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No arguments there. But I don't think every tall person can do it because he's tall. I think Andre Drummond specifically can do it because he had a 34-38" max vertical.
https://www.sbnation.com/nba-draft/2...-austin-rivers
https://www.nbadraft.net/2012-nba-co...icism-results/
And he's tall.
One thing I am really looking forward to, made doubly true by how awful this year's draft is, is the influx of super high calibre talent that looks to be coming into the NBA in the next few years. Obviously some of these guys are multiple years away from draft-time, and not every single one of them will pan out, but there's so many guys who look like they could have star potential written on them coming in soon.
2021
- Cade Cunningham
- Jonathan Kuminga
- BJ Boston
- Keon Johnson
- Jaden Springer
- Evan Mobley
- Usman Garuba
- Roko Prkacin
- Daishen Nix
- Jalen Suggs
- Scottie Barnes
2022
- AJ Griffin
- Jean Montero
- Dior Johnson
- Patrick Baldwin Jr
- Chet Holmgren
- Ousmane Dieng
- Caleb Houston
- Max Christie
2023
- Victor Wembanyama
- Emoni Bates
- Yannick Nsoza
- Amari Bailey
- Jalen Duren
And obviously there's a good chance that more names come out over the next few years as 2023 comes closer. All of those guys have shown so much promise. It would be easy to imagine an NBA where, in ten years time, the top 10 players in the NBA are like, Luka, Zion, Jayson Tatum, Cade Cunningham, AJ Griffin, Victor Wembanyama, Emoni Bates, and a couple of wild cards.
It's so weird to consider that almost none of today's top ten players will still be top ten players in a decade. Who are today's top ten? Including guys with injuries, it's probably something like Lebron, Kawhi, Durant, Curry, Harden, Luka, Giannis, AD, Jokic, Lillard, Butler, in some sort of order. In 10 years, Luka will be 31, and he'll be the youngest member of that group. Lebron will be 45 and probably several years retired: Jokic and Giannis will both be 35 and on the back few years of their careers. Kawhi, Durant, Curry, Harden, Lillard, and Butler will all be retired. AD is a coin flip on if he's still playing, but if he is he's late-career Wolves Garnett.
It'll be a whole new wave.
It’s one reason I’m ok with going young young. Develop some continuity get a role player or 2 and get them some playing time. Trade Zo for 8 and get Vassell. Be a nice starter along side Ingram and Zion. JJ to the nets for Claxton, Dinwiddie, and Musa. Then Jrue and 13 to GS for 2 and next year Minny pick. Try to move down from 2 for a lower and next year first. Atlanta or Chicago could bite if not ask for further out picks then draft Okungwu.
Dinwiddie, NAW
Vassell, Hart, Didi
Ingram, Musa
Zion, Melli
Claxton, Hayes, Okungwu
Next year trade everything for Cunningham and put him at pg. I dream big. Lol
I'd be slightly surprised if Vassell was still available at 8, to be honest. There's been a fair bit of buzz recently about the Warriors really liking him, which I think is a smart choice for them, and if they decide they want him they'll probably end up with him.
The whole Cunningham thing is why everyone who actually pays attention to the draft has scoffed at the idea of trading 2021 assets for like, the last 18 months. If you have a 2021 pick that has any major chance of ending up number 1, anything more than 1 or 2% chance at all, then you cling on to it. Only exception is if you're using it to secure an already proven star. You don't trade good 2021 picks for roleplayers or fringe pieces: it's too good of a draft, you're losing too much value.
You're not getting Claxton, Dinwiddie, and Musa for JJ though, and if you trade Jrue to Golden State you have to take back like $25m in salary: where are you getting that from? In reality, the free agency thread is a better place to discuss that, but trades do have two sides to them.
Mam I love Vassel and was hoping we could snatch him.
4 players I thought would be good fits were Vassel, Nesmith, Patrick Williams and Josh Green.
Patrick Williams reminds me of a more athletic Tobias Harris. He?s a tweeter but if we draft him and trade Jrue and Ingram can defend shooting guards he?d be amazing. Super athletic and can hit the 3 and defend multiple spots.
But Vassel was the guy I wanted more than anyone. Perfect fit.
