Six of my favorite team drafts
New Orleans Pelicans — Obviously when you take Zion Williamson, you’re a winner. For more on why I think he’s the best prospect since Anthony Davis, you can click here. But even beyond that, I think the Pelicans did exceptionally well. They took an elite athlete at the center position in Jaxson Hayes who will protect the rim, act as a rim-runner/lob threat in pick-and-roll, and who can run out on the break at high speeds with guys like Lonzo Ball, Jrue Holiday, and Zion. Then to follow it up, they took one of my favorite value picks of the draft in Nickeil Alexander-Walker, who is exactly what they needed due to his shooting ability. They closed out their draft night with Didi at No. 35, a Brazilian wing who has a chance to be an athletic wing who can shoot the ball from distance, even though he needs more time to get polished. Outside of Zion, this draft was all acquired as a result of the Davis deal, so it’s worth noting everything that they have acquired. For Davis, the Pelicans have thus far received Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, Josh Hart, No.8, No. 17, No. 35, three future first round picks, a pick swap, and cap space from getting off of Solomon Hill’s contract. David Griffin has done well moving Davis, and has set up the Pelicans for a remarkable amount of success in the post-Davis, Zion era.
Memphis Grizzlies — The Grizzlies ended up taking Ja Morant, who was No. 2 on my board, and Brandon Clarke, who was No. 12 on my board, at Nos. 2 and 21 respectively. That’s a win for them, and they’re both great fits with Jaren Jackson Jr., the team’s other long-term centerpiece. I’m going to go into more detail on each of those picks below, but yeah, I liked this one a lot.
Atlanta Hawks — This one is a bit more mixed in regard to reception. On the one hand, the Hawks gave up an awful lot to acquire De’Andre Hunter (No. 8, No. 17, No. 35, and a protected first round pick from Cleveland in 2020). On the other hand, the team got exactly what it needed in Hunter on the wing as a 3-and-D wing who has the potential to be elite on defense all over the floor. I think what people are underestimating in regard to Hunter is that players like this, even what he is right now, are really difficult to find, and are expensive when you find them either in trade or what you have to pay them in free agency. It’s more than I would have paid, but I understand why Atlanta did it. Then beyond Hunter, the team picked Cam Reddish at No. 10, a perfect fit for both parties, and Bruno Fernando, who helps fill a positional hole. I’ll break down all three players in more detail throughout this piece, but yeah, I think when examining on the whole this was a positive draft for Travis Schlenk and the Hawks.
Boston Celtics — I just think the Celtics did well getting guys who can play, likely play early, and help to reboot a culture that was somewhat broken this past year in Boston. Romeo Langford is a typical Boston pick, a player with feel, tools and positional size who has shooting questions. Over the last couple of years, Boston has had some luck fixing jumper questions, so I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on Langford given that he does have some real touch. I’ll write more about Carsen Edwards and Grant Williams later, but they’re potentially early impact players, both of whom were much higher on my board than where they were picked. Finally, they ended up with Tremont Waters, who will likely be the point guard for the Maine Red Claws, but who could see some minutes as a third point guard in the NBA if someone goes down.They also did an exceptional job of reading what Philadelphia wanted to do, and took a high-level second-round pick from the Sixers by using their love of Matisse Thybulle against them. Then in an additional deal, they cleared some cap space by dealing one of their 2019 first round picks for a 2020 one while also dumping Aron Baynes’ contract onto Phoenix. Baynes is a useful player that is worth the money, but Boston will be rebuilding its roster this summer and didn’t have as much use for him. All in all, this was really good work from Danny Ainge and that front office.
Utah Jazz — On some level, we have to throw the Mike Conley acquisition into here, given that the No. 23 pick was one of the two main inducements for the deal along with the likely 2022 first rounder that they traded to Memphis. That deal makes them a legitimate contender next season. But even beyond that, I think they did a great job of using three late second-round picks to acquire talent. First, they took Jarrell Brantley, who is an interesting fit as a potential playoff center due to his unique defensive ability to guard up and down the lineup. Then, they took Justin Wright-Foreman, who is a terrific scorer and has potential to stick because of that. Finally, they took Miye Oni out of Yale, a potential 3-and-D wing with toughness and intelligence that fits exactly what the Jazz look for. Not only did they make themselves better now, but I think that out of that trio of picks, at least one guy ends up sticking for them, and I wouldn’t be totally shocked if it was two.
