doubters, Ayton, Bagley had big fans...who really got lucky? Even DAL couldn’t have predicted Doncic was Larry Bird right out of the gate.

If you can’t see anything good developing with this FO, idk what to tell you. Far from perfect but looks pretty solid overall.

Who’s christening NAW anything? I’m saying they have made questionable draft decisions out of left field rather than address glaring roster issues by using one of the only legitimate ways this organization can acquire real talent.

I’m going to give Chuma the benefit of the doubt. Never claimed I wouldn’t.

If Fultz showed even the slightest modicum of talent and potential in Philly he wouldn’t currently be on this roster. I call that lucky for us. Call it what it whatever you want, but we drafted a project Center over multiple guards/ playmakers in the 2018 draft while we lacking a legitimate point guard. Fultz was traded to us Feb 8, 2019.

[MagicMatic]

Then we will never ever competitive because nobody is signing with Orlando without a cornerstone scorer. They’ve shown they don’t draft that player.

The “don’t” part of this feels unfair out of context. What cornerstone scorers has this regime willingly passed on?

The only possible answer is Donovan Mitchell, but frankly saying the Magic made a mistake passing on him is significant hindsight. The vast majority of draft prognosticators didn’t consider Mitchell a top 10 talent at the time and it was widely accepted that Isaac was the better prospect.

I’m extremely confident that the Magic would have selected Luka Doncic or Trae Young over Mo Bamba had either of them been available in 2018, but they weren’t.

Would you rather have Collin Sexton than Bamba right now?

It’s unfortunate that the Magic have made several high picks since Dwight left and haven’t found a go-to scorer, but there’s a lot of luck that goes into where you’re slotted in the top half of the lottery as well.

I don’t view all possible player selections in a vacuum. Every situation and roster is different, which is why I view draft decisions more important than the average nba fan. The point is that not every player develops 1:1 in every situation. For whatever reason, nobody ever takes that information into account. That’s why nobody will ever convince me that fit doesn’t matter.

Mitchell thrived in Utah, that doesn’t mean he’d thrive in Orlando. Sexton might have thrived in Orlando rather than Cleveland. We will never know. What I DO know is who Orlando did spend the draft picks on, compared to who they could have drafted with the opportunity at hand. This wouldn’t matter as much if we weren’t talking about the #6 pick in a strong draft and the events that followed.

I’ll stand by my belief that they fail to use the draft to address our lack of go-to scoring. They have been extremely safe while trying to come off as intelligent and strategic. I’m not buying what they’re selling.

To bring this full circle, the original comment was: “The FO won’t use the draft as a tool to balance the roster” I essentially said “Then we won’t be competitive because we need to address issues that won’t fall into our laps”. That’s not really a radical claim at all considering the realistic options. I don’t need mountains of evidence to prove that’s exactly where Orlando has been since they’ve taken over with their length-metric selections backed up by their questionably duplicative free agent signings.

[pepe1991]

I don't agree. To me, the biggest pass of all was SGA. I won't fault them per se for passing on Mitchell in a draft with a consensus top 6. But I will fault them for passing on SGA when we were desperately in need of guard talent in a draft without a consensus top 6 (widely considered a 5 player draft, and Bamba was expected to fall if not taken by Dallas at 5).

SGA is going to be a perennial All-star and consistent 20 plus ppg scorer in this league. Right now we hope to just continue to develop Bamba into a rotational piece on a team who just invested 100 million into a player who plays the same position.

That’s fair.

Admittedly, I wasn’t super high on SGA that year. He’s turned out to be significantly better than I thought already, but I didn’t see him as a perennial 20 points per game guy which he clearly is.

It’s more than reasonable to chalk that up as a miss if you really liked SGA at the time.

That said...

The issue for me still isn’t drafting Bamba. He got a lot better this year as well and I think he might end up being a very good NBA center. The killer decision is the choice to resign Vucevic to a four year deal knowing those two are unable to be on the floor at the same time.

The front office willingly turned their sixth overall selection into a 15-18 MPG backup for the life of his cost controlled rookie contract. I don’t care how raw they thought Mo was going to be in Year 1 (which he was), that’s still roster malpractice.

I just don't see upside in drafting center in lottery nowdays.

[drsd]

You’re christening NAW as a star who played ... .

For me Alexander-Walker continues to be BPA at his draft slot. Okeke really needs to wow next year, as Alexander-Walker did demonstrate skills that he will be a 5-8 year-long rotational player in the NBA. At 16/17, that is a value pick.


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[Skybox]

I'm prepared to die on the NAW "will be very good" hill. I still think his skillset is going to prove to be valuable in this league, and one we could have absolutely used. It's hard to make much out of his time with the Pelicans so far, due to them easily having the deepest backcourt in the league filled with Vets like Reddick/Holliday/Moore and up and coming young guys like Ball/Jackson/Hart.

I agree...just like Bamba behind Vuc, it’s not yet known. I really like NAW

[NotACat]

And I'd add Doncic and Young weren't out of our range. We very easily could've had either player, but our front office spent the year evaluating and we ended up picking sixth. So I don't like the defense that they were already off the board when we picked. Doncic was still available on draft night.

