2012 Draft, Part VI (Draft Week is Here!)

[Doc Holliday]

Hi guys, first time poster - long time Bullets/Wiz suffer.

I'm hoping we draft Beal but if he is gone, I like the trade to Portland for #6 and Matthews. With the #6 pick, we then draft BPA (not a PG).

With the 2nd rounder, I want a pure 3pt shooter, so I want to see us take John Jenkins. What is the cost to buy a 2nd rounder - if is doable, get it and take Crowder. Something this team is lacking (but making an effort to get better at) is BB IQ. We need players who play smart. San Antonio isn't overly athletic but they have smart players. I like the SA model.

[jivelikenice]

I'm still hoping for MKG over Barnes (I'm assuming the Beal ship has sailed.)

I don't mind Barnes, but if the decision is to pass on MKG, I'd rather roll the dice on a trade down and hope Barnes is there. At 3, MKG over Barnes.

[RickRoll_inDC]

Who wants to be a pal and let me hang out with them at the vc tonight? My roommates are party poopers and I'm here by myself...

[jivelikenice]

I expect the Wizards will sell the #32. So, I'm not getting my hopes up.

I'd be surprised. They haven't sold a pick under Ted's watch. I can see them using that to move up into Rd 1 or drafting a Euro, but doubt they'd sell.

[The Consiglieri]

Thanks for the thoughtful response, I'm busy trying to do a special article for one website, and continue with my Euro reports for another, and am letting my draft obsession simmer on the side burner, and kind of goofing up because of it. I appreciate how even keeled you've taken it . I recognize your examples, and a guy like Blatche is another one, people simply don't give nearly enough credit to 2nd rounders that hit, until a poster posted those stats the other day, people seemed fixated on the 2nd round with particular players in mind as if it's a lock to get help there, that we should target a particular position or player there, etc, and my view of the 2nd round has always been, 90% of the guys end up stinking out loud, so forget particular position and filling a need, and just try to steal somebody who can actually contribute at the NBA level, because those are the only guys who ever actually amount to something out of the 2nd round, picking for need there just seems insane to me, even if the bench requires it, because in my view, you're just wasting your pick. Much better to go with the odds and try to take a guy that might be able to play in the NBA (which is damn hard 31-60). They seem to fall into 3 categories:

1. All heart and motor college stud at major school that doesnt have the agility and measurements, but has the desire to make it, and the work habits (the contra to this is the same player who simply doesnt have the physical tools to make the jump up, no matter how much heart he may have. Gottlieb has talked about this).

2. Obscure college or foreign player doubted because of his level of competition, but has the skills, and is just underrated.

3. Stud that falls because of rumors, bad med reports etc, but has way more talent than guys taken before him. Guys like Blair and Sully fit this.

[HeyIt'sMe]

Drummond/Barnes or Bust.

Your affair with Barnes is disturbing. Nothing about the guy screams potential superstar. He'll be a solid pro, but nothing special.

[SUPERBALLMAN]

Or whats his face as #2. There are serious flaws in it, I bet it does a great job of smoking out dramatically overrated types and future busts, and identifying dramatically underrated guys but i think it skews things crazily, some of the rankings appear utterly idiotic to be honest, and I know the #'s are saying its so, and just an overreliance on group think, and vague, unmathetmatic principles are saying its not so, but it doesnt change the fact that I just its crazy flawed for the reasons DC suggests, and for others.

You might be right. Then again, maybe I should make a list of idiotic draft decisions made by actual NBA GMs. Or idiotic predictions made by the "experts" at ESPN and various other outlets. The system I've put together might not seem so idiotic.

And, just a reminder, I wouldn't pick guys like Crowder, Denmon, Barton or Zeller as high as they're ranked in YODA. I would take advantage of the fact that others have them dramatically underrated and try to pick them up later in the draft.

