February 5th - New Orleans Pelicans @ Indiana Pacers - 8-12

[As I See It]

I mean, not necessarily. If you had done the exact same trade but instead of picking Hayes and NAW, you picked Tyler Herro and Matisse Thybulle, both of whom were still on the board at those picks, would anyone be saying it was a bad move to trade back? Nope.

Like you, I love the if game.....

If you and all your fancy graphs were right, Brandon Ingram would today be the second coming of Josh Jackson (who?).

[luckyman]

Seems like we all agree to an extent here that Hayes was picked way too high.

I dont. Most educated people (when it comes to basketball) say you can't judge a draft/draft pick until 3 - 4 years after. For most there will be swings in play until they start to settle in to their roles.

Yet here we are casting major judgements on a player just 1.3 years into their career.

In year 1.3, CJ McCollum and JJ Redick were looked upon as wasted, garbage picks. That makes sense.

[Fedupfan]

I dont. Most educated people (when it comes to basketball) say you can't judge a draft/draft pick until 3 - 4 years after. For most there will be swings in play until they start to settle in to their roles.

Yet here we are casting major judgements on a player just 1.3 years into their career.

In year 1.3, CJ McCollum and JJ Redick were looked upon as wasted, garbage picks. That makes sense.

I mean I agree but Hayes looks to be about 5 years away. I see Hayes on the Whiteside path. Maybe Alex Len at best. You don?t be as bad as him and just figure it out all of a sudden. He plays like he has no idea where to be on both ends.

[As I See It]

You don't be as bad as him and just figure it out all of a sudden. He plays like he has no idea where to be on both ends.

Hence dae's favorite nickname.....

"Flash or Crash"!! (candidly, mostly 'Crash' as of late)

[Taker597]

No I'm not lmao

If you are Griff and you trade for number 8 from number 4, then you can, yes, compare who they could have picked at number 4. But you can also compare the pick they made at 8 to all the available picks they could have made at number 8.

They did pick Hayes. But they could have picked anyone who was still on the board at 8. So it's entirely fair to say ''they could have picked Herro instead of Hayes'' because Herro was actually still an option. It would have been entirely possible for them to pick him, had they wanted to.

This is what teams do. They have their boards, they know who they like, and they also have a rough idea of what other teams might be thinking. If you have your eye on a guy but you also have good reason to believe nobody else really does, why pick him at 4 when you can trade down to 8 knowing that you have a very real chance of still getting the guy you want and also adding another pick later in the draft?

I absolutely can say ''what if they had picked Herro'' because they could have picked Herro and they chose not to. I can see who they could have picked at 4 and I can also see who they could have picked at 8, because I was there watching on draft night when the time came for them to make the pick and if I could still see who was left so could they.

More picks does mean better value if you still get the guy you want anyway.

And your penultimate sentence about picking players being the key is exactly what I was saying in the post you're responding to. So not really sure where the disagreement is there.

I'm not disagreing with you, but expressing the caveat that talemt evaluation with a historical bad draft team... Is still bad.
Especially, when your your President took part in drafting the biggest bust of the 2000s Era.

Trading back is trust in your talent evaluation. We don't have proven talent evaluation to justify a move.

Regardless... If we took the best player on the board.... Garland. We would be have a better player in the short term. You seem to ignore the short term and long term aspect if player production. You chalk it up as a way things be, because Pelicans don't draft wall outside of the top 10.