AtheJ415 wrote:Slim Charless wrote:AtheJ415 wrote:
Luka was nowhere near considered a good shooter coming out, and he's always and still is regarded as a terrible defender, so he checks 1 of the 3 boxes Jones claims to look for. You're also separating out intelligence and passing into 2 separate areas which is not how Jones has ever described it. High IQ is typically a synonym for good passer. You could say offensive and defensive awareness too but that's included in a good defender or all around offensive player to begin with. If you wnated to go that route, fine, but then he checks only 2/5 boxes b/c defensive awareness would have to be its own.
Jones knew he was going to be the GM, as did Sarver. If he wanted Luka, we'd have Luka right now. Also, at no point in Jones's entire GM history has he ever targeted a guy in the draft who was even considered a below average playmaker at his position.
Mikal Bridges (biggest weakness is dribbling), Cam (non-playmaker), Jevon Carter (complete non-playmaking PG), and Jalen Smith (averages more turnovers than assists). Even Oubre and Dillon Brooks. He has shown no propensity to value a playmaking, non-shooting, non-defender forward. He very clearly values playmaking at the 1 with Book and everyone else being a 3 and D guy. That's been the makeup of every lineup he has tried to add.
Also the bold is not true, and the reason he's seen as a 5 is because if a player struggles to stay in front of players in college, and has the size to move up, he typically does. NBA quickness is a different animal. Ayton was a 4 in college. Do you see Ayton as a 4 in the NBA? No. Smith is seen as a 5 for valid reasons. If he improves his quickness could he play the 4? Sure. For this pick to be justifiable he has to be able to play it because to spend the 10th pick on a backup center to your current center would be GM malpractice. Point being, it's not out of the question Smith might be able to play the 4 in the NBA, but to act like it's not a valid question as to whether he can stay in front of NBA players at that position would be wrong.
Wait, so you're trying to say that Jones was the GM but still just decided to let McD run the draft for......reasons? That's insane. This is like arguing with a Trump voter. If he was to be the GM, he would've been the GM at the draft and made trade decisions. It makes 0 sense to have McD make all the moves THEN step in. That's completely asinine. You've been saying that Jones would take JJJ this whole time, yet here Ayton is on the roster?
To the your final point. I'm not the only one who sees Smith as a PF apparently the Suns do as well. If we had taken Toppin you wouldn't be calling him a 5. Well guess what? Smith is a better defender than Obi.
No. My premise is quite simple. If somebody comes in to replace a boss and a company-changing decision is about to be made that will impact the company for decades and he felt strongly it should be one way and not the other, he'd go over his head. You all are also giving him credit for Bridges, so how does that work?
More than that, James Jones has never in his entire time here, EVER, signed or drafted a player who was a playmaker with no elite shooting or defensive abilities. It has not happened once. He has overly prioritized shooting and defense even when we direly needed additional playmaking. There is 0 evidence that Jones would have picked Doncic, and a ton to suggest he wouldn't. He likes the safe role players and typically goes off board. Doncic was with Ayton as #1 consensus. When has Jones ever taken a consensus player? To suggest he would've taken Doncic flies in the face of his entire history here. You just don't want to believe that so are choosing not to, which is the most Trumpish thing I've seen.
To my second point, maybe read a little better because I've stated repeatedly that we HAVE to see Smith as a 4, because otherwise it would be the dumbest pick in nearly a decade from a value perspective. Taking a backup 5 in the top 10 when your starting 5 is your 3rd best player and the youngest of your 3 best would be disasterously stupid. Whether he actually can play the 4 in the NBA is an open question though. Our belief that he can does not somehow prove he can. That's why this pick is not ideal.
We don't know who we would have picked, so it's a pointless argument, but Doncic clearly fits his criteria the most, and him and Sarver went to watch him play (twice I think) and McD, who still had the job for whatever reason for the draft but got fired before the season, always wanted that big.
There is a decent chance that played into the firing. That he somehow made that pick himself or disagreed and did it and they knew it was a mistake and then argued again with them later on who to pick. He clearly made bad decisions in earlier drafts, like signing Ariza when we had just drafted Bridges and already had TJ and Jackson...when we desperately needed a PG.
But Doncic being a shooter, despite the invalid arguments he wasn't and an elite playmaker which we desperately needed seemed to be a guy he wanted.
But many here who liked Doncic were still fine with Ayton anyway, like you for example, and I really wanted Doncic too, but understood the Ayton appeal even though I had my doubts having watched him in college and seeing the tentativeness and bad defense. Doncic's knock on D was not being able to guard PGs and he hasn't been very good but also expends SO much on offense it likely wears him out...but nonetheless he knows team defensive concepts a lot better than Ayton and C is infinitely more important than the other positions on defense. Jones valuing defense, shooting and passing, none of which Ayton was good at, makes me think he take Doncic. JJJ was clearly a tier below for a #1 pick, and had nothing on Doncic on passing and shooting...just D, and had fouling and rebounding issues.
The point is, though, we don't know, so kind of pointless to argue about it for days.
