doclinkin wrote:payitforward wrote:Precious posted terrific numbers overall for a Freshman. & he may turn out to be a terrific player. That possibility is not a reason to pick him at #9 -- for the obvious reason that he'll be available later in R1.
Now who gave you that “crystal ball” you’re so fond of....
Have I forgotten to return your crystal ball? Again? Sorry, Doc... -- I'll get it back to you this week!
...
doclinkin wrote:...But even with the info we have: Your boys at the Stepien suggested Achiuwa was possibly the ‘most athletic’ player in the draft. ...When I did ...it was Precious and Okongwu miles ahead of everyone else.....
Who was it you compared Branden Clarke to last year? Oh yeah... Tim Thomas.
doclinkin wrote:...Scouts and advanced analytics guys will have ...etc. etc. etc.
Must be why they picked Barrett, Hunter, Culver, Garland, Hayes & Reddish in the top 10, right? & let Johnson, Thybulle & Clarke fall into the teens & twenties, while allowing Martin, Gafford, Paschall, & Mann to drop into R2
doclinkin wrote:We? Get highlights and the opinions of knowitalls. Present company happily included....
Weird, ain't it? How do we do it, I wonder? Well, here's one thing: you & I remember Tim Thomas. None of those "scouts and advanced analytics guys" would recognize the name.
doclinkin wrote:There’s no such thing as a ‘stretch’ if you land the player who fits your team, and they turn out to be good.....
This is true in a very real sense. But, if you use your asset, the draft pick/position, to get that guy & another guy who also fits/is good -- that's even better. &, since the NBA is competitive, doing that improves you relative to the competition. Duh.
doclinkin wrote:Teams get a great deal more information than we do.....
3 decades in the tech industries taught me that a)
data is not information, b)
information is not knowledge, & c)
knowledge isn't extensible to next time around -- isn't "
wisdom" in other words. Make a good pick this year? Start over from scratch next year.
doclinkin wrote:...Who are the Top 3 bigs in the draft? Name them in order. Nobody else in the top 14 needs a big?...
Draft for need this year, you'll have more needs next year. Rinse & repeat.
doclinkin wrote:...The metagame is shifting to emphasize size with skill.
How not? What shifts is the list under "important skills." One thing's sure, however: small & skilless doesn't do the trick.
doclinkin wrote:...If Tommy has Okongwu and Precious as 1&2 on his board, based on scouting and projection and all of the above, and if the scouting suggests Achiuwa is in the same tier as the other BPAs that fall to 9, then in my read he is not wrong for taking the Big. By virtue of human biology an athletic Big is a rarer commodity.
Even if he’s not my pick.
Xavier Tillman may turn out to be better than Achiuwa. There is absolutely no data-driven basis on which to deny that possibility. If anything, the data is on Tillman's side in the projection.
Yet, you wouldn't pick Tillman #9. Thus, your schema above is wrong -- or rather it's incomplete.
A GM who thinks that doing well in the draft is driven by being able to tell whether Achiuwa is going to be as good as Okongwu, or how close, is condemned to lose. Period. Ditto if it's Tillman vs. either guy.
Projecting players overall is difficult. Projecting a comparison between 2 particular players is mega-difficult. This is true even though, in the case of Okongwu we see a 19-year old with significant pluses over either of those other guys that would move us to make the bigger bet that drafting a 19-year old entails.
This is the essential point: the hardest thing for people to see is the difference between a "pick" and a "player." They are not the same! In fact they are not remotely similar. Is a $5 bill "like" the hot dog, chips & coke you buy with it?
A "pick" is an asset. It's like $$$. You use it to buy player-value. The idea is to get the most player value you can for that asset. That improves your team. In fact, it's one of the few controllable ways to improve a franchise.
That's why the above is wrong, but this is right:
doclinkin wrote:I agree ...with the idea of trade downs. ...Nothing is ‘obvious’ in ...where the good players will be taken. Maybe you get two great players instead of one. Maybe the 2nd one taken is the better.....
Bingo. Plus, it's more fun for fans like us!