Pick for the Hornets 13 & 15

[kobyz]

#13, Bouk, Kai for #4, draft Ivey #4 and Mark Williams #15

[HotelVitale]

I'm enjoying this back and forth.

I'd add that Pelton is probably right that teams usually overpay to move up - I wish my Griz would stop doing it - but I think he's off on the specifics of pick value, because he assigns a fixed value per win to player's production (see https://insider.espn.com/nba/draft2015/insider/story/_/id/13143349/nba-draft-trading-pick-usually-costly-move). But, if your goal is winning a championship, a guy who produces 16 wins in 32mpg is more than twice as valuable as a guy who produces 8 in the same amount of court time.

You need to apply a nonlinear multiplier to those WP scores before comparing them to salaries, and that underrates the value of the top picks, which still (Pelton's stats make clear) product more wins that the others.

I sort of agree on the methodology, although guys like Giannis and Jokic (and Gobert when looking at analytics) are going to skew that number away from the top picks.

And also... Sometimes your stars take up so much salary that you're forced to run out Wenyen Gabriel in another spot on the floor. The Lakers being the most obvious example.

Pick value is difficult to quantify because the quality and effectiveness of a scouting department factors into play. Personally, I feel the Hornets' GM has demonstrated effective drafting in the first and second rounds. Kupchak is capable of landing two hits if the scouting departments ahead in the draft miss. Imagine Tari Eason falling. Kai Jones fell out of the lottery and Kupchak reentered the first round to grab him. Bouknight fell and he had Bouk "much higher" than 11 and was considering Kai in a group of targets at 11. The GM has to assess other scouting departments who could be targeting a given player of interest. He has to rank other scouting departments. Then determine whether he must attempt to trade up past them if possible in order to acquire a target. Right now, I would be trying to trade 13 + 15 for Duren or Mathurin.

I get your main point but I pretty strongly disagree with this premise, I think it’s just not accurate for the way nba scouts and GMs talk about their own job and ends up making you believe in magic or intuition. There’s nothing Kupchak or any other GM or scout can see about James Bouknight or any other top prospect that anyone else can’t see. There’s a bunch of game footage and raw statistical data and some physical and mental testing, and some other little factors. They have access to more than we have but none of it allows them to see anything more than ‘okay this guy has the physical tools to be good at X and Y, has a good attitude and work ethic, and he could grow into Z and Q parts of his game if things work out well.’

None of those things tell anyone how well a given player will translate right away to the nba or how he’ll develop his high level skills over the next couple years. GMs aren’t doing anything more than guessing about that, and the way they talk about their picks just says that; eg ‘what we liked about jaylen brown was just his athletic upside and attitude, he already had the raw slashing and we thought he could be something special if he developed his shot etc.’ That’s the same guy who said ‘we loved Romeo Langford because of his athletic upside, we saw a guy who had great slashing potential and could develop into a great wing of his shot came along.’ There’s nothing more there than that—doing your homework, taking your best guess, and crossing your fingers.

(Also many many teams had Bouknight higher than 11, he was last widely seen as a reasonable pick anywhere past about 5 or 6 last year. And Kai Jones is far from a successful pick just yet, and also a guy whom lots of people liked. If anything those examples just show how much Kupchak is following the consensus and getting excited about the players much of the league thought we’re falling.)

[Prospect Dong]

I sort of agree on the methodology, although guys like Giannis and Jokic (and Gobert when looking at analytics) are going to skew that number away from the top picks.

And also... Sometimes your stars take up so much salary that you're forced to run out Wenyen Gabriel in another spot on the floor. The Lakers being the most obvious example.

Pick value is difficult to quantify because the quality and effectiveness of a scouting department factors into play. Personally, I feel the Hornets' GM has demonstrated effective drafting in the first and second rounds. Kupchak is capable of landing two hits if the scouting departments ahead in the draft miss. Imagine Tari Eason falling. Kai Jones fell out of the lottery and Kupchak reentered the first round to grab him. Bouknight fell and he had Bouk "much higher" than 11 and was considering Kai in a group of targets at 11. The GM has to assess other scouting departments who could be targeting a given player of interest. He has to rank other scouting departments. Then determine whether he must attempt to trade up past them if possible in order to acquire a target. Right now, I would be trying to trade 13 + 15 for Duren or Mathurin.

I get your main point but I pretty strongly disagree with this premise, I think it’s just not accurate for the way nba scouts and GMs talk about their own job and ends up making you believe in magic or intuition. There’s nothing Kupchak or any other GM or scout can see about James Bouknight or any other top prospect that anyone else can’t see. There’s a bunch of game footage and raw statistical data and some physical and mental testing, and some other little factors. They have access to more than we have but none of it allows them to see anything more than ‘okay this guy has the physical tools to be good at X and Y, has a good attitude and work ethic, and he could grow into Z and Q parts of his game if things work out well.’

None of those things tell anyone how well a given player will translate right away to the nba or how he’ll develop his high level skills over the next couple years. GMs aren’t doing anything more than guessing about that, and the way they talk about their picks just says that; eg ‘what we liked about jaylen brown was just his athletic upside and attitude, he already had the raw slashing and we thought he could be something special if he developed his shot etc.’ That’s the same guy who said ‘we loved Romeo Langford because of his athletic upside, we saw a guy who had great slashing potential and could develop into a great wing of his shot came along.’ There’s nothing more there than that—doing your homework, taking your best guess, and crossing your fingers.

