2018 NBA Draft Thread

[A Better DJ & Photographer 455]

1 hour ago, ?4thewin said:

Cap room should handle it

Yeah but the best players will sign with the best teams 1st then the other teams get the leftovers. It might work if only non-playoff teams could sign rookies though.

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

2 minutes ago, ROCK LEGENDS PHOTOGRAPHERS said:

Yeah but the best players will sign with the best teams 1st then the other teams get the leftovers. It might work if only non-playoff teams could sign rookies though.

The best teams don't normally maintain cap flexibility.  

[A Better DJ & Photographer 455]

I don't know about you guys but If we don't get one of the top few picks and JJJ is gone I'd take healthy Mikal Bridges over back surgery Porter any day of the week even if we had to reach. Plus Bridges is a SG/SF and Porter is a PF so factoring in minutes distribution it's Bridges every time!

[billy5783 14]

5 minutes ago, ROCK LEGENDS PHOTOGRAPHERS said:

I don't know about you guys but If we don't get one of the top few picks and JJJ is gone I'd take healthy Mikal Bridges over back surgery Porter any day of the week even if we had to reach. Plus Bridges is a SG/SF and Porter is a PF so factoring in minutes distribution it's Bridges every time!

I like Bridges a lot. I think that if you put him on a team that has a pretty good core already, that he could be the ultimate glue/3&D guy to make it all work. For us, I don't know that he is the best option because he is a better high floor guy rather than high upside. Would I hate the pick? Nah. Do I think it would change the outlook of our team? Also nah.

[Odin 137]

12 minutes ago, ?4thewin said:

The best teams don't normally maintain cap flexibility.  

Yep, plus the best teams often don’t have the minutes to play rookies or let them make mistakes.

[Ibn Battuta 127]

9 minutes ago, ROCK LEGENDS PHOTOGRAPHERS said:

I don't know about you guys but If we don't get one of the top few picks and JJJ is gone I'd take healthy Mikal Bridges over back surgery Porter any day of the week even if we had to reach. Plus Bridges is a SG/SF and Porter is a PF so factoring in minutes distribution it's Bridges every time!

Lol why do you hate Porter so much. 

Before surgery he was arguably the top player in this draft, guaranteed top 2 pick. He is that good. If he passes the physical and everything checks, he’d be a great selection outside the top 5 picks

[Mike1989 68]

3 hours ago, Originalticketholder said:

I agree on your assessment of us and I believe that is where we are headed.  FO seems to be compentent.  We will be in better shape after 2019 when we have some salary cap space to tweak the roster but I see good days ahead.  But I disagree on the lottery.  Even though that might fix it, I find it inherently wrong to reward a team that is better than another, the opportunity to draft before that team with the worse record.  The intent of a draft is to give hope to bad teams AND their fans to improve and be competitive.  Every other league just has a draft based on your record.   NBA changed to the lottery in 1984 (I think) DUE to tanking.  And now they have tanking!  Obviously a bad fix.  And now the weasel Silver comes up with a worse fix.  I want to fix the overall problem.  I am OK with keeping the lottery for the cash cow and PR it creates.  It is exciting to watch.  To fix tanking I would adopt Van Gundy's proposal (which the owners will not due because they truly don't care if it fixed or not) to make rookies unrestricted free agents after their first year.  Therefore tanking teams like Philly or the Lakers  (this year) OR (and especially) Boston could not get cheap contracts for 3-4 years and stockpile other talent with salary cap space money.   Boston has the Kings #1 pick next year (probably anothe high lottery pick).  Just plain wrong!

Do you not find it inherently wrong to reward teams that tank over teams that are genuinely bad and teams that actually try to get better and compete?

I personally find it wrong that teams will openly tank to get better odds in the lottery. It taints the system that you describe because the draft is meant to be a way that allows bad teams to acquire talent to help them improve, instead there are teams like Philadelphia that abuse the system by trading away their best players and putting a make shift group of players on the court with no real intention to win games and get better. This season Mark Cuban openly admitted that the Dallas Mavericks are tanking. What was their punishment? A $600,000 fine. The guy is worth $3.8 billion dollars so that punitive fine does nothing to prevent teams from tanking. It is like one of us getting a parking ticket. Most of us wouldn't bat an eyelid at the typical parking ticket fine, we'd just pay it and get on with our lives, and some might even park in the same way again. Throughout his time as an owner Mark Cuban has been fined on a regular basis. I actually like his outspoken and candid manner because it is refreshing when compared to the typical sports team owner, but that fine has not deterred them from tanking and they have stayed the course. Perhaps a better punishment would have been taking away their draft pick because tanking is essentially cheating because you are losing on purpose to improve your lottery odds. Granted that approach might have seen Dallas take legal action and attempt to prove other teams are tanking as well, but a hard line stance might have sent a message to teams to not tank. Even the new lottery odds are not going to make a difference. Teams will still tank and that hurts the teams that are genuinely bad, as well as the teams that are actually making an effort to get better and compete. 

Why is it plain wrong that the Celtics have stockpiled draft picks? 

