payitforward wrote:Sheppard said... “We are probably more focused on bigs..."
Worth looking at this statement, which does seem to make sense. We have control over 11 players (guys under guaranteed contracts plus Bonga & Garrison Mathews -- I'm ignoring Pasecniks for the moment). Only Bryant, Rui & Wagner are bigs, & Wagner doesn't look good.
Unless Wiseman falls through the floor, the only big being projected at 9 or earlier in this draft is Onweka Okungwu. Great if we get him. What if we don't?
The next 3 bigs in pretty much all mocks so far are (in no particular order): Precious Achiuwa, Jalen Smith & Alexei Pokusevski. Given our all-in attitude about Rui, I'm thinking there's no chance we want Achiuwa.
So... might we take either Smith or Poku at #9? Possibly. Yet, it seems very likely, almost 100%, that at least one of those guys will still be on the board at #14. Both might very well be there.
This makes a trade with Boston extremely attractive. Moreover, I have no doubt whatever that Boston will move at least 1 of its 3 R1 picks, as they did last year. Hence, it seems likely they'd do a 2-for-1 with us to move up to #9 -- unless they are targeting someone whom they feel absolutely certain will be on the board at #14 (in which case, look for them to trade #s26 & 30 for a pick in the mid-low-teens or some more complicated deal).
In other words, a trade down is starting to seem like a real possibility rather than my annual dream-that-can't-come-true.
If we got 14 & 26 for 9, I'd be thrilled. But, I'd also take 14 & 30 (ssssh, don't tell Danny!). If it meant that we wound up with Jalen Smith, Tyler Bey & Xavier Tillman... that would be a great draft.
Promote Mathews, & sign Nathan Knight & one of Payton Pritchard, Skylar Mays, Nate Hinton, Tre Jones or Cassius Winston as 2-ways, & we've taken some more steps towards rebuilding this team as a good one.