Who would you Draft at #4?

[AusPel]

Currently also considering Sharife Cooper greatly.

He's super small, 5'11, and right now his jumper has been non-existent (shooting 20% from 3) but he's so fast and he knifes into the paint every time and nobody can stop him at all. The burst, the handle, the body control is all so high level. He's shooting 48% from 2, so the overall bad FG% is just from the 3s not falling at all, he's efficient inside the arc. So how does someone at 5'11 average his kind of scoring with no jumper? Just gets to the rim every single time. Good solution.

The defense hasn't been nearly as bad as I feared as well. Someone of his height is always going to have trouble, especially at the NBA level, but the effort is there and he fights well over screens and sticks to his man. He'll likely never be a *good* NBA defender but the ability to avoid being a disaster at 5'11 is huge, and tells you a lot.

58%AST% to only 16.7%TOV tells you a lot as well. He just isn't turnover prone, and the touch and feel on his passing is extremely high level.

I'm trying to learn from some of my mistakes in past drafts. I was lower on Ja Morant than some because I was worried about his defense and I had doubts about his jumper and that overshadowed his strengths as an athlete and his strong passing for me, which was a mistake. Using that kind of framework to evaluate Cooper tells me that even despite the jumper issues (and long term, I don't think it's quite this bad lmao) he should be a clear top 10 pick in this draft. I've only seen 4 full games so I need to watch more to make a firm decision, but it's very positive.

What about James Bouknight?

[Pelicanidae]

What about James Bouknight?

Love him, wouldn't draft him top 5. I have him at the tail end of the lottery, potentially mid teens. Great off ball player, really fun cutter, and a pretty solid defensive prospect as well. I buy him as a secondary ball handler and I'm not entirely out on the shooting even if it hasn't shown up at a high level yet. The FT% and the volume, as well as his efficiency from floater range, make me more optimistic.

That said, I don't think he has any top tier outlier skills and I think he is kind of limited athletically in a way that hurts his best skills (the off ball cutting, for example).

[Pelicanidae]

Love him, wouldn't draft him top 5. I have him at the tail end of the lottery, potentially mid teens. Great off ball player, really fun cutter, and a pretty solid defensive prospect as well. I buy him as a secondary ball handler and I'm not entirely out on the shooting even if it hasn't shown up at a high level yet. The FT% and the volume, as well as his efficiency from floater range, make me more optimistic.

That said, I don't think he has any top tier outlier skills and I think he is kind of limited athletically in a way that hurts his best skills (the off ball cutting, for example).

Edit: he's kind of like Corey Kispert in that way. Love him, think he's going to be a legitimately good NBA player, super valuable. Not top 5 in this draft, very probably. Too much high end potential-star talent in this draft. Kispert would have been like, top 3 last year, and this year he might not be top 10. That's the value of elite talent like Cade, Mobley, etc.

[fullcourtpress]

cade and mobley are obvious fits...... but i like David Duke out of providence. We could certainly use a more polished SG than the other one and dones

[Freyfamilyreuni]

cade and mobley are obvious fits...... but i like David Duke out of providence. We could certainly use a more polished SG than the other one and dones

Unfortunate name to bring into New Orleans.

[Taker597]

cade and mobley are obvious fits...... but i like David Duke out of providence. We could certainly use a more polished SG than the other one and dones

Parents did their kid dirty with that name.

[Pelicanidae]

Parents did their kid dirty with that name.

His response has actually been really positive to the name though. He said that he considered changing it but decided that instead he just wanted to become well known enough to change the perception of it.

[Pelicanidae]

cade and mobley are obvious fits...... but i like David Duke out of providence. We could certainly use a more polished SG than the other one and dones

I like Duke and I think he's an NBA player but I wouldn't take him top ten. Several other offensively tilted guards I would take over him.

[da ThRONe]

Currently also considering Sharife Cooper greatly.

He's super small, 5'11, and right now his jumper has been non-existent (shooting 20% from 3) but he's so fast and he knifes into the paint every time and nobody can stop him at all. The burst, the handle, the body control is all so high level. He's shooting 48% from 2, so the overall bad FG% is just from the 3s not falling at all, he's efficient inside the arc. So how does someone at 5'11 average his kind of scoring with no jumper? Just gets to the rim every single time. Good solution.

The defense hasn't been nearly as bad as I feared as well. Someone of his height is always going to have trouble, especially at the NBA level, but the effort is there and he fights well over screens and sticks to his man. He'll likely never be a *good* NBA defender but the ability to avoid being a disaster at 5'11 is huge, and tells you a lot.

58%AST% to only 16.7%TOV tells you a lot as well. He just isn't turnover prone, and the touch and feel on his passing is extremely high level.

