2021 NBA Draft Thread

[Texansfan713]

1 hour ago, NYRaider said:

This has been a rumor for weeks, where there's smoke there's usually fire. Wouldn't surprise me to see a deal on draft day as Troy Weaver was the key influence in the OKC front office when they made the decision to draft Russell Westbrook and I'm sure he sees some parallel's to Green. Plus if Detroit has Cade/Green graded similarly they could add Green while also adding a ton of other assets to accelerate their rebuild. 

thats why the rockets should call his bluff and stand pat and force him to take green 1.

[NYRaider]

39 minutes ago, Texansfan713 said:

thats why the rockets should call his bluff and stand pat and force him to take green 1.

Cade is going to be the #1 pick regardless. Will the Pistons keep him or will they flip him to Houston or Cleveland for their pick and additional assets remains to be seen. I think the Pistons are in a great spot because they currently have all of the leverage. They'll take Cade #1 and if another team is willing to give them Green/Mobley + additional assets to get a deal done then they can go that route. But if they're not I'm sure Detroit has no problem at all with keeping Cade. 

[Kirill]

I saw a rumor OKC is gonna take Bouknight at 6 and start him in the backcourt next to Shai.

Id be good with the pick he’s got the most swag out of these guys 

[Kirill]

I wouldn’t be surprised if weaver was high on Suggs as well, that’s his exact mold of player. In OKC he was the GM who scouted for toughness and intangibles helped us vet guys like Adams before drafting them

[NYRaider]

10 minutes ago, Kirill said:

I wouldn’t be surprised if weaver was high on Suggs as well, that’s his exact mold of player. In OKC he was the GM who scouted for toughness and intangibles helped us vet guys like Adams before drafting them

I disagree completely, when you look at the high picks that ended up panning out for OKC they were: Kevin Durant (6'11" freak athlete and walking bucket), Russell Westbrook (freak athlete that needed to refine his game), James Harden (good athlete that was extremely skilled but a walking bucket and great playmaker). 

The two guys that fit the mold of those players are Jalen Green and Cade Cunningham. When he took guys in the lottery with toughness and intangibles it netted them guys like Steven Adams and Cameron Payne. 

Adams was an okay pick but you already had star talent on the roster that you were looking to add complimentary pieces around. He's building from the ground up in Detroit and saw how going after guys like Durant, Westbrook, and Harden took the team from bottom feeder to contender almost instantly. 

Edited July 24, 2021 by NYRaider

[Kirill]

Yea I thought about it more you’re  probably right they just met with Jalen Green.

[NYRaider]

17 minutes ago, Kirill said:

I saw a rumor OKC is gonna take Bouknight at 6 and start him in the backcourt next to Shai.

Id be good with the pick he’s got the most swag out of these guys 

I keep seeing the Thunder linked to Scottie Barnes and IIRC he has had a few meetings with them recently. 

[Kirill]

Just now, NYRaider said:

I keep seeing the Thunder linked to Scottie Barnes and IIRC he has had a few meetings with them recently. 

That would be hype having him and Dort on defense but Barnes is going 5th

[NYRaider]

Just now, Kirill said:

Yea I thought about it more you’re  probably right they just met with Jalen Green.

I like Suggs but even if he's Jason Kidd 2.0 as you claim, is that really a franchise changing talent? Not really. He's going to be a super charged role player, which is fine, but that's not a foundational piece that you want to build around. Suggs is a great fit for a team like Toronto who already has a lot of talent on their roster. 

[Kirill]

5 minutes ago, NYRaider said:

When you look at the top 5 picks the Thunder made under Weaver/Presti 

Just look at his picks so far with Detroit. You said it yourself they’re not athletic. 
 

surprised if he’s not going to just go with the consensus in Cade

[NYRaider]

Just now, Kirill said:

That would be hype having him and Dort on defense but Barnes is going 5th

We'll see what happens, Orlando is a wild card, I could see them going Kuminga or making a surprise pick. Apparently Barnes is even in play for Toronto at #4. 

[NYRaider]

Just now, Kirill said:

Just look at his picks so far with Detroit. You said it yourself they’re not athletic. 

surprised if he’s not going to just go with the consensus in Cade

The picks he has made have been Hayes, Stewart, and Bey. But none of those guys were top 5 picks and last years class was one of the worst in recent history. I fully expect him to go with Cade #1 and I think it'll be a good pick for them. For Weaver I'm sure he looks at Cade and sees a lot of James Harden and looks at Green and sees a lot of Russell Westbrook. 

[Kirill]

Kidd led the nets to the finals still. I brought up Suggs dominating at football too because guys being good at everything they do are usually intelligent as well. Mahomes and Brady both dominated at baseball before switching sports. Suggs just checks every box you could want. 

[NYRaider]

1 minute ago, Kirill said:

Kidd led the nets to the finals still. I brought up Suggs dominating at football too because guys being good at everything they do are usually intelligent as well. Mahomes and Brady both dominated at baseball before switching sports. Suggs just checks every box you could want. 

Kidd led the Nets to the Finals in his 8th/9th year as a pro and it was a much different league back then. He was never an efficient scorer or shooter and shooting is at a premium in the league today. In his first 3 years in the league he had terrible efficiency numbers on horrible teams. 

Ball was the best player on one of the best HS basketball teams ever at Chino Hills and had a way better freshman season individually than Suggs did. When you hear things like "he's a winner" or "he has intangibles" as reasons why he should be drafted highly that's a major red flag to me personally. 

He shot 29% on C&S attempts, he only had 14 shot attempts in isolation situations in 31 games at Gonzaga, and he had a 1.2 assist:to ratio in the half court. When looking a this synergy statistics the only two numbers that were elite level were his isolation attempts (97th percentile) and cut attempts (93rd percentile) but he only had 14 attempts in each category over 31 games so it's such a small sample size and Gonzaga really never asked him to do either one. 

His pick-n-roll numbers ranked in the 68th percentile and his transition numbers ranked in the 60th percentile, which is one of the biggest indicators of how athletic a guy really is. Top that off with his inconsistent shooting numbers overall and his terrible shooting numbers in C&S situations, I don't see how you can say he ticks off all the boxes. 

As I mentioned earlier he hit 1.3 3's per game at a 33% clip but he was an extremely inconsistent as a shooter. For 1/3 the season he made 2.2 3's per game at a 54% clip and in the other 2/3 of the season he made 0.4 3's per game at a 16% clip. 

That's not to say that he can't improve as a shooter but it's definitely a pretty big red flag as of now. As are his assist/to numbers in the half court, especially considering that Gonzaga played a charmin soft schedule for the majority of the year. 

[NYRaider]

It's just funny too because Rubio and Ball were both compared to Kidd coming into the draft. Great playmakers who were winners and had the intangibles but weren't great shooters/scorers. Now we hear the same things about Suggs and he's supposedly better for whatever reason. I was one of the biggest drivers of the Tyrese Haliburton train last draft cycle and I personally would grade Haliburton higher as a prospect then Suggs.