There are plenty of things to justifiably criticize this front office about, but this one seems unfair.

Are you criticizing the Magic's front office because they didn't lose more in Year 1? I mean they only won 25 games in Weltman and Hammond's first year. Yes, it was silly for them to publicly call it an "evaluation" year, but they still were still really bad and it was essentially a tanking season. They were one of the five worst teams in the league.

It was just unfortunate luck that a bunch of other teams were also in the tanking business that year. Nine teams finished with sub 30 wins, which was the most in nearly a decade.

Could they have actively tried to tank harder? Maybe, but can you really blame the front office for beating the Mavericks and Wizards late in the year when guys like Purvis and Artis were playing huge minutes?

People also forget that Sacramento had more wins than us and jumped up to number 2. Luck just didn't go our way

[Knightro]

To bring this full circle, the original comment was: “The FO won’t use the draft as a tool to balance the roster” I essentially said “Then we won’t be competitive because we need to address issues that won’t fall into our laps”. That’s not really a radical claim at all considering the realistic options. I don’t need mountains of evidence to prove that’s exactly where Orlando has been since they’ve taken over with their length-metric selections backed up by their questionably duplicative free agent signings.

I don't think it's a radical claim either. And I certainly don't disagree with your point that the Magic's front office has shown themselves to be generally risk adverse.

The part that I don't agree with is using the draft as a way to balance the roster. I firmly disagree with that being how teams should approach the draft.

There are a couple of exceptions. Teams shouldn't draft a player who simply can't be on the floor at the same time as another player already firmly entrenched as a key contributor on the roster. This is generally limited to point guards who can't shoot and pure centers.

Beyond that I am pretty much always in favor of taking the best overall player available regardless of position and then balancing the roster after that with trades and free agency.

Weltman and Hammond's inability or unwillingness to break up logjams that they've created themselves with their contract decisions has been a bigger failure than the players they've actually drafted IMO.

[cedric76]

Weham have done a great job so far

Go Magic

[Bakomagic]

You’re christening NAW as a star who played ... .

For me Alexander-Walker continues to be BPA at his draft slot. Okeke really needs to wow next year, as Alexander-Walker did demonstrate skills that he will be a 5-8 year-long rotational player in the NBA. At 16/17, that is a value pick.


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I like Brandon Clarke and Thyblle more right now. Although I'd love to take a shot on NAW and have him replace DJ on our second unit. Have him play the role he had in summer league. If he becomes more similar to summer league NAW we can put him in the SL next to Fultz after Fournier's contract ends.

I have no idea how much NOR values him though, do you think they would bite on Khem Birch ? He can fill the Derrick Favors role next year at 13 million dollars less. Favors will be a free agent anyway but they can fill his role and save the money to re-up Ingram.

Birch and a 2nd for NAW ?

Fultz/NAW/MCW
Fournier/TRoss
AG/Aminu/Iwundu
Isaac/Okeke
Vuc/Bamba

then take Best scoring wing available at #15 or whatever I'd even package 15 and AG to move up some if there's a guy you really like 4-10. It may be considered a weak draft but there's always an all star hidden somewhere in the lotto and teams will be more willing to trade back this year more than usual, I think we should take advantage of that rather than sitting back and hoping a guy we like falls to us.

[Bensational]

I'm prepared to die on the NAW "will be very good" hill. I still think his skillset is going to prove to be valuable in this league, and one we could have absolutely used. It's hard to make much out of his time with the Pelicans so far, due to them easily having the deepest backcourt in the league filled with Vets like Reddick/Holliday/Moore and up and coming young guys like Ball/Jackson/Hart.

Hahaha, I'll be right there with you. Countdown to "as if anyone thought he would be this good, that's just revisionist history". It's coming, I feel it.

[Knightro]

On the bright side for the pro NAW crowd, he was so bad this year as a rookie that he has really nowhere to go but up.

[Bensational]

On the bright side for the pro NAW crowd, he was so bad this year as a rookie that he has really nowhere to go but up.

Touche!

[pepe1991]

Those combo guards are easly the worst prospects to evaluate.
Some of them turn into Donovan Mitchell, McCullum and some of them end up being poor man's Jordan Clarksons.

[zaymon]

I dont get the fascination with NAW, current Fournier is like the highest, not likely outcome for him. Not exactly same player, but similar role, notch above secondary ball handler.
If we want to talk about fit, maybe we will go through our second round options?
N'Doye- 6'7 with 7'2 wingspan, versatile defensively, has some ball handling skills, low volume 3 point shooter. Would fit next to Ross.
Elijah Hughes- 6'6 with 6'9 wingspan. Athletic, some self creation ability, adequate passer, difficult shot maker.
Sam Merrill- 6'5 Nuclear shooter, good passer. Not athletic
Chris Smith- mobile 6'9 forward, made big strides in development, good shooter, not a good passer.
Bolmaro- 6'7 wing, good handle and vision, not a good shooter right now.
Grant Riller- 6'3 guard, old but explosive athlete and great finisher at the rim
Some of those players could make our rotation based on size and offensive prowess.