Minnesota Timberwolves — Gersson Rosas did a heck of a job in his first draft as a president of basketball operations. It was known throughout the NBA all week that the Timberwolves were looking to move up to try and augment their backcourt, and they did just that with the Phoenix Suns by moving up to No. 6 from No. 11 for just the price of Dario Saric. Saric is useful, but the team had to make a decision on paying him next summer that it may not have been all that comfortable with. And the difference from No. 11 to No. 6 in this draft was pretty large. They ended up taking the No. 5 player on my board, Jarrett Culver, who profiles extremely well next to Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins due to his ability to create shots, pass, defend, and play an unselfish, smart brand of basketball. In the second round, they took one of my favored second round prospects in Jaylen Nowell, who I’ll write about later on. Finally, on the undrafted free agency market, they signed Naz Reid to a two-way deal, a smart move that I think fits really well schematically with what they’ll look to do from a floor-spacing perspective as well as a defensive perspective in playing drop pick-and-roll coverage with David Vanterpool moving over from Portland. Overall, just some smart moves from Rosas that are a mix of solid in addition to being low-risk and high-reward.
What happened here?
Philadelphia 76ers — The 76ers came into this draft with five picks (No. 24, 33, 34, 42, and 54), four of which came in the top-42. They left with two players (one of whom was taken at No. 54 and ranked No. 98 on my big board in Marial Shayok), two future second-round picks, and essentially cash. So that’s not so great. How did we get here? Let’s run through what we should probably start calling the anti-process, because none of it is a great look. First, they started with pick No. 24, a pick they were widely rumored to have promised to Matisse Thybulle early in the process. The Celtics knew that, sniffed it out, and forced the 76ers hand by picking Thybulle at No. 20 and convincing the 76ers to part with picks No. 24 and 33 to get their man. I don’t want to say that the 76ers’ promise to Thybulle was an open secret in the league, but it was a decision that rumors circulated about within the league as early as the NBA Draft Combine back in May. Heck, if I was able to sniff it out in my mock draft, of course the Celtics were able to and force the Sixers’ hand. This was a poor choice that ultimately cost them a valuable pick in the process (one that the Celtics used on Carsen Edwards, a player who would have fit with the 76ers that I ultimately just think is a better basketball player than Thybulle). At 34, the team decided to sell the pick to the Hawks for two future second rounders. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of this choice either, given what was on the board. This was a draft that was thought to have something in the range of 35 players that teams had mostly graded at first rounders. Heck, the guy that the Atlanta Hawks selected at 34 themselves, Bruno Fernando, was one of them, and someone who really could have helped the 76ers’ depth at center behind Joel Embiid. I think it’s probably unlikely that the 76ers end up with a player as valuable as Fernando with either of the second rounders they received. But those moves weren’t even the most confounding of the night. In a befuddling choice, the 76ers traded Jonathon Simmons and No. 42 to the Washington Wizards for cash. Essentially, the idea here was to clear Simmons’ money off the Sixers’ books in order to either create cap space, reduce their luxury tax bill, or get further from the apron. Why don’t we necessarily know which one? It depends on if the 76ers are able to re-sign Tobias Harris and Jimmy Butler. But the problem with it, regardless, is that Simmons only had $1 million guaranteed on his deal if they cut him, meaning the Sixers gave away a valuable draft pick used on Admiral Schofield — hilariously, another player whose mature frame, ability to shoot it and defend would really have helped Philadelphia — for a $1 million savings on the salary cap that realistically they could have stretched over three years and ended up with a charge of $333,333 per year. The most hilarious part of that? The cap hit they would have undertaken by stretching Simmons is about equal with the $388,000 cap hit increase that the 76ers had to undertake by moving from No. 24 to No. 20 in the draft because the Celtics sniffed out their transparent promise.Yeah, none of this was good, and to add insult to injury, every player that was selected at the spot the 76ers traded would have been a pretty useful potential role player for a team that desperately needs more depth. Elton Brand really did not handle this well in any way.