I'm trying to learn from some of my mistakes in past drafts. I was lower on Ja Morant than some because I was worried about his defense and I had doubts about his jumper and that overshadowed his strengths as an athlete and his strong passing for me, which was a mistake. Using that kind of framework to evaluate Cooper tells me that even despite the jumper issues (and long term, I don't think it's quite this bad lmao) he should be a clear top 10 pick in this draft. I've only seen 4 full games so I need to watch more to make a firm decision, but it's very positive.

I like Cooper a lot. He's turned Auburn offense around. He reminds me of Lonzo in transition head always up looking to ad advance the ball, but not the liability in half court offense. If he can find is outside shot which he may need to adjust he could be very similar to CP3 as prefect mix of shot creation and ball distribution type player.

Right now top 5 may be a little high for Cooper, but if we end up in the 7-10 range it could be a steal.

[Mr. Mojo]

Green all day.

Yeah you gotta take green if he's there. But if for some reason we fall a little lower i'd love to get Scottie Barnes, who i haven't seen mentioned much. He's not the most freakish athlete or best shooter but he has some of my favorite game of the lot. Honestly my dream is i'd love to somehow have 2 picks in the 4-7 range and get both, have Green at point with BI at 2 and let Scottie run point small forward for us.

Green/Kira
BI/NAW
Scottie/Hart
Zion/TBD
Adams/TBD

But i kinda doubt any team would want to trade out of that high position in this years draft. Or what to yall think? We'd have to give up next years first for starters, and we'd need to add another 1st, but we don't really have any 1sts we'd want to trade after next years.{edit: we also have 3 good 2nds this year to play with, but we need to keep at least 1 bc i want us to take Isiah Todd if hes there} If we we're able to get a future 1st at the deadline for Lonzo &/or Redick, i think we could make a godfather offer by throwing Hayes in along the 2 1sts. Could yall see any teams going for that? The Thunder maybe, since they might have 2 high ones?

Say we could get a 6 7 or 8 pick, who would yall want to pair with this hypothetical 4 pick? Zhaire Williams is another good one in that range

[AusPel]

I thought we had Lakers pick this year, but it's protected 8-30 so no chance it conveys. Unprotected next year doe

[Silverfoxx]

I find it weird that after watching Luka for the past few years create his shot basically at will against almost everyone he wants, and also guys like Kawhi post-injury doing the same, we'd still have this idea that someone who isn't lightning quick will have trouble creating their own shot.

If you have an advanced handle, high level strength, and craft, you can create your own shot. Cade has those things. There will be a handful of defenders in the league who give him trouble but those are the same defenders that give everyone trouble, honestly, which means it's not really fair to hold that against him.

He's elite elite, and depending on his development arc and how Zion improves over the next 18 months or so, it wouldn't be a surprise to me if Cade ended up being our best player (if we got him, ofc).

What makes him so ELITE? I have yet to watch a game of his and is only going off highlights which I don't like to do but what are you guys seeing?

Also thoughts on Scottie Barnes and Greg Brown?

[Pelicanidae]

What makes him so ELITE? I have yet to watch a game of his and is only going off highlights which I don't like to do but what are you guys seeing?

Also thoughts on Scottie Barnes and Greg Brown?

He's going to enter the league as a top 8 passer so thats pretty huge. Elite vision, ridiculous touch and craft. Highlights won't show it really unless you're watching pre-college stuff because unfortunately highlights basically only show successful stuff and he's on a team filled with players who can't make shots, therefore most of his best passes don't result in a bucket right now.

Extremely high level pace and body control, like I mentioned in that post, very much Luka like. He's a similar size to Luka as well, and has a degree of strength which helps him offset his lack of pure explosion by letting him absorb contact and finish through it with touch and craft.

Projects extremely well as a team defender, even if he occasionally falls asleep off ball right now. The flashes are regular and high level.

Good shooter whose pullup frequency and efficiency this year took a jump from pre college sample, largely because of the burden he's been given on offense with this awful team.

As for Scottie Barnes, I like him a lot and he's an extremely good defender and positive passer as well, but the problem for him is that all the worst worries for his offense came true this year. Just had been atrocious at scoring, pretty much at every level, and it's minimised the impact his passing can have, sort of like how Lonzo has trouble creating advantages because nobody sees him as a threat. I think he'll need a particular team context very early on, preferably alongside a high level creator, and his development will depend heavily on his shooting.

Greg Brown is a solid guy, I like him top 20. Again, solid defender and he has really good two foot leaping abilities, tracks the ball well. Overall quite a good offense player. He has pretty much Zero passing craft though, I can't remember the exact number but he has something like 30 turnovers and only 1 assist so far this year, the vision is poor and he's not really got any timing whatsoever on anything beyond very basic passes. It's quite a blind spot.

[DaPelFromHell]

I would be ecstatic with either Green or Kuminga. Don?t think you could go wrong with either

[HornetGuru]

I would be absolutely pumped with anyone in the top 5

[13 - 3]

Let Washington have it if we can get Beal