(Also many many teams had Bouknight higher than 11, he was last widely seen as a reasonable pick anywhere past about 5 or 6 last year. And Kai Jones is far from a successful pick just yet, and also a guy whom lots of people liked. If anything those examples just show how much Kupchak is following the consensus and getting excited about the players much of the league thought we’re falling.)

Yeah, given the underlying randomness of projecting NBA play based on college/international.G League ball, it take a lot of data to reasonably conclude that your front office can systematically outperform its draft slots. You're much more likely to fool yourself based on your optimism about the guys your franchise has spent picks on - your key examples for Kupchak are two guys who have, so far, not looked great since entering the league.

I do think there are better and worse scouting departments, but I think it's really hard to be sure about which teams have them, and even then you're only going to get a small edge over the market, not a FO that can go out and systematically get solid NBA players in the 20s...

[toooskies]

Pick value is difficult to quantify because the quality and effectiveness of a scouting department factors into play. Personally, I feel the Hornets' GM has demonstrated effective drafting in the first and second rounds. Kupchak is capable of landing two hits if the scouting departments ahead in the draft miss. Imagine Tari Eason falling. Kai Jones fell out of the lottery and Kupchak reentered the first round to grab him. Bouknight fell and he had Bouk "much higher" than 11 and was considering Kai in a group of targets at 11. The GM has to assess other scouting departments who could be targeting a given player of interest. He has to rank other scouting departments. Then determine whether he must attempt to trade up past them if possible in order to acquire a target. Right now, I would be trying to trade 13 + 15 for Duren or Mathurin.

I get your main point but I pretty strongly disagree with this premise, I think it’s just not accurate for the way nba scouts and GMs talk about their own job and ends up making you believe in magic or intuition. There’s nothing Kupchak or any other GM or scout can see about James Bouknight or any other top prospect that anyone else can’t see. There’s a bunch of game footage and raw statistical data and some physical and mental testing, and some other little factors. They have access to more than we have but none of it allows them to see anything more than ‘okay this guy has the physical tools to be good at X and Y, has a good attitude and work ethic, and he could grow into Z and Q parts of his game if things work out well.’

None of those things tell anyone how well a given player will translate right away to the nba or how he’ll develop his high level skills over the next couple years. GMs aren’t doing anything more than guessing about that, and the way they talk about their picks just says that; eg ‘what we liked about jaylen brown was just his athletic upside and attitude, he already had the raw slashing and we thought he could be something special if he developed his shot etc.’ That’s the same guy who said ‘we loved Romeo Langford because of his athletic upside, we saw a guy who had great slashing potential and could develop into a great wing of his shot came along.’ There’s nothing more there than that—doing your homework, taking your best guess, and crossing your fingers.

(Also many many teams had Bouknight higher than 11, he was last widely seen as a reasonable pick anywhere past about 5 or 6 last year. And Kai Jones is far from a successful pick just yet, and also a guy whom lots of people liked. If anything those examples just show how much Kupchak is following the consensus and getting excited about the players much of the league thought we’re falling.)

Yeah, given the underlying randomness of projecting NBA play based on college/international.G League ball, it take a lot of data to reasonably conclude that your front office can systematically outperform its draft slots. You're much more likely to fool yourself based on your optimism about the guys your franchise has spent picks on - your key examples for Kupchak are two guys who have, so far, not looked great since entering the league.

I do think there are better and worse scouting departments, but I think it's really hard to be sure about which teams have them, and even then you're only going to get a small edge over the market, not a FO that can go out and systematically get solid NBA players in the 20s...

I think it's far more likely that a team's draft results vary more from player development teams than scouting teams.

[King Ken]

I don't believe Duren will fall out of the top 10 even though I don't think he's a top 10 pick. Mark Williams for sure. TyTy Washington at 15 maybe. I still see them shopping 15 for a center but missing one at that price. They need a backup PG and a backup and starting C.

[Gert42]

#13, Bouk, Kai for #4, draft Ivey #4 and Mark Williams #15

I don't think Sacramento wants guys who aren't in the rotation for a non playoff team for the #4 pick.

[amcoolio]

If we don't draft Tari Eason I'm going to scream

[MasterIchiro]

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[Colbinii]

#13, Bouk, Kai for #4, draft Ivey #4 and Mark Williams #15

This is awful for the Kings.

[SelfishPlayer]

A center, exactly who they shouldn't have drafted...

[SelfishPlayer]

Two centers, LaMelo will be returning home to LA before his max extension concludes, Ben Simmons style.

[mattyj]

Two centers, LaMelo will be returning home to LA before his max extension concludes, Ben Simmons style.

Duren is going to Detroit

Sent from my CPH2009 using RealGM Forums mobile app

[SelfishPlayer]

Two centers, LaMelo will be returning home to LA before his max extension concludes, Ben Simmons style.

Duren is going to Detroit

Sent from my CPH2009 using RealGM Forums mobile app

And LaMelo will be going back home.