All 4 teams left are pretty good 3pt makers and are versatile defensively.
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All 4 teams left are pretty good 3pt makers and are versatile defensively.
To me, versatility is king. Not shooting. Warriors have perhaps the two greatest shooters of all time but what has truly always put them over the top is their ability to play multiple ways, coupled with uniquely high IQ and humbleness of their stats
And what if Boston wins the title? What is king then? Defense and versatility, right with one or two guys carrying the bulk of the scoring. Sounds like the Pels
Daniels, Sochan, or Dieng. But again, that isn’t slamming Mathurin.
https://twitter.com/draftexpress/sta...GaQV0t0sSWtD6A
Dyson generating top 5 pick buzz? WOW
And soon you will read Dieng has top 10 buzz. They are always a few weeks behind, but they eventually catch up lol
Apparently Dyson ran the fastest shuttle time at the combine. I guess he’s not slowish.
I'd love to see Daniels go in the top 7. I just don't see it with him. Possible it's just because he's very raw right now. As for the supposed buzz around him, I've been looking at the forums for the Kings, Pistons, Pacers, and Blazers, and I don't see anyone from the Kings or Pistons even discussing Daniels other than saying he's not top 5, and knocking the report of him having top 5 buzz as delusional. Most discussion on him at all that I see is from Portland. Who knows though with GMs. Kings fans wanted Luka and we see how that turned out. But we'll also see these stories about players generating buzz when it's really just their agents doing it.
One thing I also noticed is that a lot of Kings, Pistons, and Pacers fans are hoping that they don't draft Murray. And the consensus from Pacers fans seems to be that they want Mathurin. I don't see a lot of talk regarding Sharpe, but that's probably because we haven't seen him play against anything other than high schoolers. It's incredibly hard to judge that without seeing private workouts.
Good number of Kings fans right now seem to think it's between Murray, Ivey, and Mathurin though if they stay at 4. I did notice that the Kings are working out Murray, Eason, Daniels, Dieng, Mark Williams, Agbaji, among some players that might be there in the 2nd round. I'm curious with some of the players they're working out like Agbaji and Dieng if they might consider trading down a few spots (could this be like New Orleans swapping 8 to 4?).
All that being said, people probably need to temper their expectations on how good the player the Pelicans pick is going to be. Odds are they're not going to be anything special. Look at the 7-9 picks historically. Jaxson Hayes for example was the 8th pick and even the players taking around him haven't turned out special yet. And odds are that at least one player that goes from 9-15 is going to be pretty good and potentially an all star, and Pelicans fans are going to be kicking themselves and saying that we should have taken that player, or that they were right about that player even though they mentioned like 20 players as possibilities and prefer to play the Monday morning quarterback route.
In this post season teams that win 3pt contest in efficiency and/or 3 point made are 58-15. Ties in 3pm deferred to efficiency. Gross efficiency disparity would also dictate certain results. There was also about 5 or so games that could flip either way, but I mostly put them in the L column except for one.
defense this or defense that. At the end of the day, you need otherworldly shooters just as much you need defense. I still have Daniels above Bennedict tho.
Thats assuming that it is the shooting that is 100% responsible for the disparity. Could it not be that the two teams have similar shooting and Team A makes Team B take harder shots, thereby making their percentage lower?
When you have versatile defenders, you can switch, hedge and recover, etc and prevent the open drive and kick looks. When you have Jonas at center and Graham and CJ at guard, you give up way better looks than the switchable Celtics.
Read your post again, especially your first paragraph. Your reasoning resolves around fans opinion. Like, you realize thats insane, right? No fan, a month before the draft would have thought Patrick Williams would go top 5. Or Haliburton would fall to 12 or Barnes would go ahead of Suggs.
None of those people actually watch these guys. The entirity of their opinion and projection comes from a norm set by the mock drafts they see. Then, once enough of those mock drafts have guys being picked in a new range, magically those fans will start thinking that guy is worth that pick too.
Josh Primo was a "reach" - not because these people actually watch stuff and know what they are talking about. He was a reach because the fans who looked at 100 mock drafts never saw his name in the top 18, so taking him at 12 is a "crazy reach"
Like 3 guys actually watch stuff - the top amongst them being Givony and Schmitz, so if they say that is the buzz, it means way more than a 1000 virgins on a message board pretending to know but really just reciting the mocks they read on the interwebs
When you're 27th in 3p%... And 24th in 3PA. It was dead last before CJ got here. A 12th best defense with super young guys that only gonna get better simply through continuity and internal growth.
Jonas, Graham, and CJ are our only sour spots. If we want to hedge our bets.
I want to improve the defense in the paint and the rim badly, but I don't want to draft Duren or Mark Williams 8th overall for a true shot blocker or Rim protector. I think the perimeter defense is gonna improve without a necessary infusion of draft talent.