Agreed, and I also think that people who are calling Vassell just a 3&D prospect are kind of missing the point. It's true that he's got those abilities, and those are bankable things that will probably translate cleanly to the NBA because of how high his level was at them in college, but he also showed plenty of encouraging signs as a pullup shooter as well as some flashes of playmaking. Now, those didn't happen often because he wasn't put in a creation role often, but they did look good and if you think that there's a chance of drawing those out further, then his value could be fantastic.
Love Patrick Williams as a prospect, I have him in my top 20.
Very unimpressed with Nesmith and Green.
Compare and contract Duncan Robinson and Aaron Nesmith for me. Because I see a lot of similarities, and admittedly, there are a lot of places Duncan could have gone and wouldnt have been maximized.
And thats how I feel about so many of these players. I hate thinking of them as good or bad, independent of where they go, in a vacuum. I dont see one guy in this draft who succeeds at an All Star level or better no matter where they go (for comparison sake, I saw Ja and Zion as guys in that class last year). But what I do see is 25-35 guys who can be anything from a solid rotation player to a fringe all star depending on where they go. Nesmith goes to Detroit and they try to make him a focal point, he will be bad. Goes to Cleveland, where the guards dont know how to set up the offense and run proper sets, he takes bad shots and fails.
But I love him here. Dribble hand offs with Zion, Lonzo finding him in transition, him and Ingram running 2/3 pick and rolls with Nesmith popping out....all of that could work.
I dont like evaluating prospects as if their outcome is absolute regardless of where they go. That plays a huge part in a lot of guys outcomes IMO
@mcnamara247
I agree that Nesmith and Robinson are fairly similar archetypes of players, and I do think that Robinson was very lucky to go to a team that put him in the position that it did to really maximise his skillset.
I also agree that there are a lot of context dependent players in this draft. For example, I've highlighted time and again my belief that while Okoro is a really engaging prospect, he has to go to a team that is willing to allow him on-ball creator reps in order to grow into his best self, and that anywhere that attempts to push him into a 3&D mold will kind of be missing the point, to be honest.
My issue with Nesmith is that everything he does, there's another player in the draft who does the same or better and will be available later in the draft. I don't disagree that those scenarios you outline are situations he might do well in, but the issue is that those situations are pretty much as good as it gets for him. All of his auxiliary skills - team defense, passing upside, on-ball creation - are extremely low level, even lower than Robinson's (at least Robinson sort of knows where to be the majority of the time in a team defensive context, even if he's never going to have Klay's on ball capacities).
By comparison, someone like Bane exhibits all of Nesmith's upside as an off-ball shooter, but adds to that really solid team defense, a sort-of okay secondary or tertiary handle, actually good roleplayer passing, and has shown the ability to shoot off the dribble, which is a much more valuable shot than the pure catch and shoot. If I am dedicated to drafting a shooter and they're both on the board, selecting Nesmith over Bane just seems to me like it has a much lower potential max upside, even if the lower end outcomes are fairly close. And I'll always take that upside pick.
Now, there's also another element of it. Nesmith has had quite a lot of hype in this draft class and might very well go in the first round. If this is the case, in order to get him we would have to draft him #13 (assuming we don't acquire more FRPs this year at any point). At that spot in the draft, there are likely to be far better boom/bust swing prospects: there's an outside shot that Pokusevski will still be there, Patrick Williams might still be there, there's a decent chance Cole Anthony is available, etc. So drafting Nesmith has that opportunity cost. By comparison, Bane will probably be there in the second round when our picks come around and would be a fairly low-cost pickup for the same skillset. If you can get a better prospect than Nesmith for a lower price, why wouldn't you?
So, Bane is unquestionably the better player and the lone reason Nesmith will be taken higher is because of the "hype"
Well, yeah, when you set up the framework like this, then of course you take the better player at the lower pick. Impossible to debate when thats the setup
Well yep, and given that I think Bane is clearly the better prospect but every mock draft seems to indicate Nesmith has higher public stock, that's the setup for me.
Maybe you disagree for some reason, and obviously that's fair and a discussion can be had, but otherwise that seems to be the case.