Phoenix Suns — With the 76ers, I’m unclear on what they were actually trying to accomplish. Early in the night, I actually thought I did understand what Phoenix wanted. They wanted to try and clear cap space in order to be players in free agency. So they moved pick No. 32 and T.J. Warren to Indiana for cash considerations. I think No. 32 was too great a price to pay to get off of Warren’s deal, which is not necessarily an overpay if you believe Warren can knock down shots at the 42 percent rate he did from 3 last season. I would have thought the Suns could have gotten off of that for a future second rounder, where maybe they’d be picking in the 40s, versus this second rounder, which essentially had the same value this year as a first round pick. The bigger issue I had, however, were the moving parts of the bigger move the Suns made, trading the No. 6 pick to Minnesota for Dario Saric and No. 11. To me, Saric is not worth the difference in the No. 6 and No. 11 picks this year, given that he is going to be a restricted free agent after this season and will either get expensive for the Suns, or will move on and the Suns won’t have anything long-term to hang on to for the decision. Given his numbers the last two years, Saric is likely to become an eight-figure player, something that would give me pause as I was rebuilding the Suns roster and would want to keep cap flexibility. I’d rather have Jarrett Culver than, say, Sekou Doumbouya and Saric, what would have been a reasonable approximation of value at No. 11.But the Suns didn’t go for a reasonable approximation of value at No. 11. They decided to take Cameron Johnson, who was at No. 28 on my board. We’ll talk about Johnson as a player in a later section and why I wouldn’t have taken him at No. 11, but what worries me most is the process behind how they landed on Johnson. Throughout the season, sources around the league indicated that the Suns weren’t out scouting as much as a typical team, something that was unexpected given that they were en route to 19 wins. So they weren’t really doing enough due diligence on players, and then hired Jeff Bower as the senior vice president of basketball operation, a reasonable decision given that he was recently the general manager of the Pistons and had the experience that Suns’ general manager James Jones did not. I would venture that Bower’s hiring played a real role in the decision to select Johnson. Why? Johnson is from Moon Township in Pennsylvania, which is about a 100-mile drive from Hollidaysburg, where Bower grew up. So when Bower was named head coach of Marist College in 2013, he went back to where he was comfortable to start recruiting. One of the recruits he had in, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN? The same Cameron Johnson that the Suns selected in the 2019 draft. If that seems a bit off to you, well, you’re right. The NBA felt this way as well, as Johnson was not one of the 24 players invited to the NBA green room, and there was so much discussion among industry sources in the days leading into the draft that Johnson might fall to the second round that I ended up sliding him down to No. 33 on my final mock draft.So yeah, I have sincere doubts about the process that led to some of these choices by the Suns on Thursday. I don’t think it was the kind of move that competent organizations make. At the very least, if you’re that sold on Johnson as your guy, have the intel to know that you can slide down again and likely end up with him at, for instance, No. 19 given that the Spurs were thought to be interested in moving up. Having said that, at the very least I will finish by noting that I thought the Suns did well to get a solid backup guard in Ty Jerome who can play either guard position, something that’s nice next to Devin Booker. In terms of assets, they only had to give up a 2020 Bucks’ first rounder that will likely end up lower than No. 24 next season.The problem with the overriding plan of the night, though? They ended up also taking back Aron Baynes in the deal, a really solid backup center for Deandre Ayton, but one who also costs $5.4 million next season. That means, despite deciding to move a very real asset in the No. 32 overall pick to dump Warren’s contract, the Suns ended up only clearing about $3 million in cap space on the night (accounting for Warren’s hit, minus Baynes and Saric contracts, the addition of the No. 24 pick as well as accounting for the cap hit difference between No. 6 and No. 11 overall)So yeah, maybe I’m still a little unclear on all of this, too, because it just seems like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic in order to get a pair of players on one-year contracts for a team that should be firmly in the midst of a rebuild.
) mais comme je l'avais écrit dans ma mock à son sujet plus il va s'éloigner du cercle moins il va être efficace par rapport à ce qu'il sait faire, mais c'est surtout qu'il va carrément devenir non-existant, des deux côtés du terrain.
