Originally Posted by
Freyfamilyreuni
You're arguing what you would do. I'm trying to predict what Griffin will do. If you draft a guy to potentially trade him down the line, you draft a guy that you're comfortable with keeping if the other guy you're coveting doesn't fall to your potential trade partner. I don't think you draft a guy that you don't want to deal with and don't want on your team.
My guess is, Griffin doesn't want to deal with Sharpe and his entourage, and doesn't want to pass up other prospects that either he or his team is high on for only the potential to be able to unload Sharpe on someone else.
So either they swap picks with someone and drop to a position in the draft that they're comfortable with, or they just go ahead and pick one of the available guys that they're targeting.
As for Dyson vs Griffin, I've heard that the coaching staff is high on AJ. Maybe they're higher on Dyson than Griffin, I don't know. I haven't heard what they thought of Dyson, I've just heard that the coaches like Griffin. It may be that they see Dyson as more of a long term project than Griffin, even if Dyson's ceiling is higher. I don't know.
Dyson's biggest skill set that could contribute right away is perimeter defense. He's got very good length and very good lateral movement for someone with his length. He doesn't fill your other need though, for three point shooting. Griffin seems to fill that need really well, his issue is that he won't give you much in the way of perimeter defense. So perhaps it's as simple as which need does the Pelicans staff think is the bigger need? Or perhaps do they think that Griffin's potential for improving his perimeter defense is better than Dyson's potential for perimeter offense.
Or perhaps they really do love Dyson, they've just been keeping a lid on it, hoping someone doesn't jump ahead of them and take him, and maybe the Griffin stuff is a smokescreen.