If we can make a move for 4th overall with the Kings. I'd be down for it. Getting a two way capable player is essential. Dyson is my favorite at 8th.
I'm super excited for this offseason. I remember last year. I was super down and burnt out from all the drama with the organization. It's nice to just be optimistic and actually have discussions about roster construction.
What was Pelicans draft board again? It was Jabari as #1. And how did 4-8 go?
You gotta figure Trey and CJ take way more 3's for us this year and that helps. The two of them took 366 last year. Figure that will be closer to 800-900 next year. Zion sucking in the D helps. Ingram returns to closer to 40% than his 32.7% last year. Get rid of the 390 attempts that NAW and Temple took last year at 31%. Herb should continue to improve, etc.
Point is, we can bring back the same team and get to league average without adjusting anything. Could get into top third if Trey makes a step and BI just returns to normal. Graham either improves or he is out of the rotation, so his 34% on higher volume wont drag our percentage down. Celtics made 13.2 three's at 35.6%, good for 8th and 14th in the league, respectively. Pels could easily be that or better just with what I posted above
Ok, I watched video of Dyson's shooting drills from the combine. He definitely looks stronger than he did from the earlier video I watched of him. And his stroke looked pretty good. Add that to his combine best shuttle time, and I think I'm starting to come around on him. Hopefully his defense from the g league carries over. The length of a backcourt with him and Herb Jones would give other guards fits. (and maybe makeup for the lackluster defense our front court would provide.
The weird thing is even in these shooting drills he still looks kind of slow and deliberate to me. Maybe he's like Luka and just looks slower than he actually is.
I will add -- Did your "eye test" come from full games watched or highlight (and lowlight) compilations on YouTube?
Because guys like Daniels, Haliburton, etc will never be exciting in the latter but you cant help but fall in love with them if you watch the former
Why are Aussie prospects getting some biased treatment against them lately... Seems like casuals gots an anti-Aussie joke ever since Ben Simmons fiasco.
I've been going between either Daniels or Mathurin for my top choices. But, the more I think about it, the more I want Daniels. I really think he can be something special.
Yea, he feels like one of the few top players in this draft who could realistically pop in the NBA and catapult this team to elite contention long-term. Does he keep rising beyond # 8 ?? Sure, that would drop another prospect down. But Daniels sure seems more exciting of a draft pick than Murray or Griffin. Would be wild if Griff-Langdon had to trade up to take Daniels to make sure to secure getting him. To # 4 / 5 / 6.
People do it with all things - because people are simple.
A prospect from a certain college does poorly, and he next prospect from that college is labeled with that. If the G League guys would have busted last year, the guys who are G League prospects this year would have gotten that same label. Whenever something is complex (and trying to determine whether a 19 yr old will be great at something is very complex), basic people look for ways to make it much more simple in their mind. The last two Cal quarterbacks failed....so this Aaron Rodgers guy will be a bust. Christian Laettner and Bobby Hurley didnt live up to the hype in the pros, so either will this Grant Hill kid.
Tale as old as time.
Imagine closing defensive line-ups of:
Dyson / Herb / Ingram / Murphy / Zion
Zion
Murphy
Ingram
Herb
Dyson
Interesting detail. And we all know how highly Griff values "as a human being" levels in roster eval.
With other prospects rising (Mathurin, Daniels, Dieng), Murray could be the one to fall out the top-7.
Murray seems like a more skilled Trey Murphy situation - late bloomer still growing into his body with elite skillet.
He's definitely a top player. I could just imagine the disappointment in the fan base having taken an "already 22! year old, potential already maxed out" prospect.
Griffin: We like the human Murray. He is a good respirator of oxygen, which we also respirate. We do not use nasal prosthesis to capture your toxic environment for later disposal.
What do people think of Malaki Branham?
I think he has more star upside than some of the other shooters in the class, like AJ Griffin and Mathurin. He is in that class as a shooter. He has a mature 3 level scoring which is rare in a player who is so young. He is one of those guys who can get past his defender frequently and it's hard to figure out how he does it---I think he plays with awesome leverage and drives very close to the ground, which is part of it. He can create really good shots in the midrange and gets layups and dunks more than most really good shooters.
Two things I don't like: 1. He isn't as much of a gunner from 3 as you would ideally want, his off-the-dribble shooting is mostly from 2, and he doesn't launch really deep 3s.
2. He doesn't do much in terms of nonscoring parts of his game and is disinterested at best as a defender.
I think out of the guards in this draft, he is up there with Sharpe and Ivy in terms of potential upside. Less physical upside than those guys, but he could be the best shooter in the draft and the handle and athleticism is good enough to weaponize that.
Damn. I guess you're right. Anyone who thinks Daniels isn't going to be anything special is just a virgin pretending to know something but only looks at mock drafts. Can't use my own two eyes to give my own amateur evaluation of a player. What a smooth brain take.
