Saying that Andrew Wiggins is already a bigger bust than Anthony Bennett is such ridiculous hyperbole it's not even worth responding. He's already an above average player in the NBA and Embiid, the only other player it would have been reasonable to take over him, has played 12 games in 2.25 seasons and has played more than 25 minutes twice in his career. Give me a break.

My bad, I remembered it as saying he struggles to create in the half court but could be good on defense and 3s. Sorry, been a while since I read that.

Geoff I'm not trying to be combative, but are you saying he's above average like >250th best playerin the league, or above average starter?

Yea, if the Wiggins hype train from high school = the Wiggins hype train after college, you could stretch this into a reasonable hyperbole. As is, there was some doubt as to who they should take at #1 and as people said there's 0% he goes #1 if Embiid has a clean bill of health.

Yea, judging just a little too soon--

Most importantly, IF he happens to keep getting better (with questions about his work ethic I can imagine him not) at his post game, at his midrange game, his 3 point shooting doesn't regress and he continues to be able to create his own shot there, AND he becomes a passable defender/rim protector with his length?

So if he becomes DDR who tries a little harder on D and can shoot 3s?

He's not "a barely max." Current (or even last year's) version of DDR who CAN (and does, on high volume) shoot 3s AND plays just a smidgeon of defense is a ****ing unreal player. DDR does absolutely neither of those things and should be judged for it, but if he did either at league average or above average rate he'd be like the 10-15th best player ITL, below PG/Jimmy Butler and above Gordon Hayward for wings. He could sleepwalk to a better defensive career than DDR and I'd guess he's already made more 3s in his career than DDR has.

You're right to keep the brakes on for optimism, but giving up on guys early is definitely the biggest leak of NBA general managers-- don't make the same mistake.

Prob not an above avg starter, but at 21 being as good as he is already is a good thing. Btw giving Dean any sort of props for his prediction on that draft is insane. He was off on everything, and Wiggins is already better than Dean ever thought he could be, and it's absurd to think this is as good as he'll ever be.

3PM
Wiggins: 122
DDR: 211

Not yet, maybe after this year.

This is wrong, he had a ton of hits, and I am pretty sure right now most GMs would take Embiid despite him playing 0 games in his first two seasons. As usual you could just take Dean's takes and average them in with some other smart takes and you'd wind up with a pretty good board. I'd rather him take them to the extreme though if that's how he feels, makes for a more interesting (even if less accurate) read.

clear hits: Doug can't play NBA level D, Clint (even if he had him too high), Nurkic, Jokic 25 spots higher than he went, etc.

Obv he missed a ton, but no way he was off on everything. I think the biggest deal is that even with Wiggins' development being 'fine,' Embiid has played only a dozen games and ppl would still retroactively take him. That was kind of his main point, draft for upside, and I'm pretty sure even if Embiid never plays again 10-30% or whatever that he has a healthy career is >>> Wiggins given what we've seen of him thusfar (I mean if you're trying to win championships)

Saric is not an NBA player and having stauskas that far ahead of Doug is also glaring. But mostly having exum as a generational talent right behind Embiid es no bueno

If I redrafted I'd go (in tiers, not linear rankings):

Embiid

Jokic
Gordon
Jabari

Wiggins
Lavine
Smart
Nurkic
Capela
Julius Randle
TJ Warren

Pretty torn on Jabari between second and third tier. Haven't watched enough of him, but if he learns how to shoot sooner than everyone expected he could be something insane on O, Amare with range.

The jury is still out on Exum I think, dude is still insanely young, but obviously it seems like he's further from NBA skills on offense than most thought. The ACL did not help

If Cleveland took Embiid over Wiggins they couldn't have traded for Love and wouldn't be NBA CHAMPIONS.

Jabari will get the last laugh! Just you all wait...

I haven't watched much Jabari but his numbers look promising and the Dunc'd on guys have been high on him this year, what's he been doing better?

Wet Dean and criticism, its pretty common TZ lunacy to cite singular examples of his scouting to try and prove him being wrong/bad or whatever, which I don't get since the draft is such an imperfect science. What makes the hate even more ludicrous is that Dean is almost always drafting based on upside, so there will be plenty of misses for every hit as their should be.

I just re-read his Andrew Wiggins takes and he was alarmingly accurate about what his criticisms are now. Pretty cool.

I like a lot of deans content, but the credit he "deserves" for that draft is almost entirely based on just being high on the euros.

And given that a week or 2 ago he was called out on Twitter for having Staps 14th on his big board last year he responded with this

https://twitter.com/deanondraft/stat...82235719360512

I think that makes it safe to assume he wasn't watching anywhere near as much of the euros the year before either so personally I'm going to discount all of his takes good and bad on the international guys significantly and I don't know if that leaves him with much for the 2014 draft.



Also off topic, but y'all put way too much stock in 18 games of 3 point shooting. You can get seasons worth of noisy %s from 3. Wiggins is still very likely a below average 3 point shooter.

I'm excited about Embiid too but you guys realize Andrew Wiggins is averaging more points per game than games Embiid has played in his entire 3 year career. Wiggins has scored 389 points this year; Embiid has played 274 minutes.

Embid pumpers need to slow their roll

Didn't you have Exum higher than Wiggins? That was definitely wrong. Also, didn't you have Rodney Hood as being super terrible? Wiggins isn't great, but hes still gonna be one of the better players in that class.

You guys say what you want, but if Embiid stays healthy he's a favorite to spend his prime as a top 5 player itl

Greg Oden tho

If Giannis doesn't make the all star team this year I quit. Dude is beasting it. Bucks 2018 nba champs!

I'd really like to hear Thibs' comments on why he didn't pull the trigger on that one.

It wasn't on the table and he leaked it was to troll the Bulls. Bulls get flooded with offers for Butler who they aren't trading but now have to waste time listening about things on draft night just in case.

At least thats my theory.

Very happy aejones thinks we raped the 2014 draft. That clown is allowed to post?

He literally picked an African cripple as his number one

Far ahead of everyone else in the draft btw