Absolutely fair, and absolutely reasonable, I just tend to view Crowder as #2 in tier 2 to be a flaw, and something well and truly bizarre. I can't remember pretty much anytime ever (maybe that all world awful '00 draft?) where a guy that was rated 30something by the scouts was actually the 2nd best player in the draft. Never heard of anything like that. For sure have seen guys selected in the 20's, and sometimes in round 2 that ended up being a top 5-10 guy in there draft, it happens every once in a while, but never seen something that crazy, and usually its for an odd reason, like Ginobli and Parker being such huge values because foregin scouting was in its infancy and incredibly flawed back then compared to now (as detailed in a grantland article yesterday).

Hope it doesnt come across as insulting, I just think there's something screwy in it, but i understand because sometimes it just happens when you crunch numbers. I remember last year when I was setting up my draft board for fantasy football every single time I crunched the numbers Shady McCoy came up #2 on my board, and I found myself doing a short bus version of Einstein's tweaking of gravity (or whatever it was) to tweak the #'s to get my eval of McCoy in line w/the consensus, but nothing freaking worked. In flex PPR leagues my #'s said he was the #2 RB, even though every seeming expert out there had him in a separate tier entirely, or two tiers back, and rated somewhere between 6th-early 2nd round (a huge deal in fantasy football, where sorting out the first round can be key to you avoiding a disastrous season with a blown choice). As it turned out, McCoy ended up finishing 2nd just as I predicted, and the #'s I'd put together were right. There was speculation involved, looking at McCoy's previous #'s, Westbrook's #'s early in his prime, and projecting how much utility Philly would get out of McCoy's very westbrook like skill set. Now of course I blew other calls and wasn't even able to utilize that knowledge because McCoy was kept in the keeper leagues I was playing in, and unavailable at the non-keeper league slots I landed (#2 in one league, where I took Ray Rice who I had rated #1, and in the other leagues I ended up picking 9th and 10th, and he was gone at that point), but it's an important point. Sometimes the numbers are right, and we simply refuse to believe them because the white noise of consensus distracts us.

This was the case last year w/guys like Faried who CCJ, and really the whole board loved, and considered a top 10 talent, but who NBA GM's simply couldn't conceive of being that good due to perceived limits in his offensive game, and the weak quality of opposition (a huge issue that can effect Yoda, and any metrics analysis in my view, the caliber of opponents dramatically distorts a players production, and how can you account for those issues effectively when the difference between playing in the Big East or ACC is 10000 times different than playing in the WAC, Pac-10 or MAC).

Nivek, does YODA take into considerations a player's size (height, reach/wingspan, weight) in comparison with the average and/or ideal size for their position? I mean I was on the Crowder bandwagon after watching him, but fell off when he measured as a 6-4 PF. Even if he can play SF he's undersized for how highly you have him ranked.

[payitforward]

I expect the Wizards will sell the #32. So, I'm not getting my hopes up.

I'd be surprised. They haven't sold a pick under Ted's watch. I can see them using that to move up into Rd 1 or drafting a Euro, but doubt they'd sell.

??? We sold our round 2 pick in '09 and in '08 I believe.

[jivelikenice]

I expect the Wizards will sell the #32. So, I'm not getting my hopes up.

I'd be surprised. They haven't sold a pick under Ted's watch. I can see them using that to move up into Rd 1 or drafting a Euro, but doubt they'd sell.

??? We sold our round 2 pick in '09 and in '08 I believe.

Ted didn't own the team then.

[BruceO]

I think I'm secretly hoping for mkg regardless of fit. I'll take the guy who has won on every level and hates losing which isn't much..ten losses in the last ten years..mmh but he isnt Carmelo size unless he grows let's gt that straight

Hoping for excitement 6 plus 11? If mkg is there still...I'm just hoping for some genius moment

[GhostsOfGil]

60 minutes and counting...

[kirubel94]

Broussard is saying its down to the Rockets and Cavs for the second pick, i doubt the Rockets would pick Beal if they trade up.

