I was between Brow, Westbrook, and Harden at 5

briefly thought lebron bu quickly downgraded him

last word should read "defensively"

He's already made huge strides offensively, his defense has a long way to go.

Eh, I think Drummond is always going to be fairly limited.

pm sent to charder/cald

Yup that's what I meant

That's fair noze but I sorta felt the same way about my other options and am more confident in drummonds future/content with his current production than the others.

The biggest thing (outside of FT shooting ldo) for Drummond offensively is getting more comfortable passing out of the post. He's more than capable, he just doesn't do it nearly enough. It's mostly an awareness issue.

Post move wise, he's got a nice hook shot that's becoming fairly reliable and should only get better. He's also shown an ability to take guys off the dribble from time to time and he's even developed a quasi-Euro Step. His offensive rebounding is always going to make him a valuable option offensively.

Yeah I don't want to talk too much about why I chose Drummond over the other guys I was considering until those dudes are drafted, but I also felt like in this format it's a little easier to build a team around Drummond to minimize the effect of his weaknesses (except free throws obv).

I don't think Drummond is worth a first round pick

Sent my pick to mjw

Harden and Paul George were the other 2. Honestly if this were real life and we had to worry about attitude/team chemistry I'd probably go with Paul George. But this is a 2p2 draft where everyone gets to focus on the upside of their team, and I think Cousins has way more "dominate the league" equity in the next 5 years. Position scarcity is another mark against Cousins. I dunno, it was close and I went back and forth between all 3.

I was hoping Lebron fell one more spot. I get the age concerns, but I think hes being underrated. I'd definitely take him ahead of Westbrook for example. I had the rankings like this:

Tier 1
1. Steph

Tier 2
2. Towns
3. Kawhi
4. Durant
5. Brow

Tier 3(feels weird to create a tier just for #6, but imo he is clearly worse than tier 2 but better than tier 4)
6. Lebron

Tier 4
7. Westbrook
8. Cousins
9. Paul George
10. Harden

yea, I think its a bit early but the upside is obviously there and I can't hate too hard on taking risks on guys with game-changing upside.


I actually viewed this as a major point in Paul George's favor over Harden. Harden is very ball dominant for a SG and is a also a very poor defender. This forces your hand quite a bit in regards to choosing your PG imo, as you really don't want another poor backcourt defender and its a bit superfluous to take someone who gains a lot of value from what they can do with the ball in their hands(which is true of quite a few PGs). Harden also has some concerns with effort, so you'd really prefer to surround him with high character guys. Moreover, Harden can only play one position so it really forces your hand positionally(although its worth noting that its a scarce position).

Paul George, on the other hand, doesn't have any of these concerns whatsoever. You can quite literally take ANYONE who you think is good value in round 2.

I don't want to list too many undrafteds, but one example: If your pick came up and you thought Isaiah Thomas was good value- I think a Paul George team can take him no problem, but a Harden team should probably look for better fit.

Harden is as ball dominant as he is because of team necessity. He's very capable and scary good off the ball some if he had some creation help.

Interesting topic, not sure how I feel. Imo there are 3 things that go into being good off-the-ball:

1. Catching and shooting 3s

2. Spacing, moving off the ball, etc.

3. When you are open and a pass is headed towards you(and the defense begins to react), being able to read the D and decide on where the next pass should go IMMEDIATELY(you basically want to already know what you're gonna do before the ball actually hits your hands).

I think Harden is great at #1. I think Harden is average at #2. I have not seen much evidence he is all that good at #3. Thats not to say that he wouldn't be better alongside improved teammates/coaching, but I've seen him catch the ball, pause, triple threat, dribble between his legs a few times, and then make the proper pass(3 seconds too late) quite a few times.

In fact there are very few players who possess the ability to be great isolation scorers and the ability to be good at trait #3. Lebron is the one that immediately springs to mind(but his lack of trait #1 prevents him from being great off the ball).

Disagree with assani on harden<George and really disagree on rwb<bron. You can argue that rwb and bron are equal this year and LBJ is going to be 32 in the first of five years in this format. He's not an elite shooter so I expect his value to drop each successive year while RWBs should maintain.

Harden does the hardest thing to find in this league better than all but two players, and his perfect fit counterparts are easy to find because not many teams have a need for them.

harden is a pretty darn good passer i think. he likes to massage the ball obv, but i think it's mostly out of habit. if you stuck him with brad stevens for instance for a cpl years he'd probably have similar habits to IT2-- sticks with him when it "should" (late clock, crunch time) but whips it around when the O is whirling. maybe at this point it's too hard to break them, but the guy is a savant passer for sure.

Strongly disagree. Seems like every regular season(for the past ~3 years) people start to underrate Lebron because they forget the difference between regular season Lebron vs playoff Lebron. He has fully embraced the "you have nothing to prove in the regular season, make sure you stay rested/healthy, playoffs are what matter" philosophy. Westbrook goes 100% in every single game. So if we're talking regular season then sure maybe you're right. But if we're talking overall, then I don't think its even close. Steph and Lebron are a tier above everyone else come playoff time imo.

Dellavedova
Shumpert
Tristan
Mozgov

Those were the 4 guys who started alongside Lebron in games 2 and 3 of the Finals last year when they won back to back games against the GOAT team. Westbrook simply isn't capable of that type of upside(in regards to winning, not talking statistically).

Westbrook was just as good last year as this year, and he missed the playoffs. Yes Durant only played 1/3 of the season and Russ missed some games as well, but they had Ibaka and some reasonable role players. Unless he gets hurt, I can't possibly imagine Lebron missing the playoffs in the next 5 years.


Shooting is not the only thing that ages well. Passing, court vision, height, and strength age very well. Moreover, I think Lebron's "athleticism" ages a ton better than Westbrook's. Its tough to put this part in words, but theres a big difference between Karl Malone types who are athletic due to having long strides/great size/etc. and guys like Iverson who are great athletes due to quickness/explosion. Westbrook could be the type to be a top 10 player one year and then not even top 50 the following year- his type of explosive athleticism can go away really quickly.



And then theres the whole position scarcity/flexibility aspect- Lebron has all the advantages I just discussed about Paul George in comparison to Harden(and even moreso b/c Westbrook's position is a lot easier to find than Harden's).



What is "the hardest thing to find"?

assani, why did you just list a bunch of undrafteds? you should know better.

Its completely standard to discuss players in NBA drafts, as long as you aren't specifically discussing when they should go. Thats why I refrained from saying "I was thinking about Paul George or Harden over Cousins" until they were taken, but nobody should have an issue with my above post.

Yeah gtfo with caring about undrafteds, it ruins discussions to avoid people pertinent to actually having discussions

Everyone knows who is available

Harden is the best value pick so far

PG probably 2nd

I feel like we've dropped down a talent tier here

Assani killin' it.

i have more tiers

steph

kawhi
durant

towns

brow
lebron

westbrook

harden
george
giannis

cousins

steph

kawhi
durant

towns
brow

lebron

george
westbrook
harden

cousins
giannis
butler
drummond

why 8 man teams? i feel like we should draft a few more rounds. i guess we can see how interest goes later on

Trying to rank bad-attitude/effort guys like Cousins/Harden/etc. makes me think this would be a fun exercise....

How would you rank the players that have been drafted so far if you assume that they get traded to the Spurs/Celtics, respect and listen fully to Pop/Brad, and give 100% effort over the next 5 years?