Edit: It's also worth noting that it's not just 'hype', as if that comes from nowhere. Nesmith has things people like about him. But there are some aspects that help his 'shine' in the public eye. For example, he shot over 50% from 3 on 8 threes a game! From a raw numerical perspective, that looks incredibly impressive, and more impressive than someone like Bane who shot only 44.5% on 6 threes a game.
Now, the facts that Bane's sample size is much higher due to playing 32 games as opposed to Nesmith's 14 this year, combined with Bane's longer track record (Nesmith was actually a very unimpressive shooter last season, Bane has been at least 42% for the last three years), and the fact that Bane shoots off the dribble, mean that I view Bane as the superior shooting prospect. But it's hard to argue with over 50% on 8 threes a game for some people, and we all know that de-contextualised raw numbers can contribute towards narrative building in an NBA media sphere which is often run on fairly little more than surface level analysis.
Last edited by Pelicanidae; 10-13-2020 at 02:02 PM.
I think where we would find that we disagree is that you would prefer a player who is say an 8 in a bunch of categories, a 9 in one or two and no less than a 6 in other categories. Where I would prefer the player who is a 9 or 10 in a few categories, even if that means he is worthless in others.
I think its nice Bane might be able to do a little of this and a little of that, but I wont need him to do those things with all the high usage guys I plan on having. If Nesmith is Duncan Robinson and lets say Bane becomes Norman Powell....then, yes Powell is probably better in a vacuum because he can do more. Better defender, creator, passer, etc.... but I would rather have Duncan Robinson in this very specific case with how I see the Pels building this roster.
I understand that, and I think that if I agreed with you that Nesmith was a higher calibre of shooting prospect (as in the Robinson vs Powell comparison) then I might have a different view despite the difference in auxiliary skills. But it just does not seem to be the case that Nesmith is the better shooter overall. Higher raw percentage in a single year doesn't mean as much to me as a very good percentage sustained over multiple years, on a much larger overall sample size, with a more diverse and difficult shot profile.
The pull-up three might be one of the single most valuable shots in the NBA today, even for roleplayers: guys like Redick use it regularly, and other second-tier players like Khris Middleton use the threat of it to open up other opportunities in their game. The ability to hit a pullup is vital.
Bane can do that. Nesmith just flat out can't, at least based on the sample sizes we have.
Since Nesmith doesn't have that advantage, suddenly the auxiliary skills comes into consideration, and since Nesmith isn't really particularly skilled outside of his catch and shoot ability, Bane wins out there for me as well.
For Nesmith, Idk if you can find someone later it the draft that is better at what he does because IMO he’s the best 3pt shooter in the draft. He’d really open the floor for Zion and Ingram
I get real Buddy Hield, but a factor on team defense vibes from Nesmith. Arms look pretty long, so if he's even slightly an active defender, he could be a tremendous asset to our team.
I don’t mind Nesmith as we’ll need a gravity shooter to replace Redick. Looking at the roster, Nesmith can be slowly groomed to take over for Jrue over time while he develops in the rotation.
Regardless of what you think of Nesmith's shooting, the idea that he can be slowly groomed to take over from Jrue is fairly absurd. MM gave the vague Duncan Robinson comparison, and that's far more of a reasonable framework: Nesmith does not have a functional handle. He is a really poor defensive decision maker. He is a sub-par passer, even for a roleplayer.
If you are drafting Nesmith it's because you think he's going to be the ultimate shooter for you. Drafting him with the idea of turning him into a lead ball handler and wing defense stopper is just so beyond reality.
One of my favourite things about the season ending is that ''draft season'' starts and you get people on twitter and instagram and youtube who haven't actually watched the players across the year, never watched any pre-college clips, and who have watched barely any tape, suddenly coming in (as if draft discussions have only just begun) and throwing out really huge claims that are only made possible by their ignorance.
For example someone on Twitter the other day was like ''Nobody can tell me why LaMelo Ball is a higher ranked prospect than Tyrese Haliburton. They are the same player.''
That's the kind of thing you can only say if you've basically watched none of either player.
LaMelo is 6'7 or 6'8. Haliburton is 6'5. LaMelo has a very advanced handle (even if he's not shifty enough to maximise it): Haliburton's handle is barely good enough at a college level. LaMelo is one of the ten best passers in the world right now: Haliburton is just 'quite good'. There are other differences, but these alone are huge reasons to rank one higher than the other.
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