They decided to end their big three era and trade away Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce to the Brooklyn Nets. At the time the Nets made that trade because they thought their additions would make them a title contender and win them a championship, instead their additions did little for them and has now put them into the situation they are in today. So it is not the Celtics fault that the Nets draft picks have ultimately proven to be as valuable as they have been. The blame lies entirely with the inept organisation that made the trade in the first place and gave them picks away. Likewise, it is not the Celtics fault that the Kings made a stupid trade with the 76ers. The Kings traded away Nik Stauskas, Carl Landry, and Jason Thompson in a salary dump, in which they gave the 76ers the rights to swap first round picks in 2016 and 2017, and gave them a future first round pick (top ten protected in 2018, unprotected in 2019) which is likely on its way to Boston. You can't blame the Celtics for other team's stupidity. All Boston are guilty of is rebuilding their team successfully. The Celtics had one bad year in 2013-14 and even then they ranked 12th in the eastern conference ahead of us, Philadelphia and Milwaukee. After that season they progressed to 40-42 and made the play offs as the 7th seed, followed that by improving to 48-34 and made the play offs as the 5th seed, and last season they went 53-29 and made the play offs as the top seed. So the Celtics aren't a tanking team, instead they are either really smart or really lucky or a combination of both. 

Do I like the idea of young talent becoming free agents after one year? 

Not really because they could decide to sign for the best teams. I'm sure we would all like to believe that DeAndre Ayton would sign for a rebuilding team because he could go there and become "the man", but why would he sign for a rebuilding team over someone like the Warriors? The Warriors have a proven track record of developing all stars (Curry, Thompson, Green), have competed for and won titles, and offer him the opportunity to play with some of the best players to step on to an NBA court. We would have to be pretty naive to think that the Suns with Devin Booker and Josh Jackson could compete with the Warriors players. Same goes for teams like the Rockets, Cavaliers, and Celtics. They can all offer these young players a potential starting position and the chance to develop on a good team rather than have to develop on a bad team.

Plus, these young players could decide to take less money and make up their earnings off court by signing for a big market team or a title contending team. They might even decide to take less money because they want to play on a good team rather than a bad team. Or they could just decide to take an initial hit and build up those earnings on subsequent contracts, especially if those teams end up with the rights to sign them to big money extensions without needing the cap space to do so.

So what could happen if the league adopted this method is the young talents could turn their nose up at the opportunity to join bad teams and small market teams. If the league wants to create a huge divide they should adopt this model. 

[A Better DJ & Photographer 455]

40 minutes ago, Ibn Battuta said:

Lol why do you hate Porter so much. 

Before surgery he was arguably the top player in this draft, guaranteed top 2 pick. He is that good. If he passes the physical and everything checks, he’d be a great selection outside the top 5 picks

It's not that I hate him, I just think there are a lot of players in this draft that are as good that haven't had back surgery. I guess maybe it is also because I have never seen him do anything special other than dominate smaller high school kids.

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

24 minutes ago, Ibn Battuta said:

Lol why do you hate Porter so much. 

Before surgery he was arguably the top player in this draft, guaranteed top 2 pick. He is that good. If he passes the physical and everything checks, he’d be a great selection outside the top 5 picks

Before surgery his greatest asset was explosive fast twitch athleticism at the rim.  He had weaknesses of passing, defense, and decision making.  His injury impacts athleticism.  He still showed a weakness in passing, defense, and decision making the two games he played.  

Theres a real chance that a very good career outcome for him is otto porter even if we assume relative health.  Theres enough talent out there that you can avoid taking the porter risk. 

[Soul Bro 1,419]

I don't like Porter, either.

[Ibn Battuta 127]

2 hours ago, ROCK LEGENDS PHOTOGRAPHERS said:

It's not that I hate him, I just think there are a lot of players in this draft that are as good that haven't had back surgery. I guess maybe it is also because I have never seen him do anything special other than dominate smaller high school kids.

I just find it ironic that you're in every Game Thread rooting for losses to get that high pick, and then say draft Mikal Bridges over Porter lol. Tanking to draft Bridges seems very underwhelming. I'd rather draft Trae Young lol

 

1 hour ago, ?4thewin said:

Before surgery his greatest asset was explosive fast twitch athleticism at the rim.  He had weaknesses of passing, defense, and decision making.  His injury impacts athleticism.  He still showed a weakness in passing, defense, and decision making the two games he played.  

Theres a real chance that a very good career outcome for him is otto porter even if we assume relative health.  Theres enough talent out there that you can avoid taking the porter risk. 

where do you get these comps? his physical profile is nothing like Porter. He's bigger than Porter, and can play up or down. For a guy his size, huge wingpsan, 9'0" standing reach, good ball handling skills, can score from anywhere on the floor, that's not something you see everyday in a 6'10" frame. I'd much rather take a risk on Porter Jr. than Mikal Bridges. 

[magicblue 315]

3 hours ago, JJZFL said:

"And for the 68th time please explain in detail how you would have built this “winning team”......Please enlighten us" is a straightforward question?  It's an absurd and sarcastic comment, sort of phrased as a question, designed to show that I don't have a detailed plan with the various moves I would have made, trades I would have proposed, and so on.  Again, I'm not a GM nor is anyone else in this forum, and that's not even what this discussion is about.  The discussion is about the pros and cons of tanking.  There has actually been some good back and forth about it just in the past few pages of this thread, you might have in fact learned something if you'd bothered to read it instead of just throwing bricks at me.

But it's getting pretty clear that unlike years ago when others would have piled on after your comments, no one is much interested in it anymore.  So this is my last response to you about this.

Your skin is so thin that a simple question is throwing bricks. You don’t have an answer and all you do is complain over, and over, and over...that’s all I’m pointing out.