dckingsfan wrote:It is still to early to tell since there are only 14 rookies that have played more than 500 minutes. ...
25 rookies have played 500+ minutes. 4 of them were either undrafted (Jae'Sean Tate & Facundo Campazzo) or else picked in an earlier draft (Chuma Okeke & Dylan Windler). So, if we're talking about 2020 draftees, the number is 21.
dckingsfan wrote:...Ball, Wiseman, Okoro and Williams were taken before we drafted....
?? How about Anthony Edwards? Remember him?
#1 pick? Has played almost 1600 minutes?
dckingsfan wrote:...Of the remaining rookies, I would say that Tyrese Haliburton, Devin Vassell, and Kira Lewis Jr. are playing "significantly better" than Avdija. ...
That's out of your list of 15 overall, I assume?
Kira Lewis isn't playing "significantly better" than Deni. If anything, he's playing a lot worse than him. OTOH, since the list is longer, a few names should be added: Xavier Tillman, Precious Achiuwa, Isaiah Stewart, Payton Pritchard, Desmond Bane, Immanuel Quickley, Saddiq Bey & Jaden McDaniels. So far, all these guys are playing better than Deni.
dckingsfan wrote:I think there were some on the board that were all in on Haliburton and some on Vassell. The ones that got it right were the ones that wanted Haliburton or wanted to trade down for multiple picks. Edit (opinion of course).
It's "opinion" in some sense, but really better just to say that's what it looks like
"so far."So far it looks like those who either wanted Haliburton or to trade down had it right.
In my case, I was shocked that Deni was available & could not have passed on him -- neither to trade down for multiple picks (my default preference at a pick around #9) nor to pick Haliburton, whom I liked as I think everyone here did.
So far it looks like I was completely wrong. Wrong about Deni & also wrong to have preferred trading down over picking Haliburton.
OTOH, there were others who still "got it right" in one sense or another as well -- even if they didn't want Deni, weren't committed to Haliburton (or Vassell), & didn't want to trade down.
Zards, for example, was a strong supporter of Precious, while I would never have picked him at #9. Things could change, of course, but so far at least it looks like, if not as good as picking Haliburton or Vassell, picking Precious would have been better than picking Deni. There was also some support for picking Saddiq Bey @#9. He's been better than Deni so far.
My sense of hope for Deni comes from the fact that he started immediately & was rather good the first couple of weeks of the season -- before he'd had a lot of chance to be "coached" by Brooks.
Edit: note that since Zards also liked Quickley a lot, if he'd suggested trading down to get both Precious Achiuwa & Immanuel Quickley, he'd be golden in retrospect!