[payitforward]

Thanks for the thoughtful response, I'm busy trying to do a special article for one website, and continue with my Euro reports for another, and am letting my draft obsession simmer on the side burner, and kind of goofing up because of it. I appreciate how even keeled you've taken it . I recognize your examples, and a guy like Blatche is another one, people simply don't give nearly enough credit to 2nd rounders that hit, until a poster posted those stats the other day, people seemed fixated on the 2nd round with particular players in mind as if it's a lock to get help there, that we should target a particular position or player there, etc, and my view of the 2nd round has always been, 90% of the guys end up stinking out loud, so forget particular position and filling a need, and just try to steal somebody who can actually contribute at the NBA level, because those are the only guys who ever actually amount to something out of the 2nd round, picking for need there just seems insane to me, even if the bench requires it, because in my view, you're just wasting your pick. Much better to go with the odds and try to take a guy that might be able to play in the NBA (which is damn hard 31-60). They seem to fall into 3 categories:

1. All heart and motor college stud at major school that doesnt have the agility and measurements, but has the desire to make it, and the work habits (the contra to this is the same player who simply doesnt have the physical tools to make the jump up, no matter how much heart he may have. Gottlieb has talked about this).

2. Obscure college or foreign player doubted because of his level of competition, but has the skills, and is just underrated.

3. Stud that falls because of rumors, bad med reports etc, but has way more talent than guys taken before him. Guys like Blair and Sully fit this.

Major underestimation of round 2 players. 2007 and 2008 -- 7 rotation players out of each round 2. 2009 -- 10 or 11 rotation NBA players out of round 2.

This year, because so many guys stayed an extra year not to be caught in a lockout, I think you can treat the first 10 round 2 picks like round 1 picks most years. Of all the years to turn away from round 2, this one ain't it! So expect Ernie to sell the pick (as he did in '08 and '09).

Edit: 2011 -- 9 rotation players out of round 2. 2010 was an off year, but there were still a handful.

[TheKingOfVa360]

Drummond/Barnes or Bust.

I'll go with bust

[jivelikenice]

I think I'm secretly hoping for mkg regardless of fit. I'll take the guy who has won on every level and hates losing which isn't much..ten losses in the last ten years..mmh but he isnt Carmelo size unless he grows let's gt that straight

Hoping for excitement 6 plus 11? If mkg is there still...I'm just hoping for some genius moment

I'm back on the MKG bus if Cleveland jumps us for Beal. We'll have a bunch of front court assets we can use to move up to the middle of Rd 1 for another 2 guard. Forget fit, get a guy who'll bring it 82 games a yr.

[Hoopalotta]

Let's crash this mother with obsessive, panic-driven refreshing!

Ready, set.....go!

[Zonkerbl]

Given how much more parity there is now that all the good players leave after one year, is it really such a good idea to discount players because there isn't as much "competition"?

[payitforward]

A better way to analyze the value of round 2 picks is

1. compare picks 26-30 w/ the next two groups of five. In '08, there was essentially 1 good player in the 26-30 group -- George Hill. 31-35 included Pekovic, Chalmers & DeAndre Jordan. 36-40 included Omer Asik and Mbah a Moute.

2. Realize that round 2 picks don't get guaranteed salaries.

In other words, as a GM I'd prefer to have pick 31 rather than pick 30. It's a much more useful asset. We have #32 in a very deep draft -- like getting a first round player, an early 20s type of pick, but you don't have to guarantee him. It's an exceptional, once in a great while kind of opportunity. That's why it's so important to sell it off for next to nothing as we are going to do (I hope not!!).

[kirubel94]

sources: Cavs offering 4, 24 and 33 picks for Charlotte's 2 and 31 picks
Broussard

[tontoz]

I think I'm secretly hoping for mkg regardless of fit. I'll take the guy who has won on every level and hates losing which isn't much..ten losses in the last ten years..mmh but he isnt Carmelo size unless he grows let's gt that straight

Hoping for excitement 6 plus 11? If mkg is there still...I'm just hoping for some genius moment

I'm back on the MKG bus if Cleveland jumps us for Beal. We'll have a bunch of front court assets we can use to move up to the middle of Rd 1 for another 2 guard. Forget fit, get a guy who'll bring it 82 games a yr.

I think Sactown's interest in TRob will discourage the Cats from dealing with the Cavs. The Wizards could easily trade down to 5 and take Barnes/Waiters.