I'm doing the best I can with the approximately 2 hours of free time a week I get to enjoy a hobby. None of us are privy to workouts, interviews, or background research GMs and Scouts have, yet they're wrong on players seemingly as often as fans are.
The fact that I was right last summer when I said NAW wasn't any good despite the hype going into year 3 doesn't make me a prophet. I probably just got lucky.
The fact that I pointed out specific smart and unselfish plays Jose Alvarado made during summer league to help the team win while every other player was trying to make flashy plays to make the roster, and when fans were looking at Trey, Kira, and Herb, doesn't make me a strong talent evaluator. But I still noticed it and mentioned it. (I guess I noticed it by looking at mock drafts?)
A year ago I said if the Pelicans weren't a top 6 seed this year, it would be a disappointing year. To say the least, I was wrong there. But a lot of the variables changed.
I remember that you thought a long playoff run for the Lakers last year would make them more tired and probably give the Pelicans a higher pick this year. Also doesn't mean it was wrong. Though I still think you're wrong on the Lakers being a better team than the Suns during the playoffs last year. You still ignored CP3's injury though constantly mentioning AD's injury.
Shoot, you're even saying the same generic stuff now that I said 10 years ago, so I guess that makes both of us virgins pretending to know something but we really only look at mock drafts:
https://www.pelicansreport.com/showt...ss-Over-RiversQuote:
you draft the best player, not a position of need.
And you keep bringing up Lillard, but I'm pretty sure most people here wanted Lillard but saw no realistic way to get him. Even Demps wanted him. However, I can't find anything about you actually wanting him and being willing to give up several years worth of assets to move from 10 to 6 to get him other than just being a Monday morning quarterback about it now.
https://www.pelicansreport.com/showt...nfo-to-twitter
But I'm willing to give my opinion that Mathurin is the best player in the 6-8 range, assuming no surprises in the top 6, which I'm sure are abound to happen. Murray could easily fall to 6-7. I'm not sure right now if I think Mathurin will be better than Murray, but I'm pretty confident in saying he's going to be a good NBA player barring injury. I'm not willing to say the same about Dyson.
Whoa....you are getting way too offended when I didnt even say anything about you. Just saying that you shouldnt judge whether or not a guy is worthy of a pick based off some nerds on a Kings message board. Calm down, buddy. Some of you really need a hug. I was apologizing for a while, but now I am not even saying anything about the poster and people are reacting like I shot their dog. Is there a sensitivity setting on this board we can adjust?
Griff 'Human' Rankings
1. Murray
2. Smith
3. Paolo
4. Chet
Dont know who else he loves, but Murray is the top 'human'
I hope Griff just let Trajon do his job and not pull the "executive decision" card after sipping the smallest taste of success.
Went from a draft we really didn’t care about to one I’d like to have 2 or 3. Smith who I doubt there’s a chance, Sharpe, Maturin, and Daniels somewhere close to our pick(probably have to move up for Sharpe), and Dieng and Eason a little later. I’d love to get 2 or them. Will Hayes and a future pick get us close to getting one of those guys?
Funny thing is.... A lot of FO people were laughing at all the Griff-isms a few months ago. After seeing what has happened with the culture, they all buy in now. Who the guy is "human wise" will be very important when it comes down to the final decision. Not everything.... I wouldnt say it elevates guys as much as it eliminates guys
Went from a draft we really didn’t care about to one I’d like to have 2 or 3. Smith who I doubt there’s a chance, Sharpe, Maturin, and Daniels somewhere close to our pick(probably have to move up for Sharpe), and Dieng and Eason a little later. I’d love to get 2 or them. Will Hayes and a future pick get us close to getting one of those guys?
Crap double post. Sorry
@MichaelMcNamara don’t take this question the wrong way, but you’ve been on this board and the board that came before it, through 2 different owners, and 3 different GMs, claiming to have insights into what Pels decision makers are thinking. How is that even possible?!?
I never take anything the wrong way…ask whatever.
As I have said before, you wouldn’t believe how chatty people are. They love to talk and more importantly they love to pick brains of others. This will sound cocky when I say this but Dell, for instance, got my number. Called me. Wanted my two cents on waiving and stretching, on Frank Jackson, on the coaching search. I never emailed or called him.
Won’t reveal how I know other things but with Dell long gone, I can give that as an example. You guys see this business as some super prestigious, secret society thing. In reality, it is a bunch of guys and gals who love to gossip and know they don’t know nothing so they talk to everyone
I hope Dell is doing well!
He is a great man. Made some early mistakes as a GM but who wouldn’t? Also, he had some pressures that didn’t make them fully his decisions
Any way, I think he was Getting much better at his job by the end. Hope he gets another shot
His last name is Griffin too. Surely that threw off his human algorithm.