First of all, this draft was awesome. Had a lot of fun trying to build this team against other knowledgeable NBA fans and will def be in for future editions.

Being gifted CP3 at pick 21 (or whatever it was) was huge and I felt like I had a decent lead after my first 3 picks of Paul, Turner, and Beal. I was really torn on what to do with my last two picks. I had to have a big off the bench and IMO a combo 3/4. I was 100% going with Gortat in rd 7 but I got sniped. At that point, I really liked the idea of going with Henson but just hated the F options for my last pick (Henson/Isaac wouldn't have fit under the cap). I'm taking a huge gamble on Isaac being a legit role player right away and I think he's capable of that. Really interested in peoples thoughts on directions for my last 2 picks. It was tough. Really didn't want Amir but wasn't sure where else to go.

Overall, I obviously like my team quite a bit and feel confident we'd compete with any team in the league.

Rotation:

PG – Chris Paul 34 / Lou Williams 14
SG – Bradley Beal 32 / Lou Williams 16
SF – RHJ 24 / Isaac 20 / Beal 4
PF – Patrick Patterson 28 / Isaac 8 / Amir 6 / RHJ 6
C – Myles Turner 36 / Amir Johnson 12


Total Minutes:

Beal – 36
Turner – 36
CP3 – 34
RHJ – 30
Lou – 30
Isaac – 28
Patterson – 28
Amir – 18

And this really doesn't matter but, RT, you said you'd be doing a 2k sim for this? The new 2k isn't out yet so this years rookie class isn't in 2k17. Are you gonna wait until next month for 2k18? Again, don't really care as the sim isn't the reason I did the draft, I'm just curious.

I'd quibble with this, but the rest is correct.
I think getting guys who have a shot at making big leaps is pretty amazing. If you had done a 1 year draft before last season, think of all the guys you could have gotten much later than they should have gone bc they'd shown some promise and then became elite: Jokic, Giannis, etc. It makes gambling on guys who showed some promise in a small role and might suddenly be the 20th best player itl in this a pretty good idea

The health is obv an issue (though 'staps has worn down a bit the last cpl years at the end of the season iirc) but if healthy I'm not sure you can argue Kristaps does anything better than Embiid on either end of the floor

This team is pretty awesome, but I think Amir Johnson was the worst use of money possible. I'm not sure who else you could have used for that 15m... Taj and a min guy? Robin Lopez? Maybe even Solomon Hill?

The 1-6 is pretty awesome, but using the money savings to get someone good for >10 seems important. Amir is just too old/banged up to do anything well, got played off the court against Cleveland which is basically the spot you'd expect him to be useful

Not so much comparing him to STAPS directly but my point is that the 10 or so guys you listed below Embiid are all better franchise cornerstones, salaries included.

On the health point I guess you can make an argument that Embiid only has to stay healthy for 82 games in this universe, but even so I think id still take 82 games from most of the guys below him. I just don't think we can extrapolate Embiids sss stats across a full season (yet)

I'd guess KAT makes a pretty big jump, and if so, I'd say he's right with Embiid as best C in the league if we're in the fantasyland where Embiid plays 2500+ minutes.

I think there's only 6 or 7 guys I'd comfortably take over Embiid with that minutes guarantee. He's scary good and doesn't have the glaring defensive weakness like KAT or Jokic

You guys are underrating the incredible defensive impact Embiid had as a rookie. It's totally unprecedent, and so good that even in a small sample you could factor in some regression AND lack of improvement and he'd still be a top 5 defender in the league. But if you think there might not be regression and he actually improves? It's insane

Pretty incredible how similar Gallo and Tobias were last year after a quick season comparison on b-ref. This is obviously only a small part of the picture but opportunities with Drummond at C vs Jokic at C make these numbers more favorable for Tobias imo

https://gyazo.com/da3cb37c46efdb897da6e2ee667d2884

Yeah I looked at Robin Lopez before the pick and at his salary, I believe I wouldve had to go with a minimum guy with my last pick and that just felt like << Isaac/amir. Maybe that was a miss by me. We'll see. Totally spaced on Taj but again, is Taj/minimum > Isaac/amir for one season?

Uhhh have been saying pretty much this actually

alright gna start working on the sim, should be done by next monday

You were right, I was wrong on that one.

Looking forward to it.

yeah embiid might actually be the goat if he stays healthy. his tools+skills combo is possibly the best ever, he basically does everything pretty well and is enormous

I don't think a person on this thread doubts Embiid's defensive effectiveness if a) the 700 minute sample size is repeatable and b) he can maintain health. He's played SEVEN PERCENT of available minutes in his career,had a minutes restriction and didn't play B2Bs, and still didn't make it to the ****ing all star break.

Come on man. What gives us any hope that he even plays 1000 minutes next year?

The confidence level of his 700 minute sample is small, and even then he was still worse than a younger, healthier Jokic in those minutes by a wide margin. I mean teams shot 29% at the rim when he was in the game per nbawowy, are we to believe that he's going to destroy Rudy Gobert's numbers by 12%? Then there's the whole +- numbers being influenced by having one of the very worst defending players in the league as your backup, which has to affect his raw +- numbers. There's a reason why his adjusted numbers are merely good and nothing crazy on that end of the floor.

This list is just awful.

Crowder over Turner? Covington over all of those guys and like 20 more? I could go on.

What are you thinking?

I think Isaac is unlikely to be any good this year. I think maybe he was draftable, but I'm not excited about it and wouldn't expect him to contribute positive minutes. Compare him to someone like Kelly Oubre for a few million less, I'd take Oubre if I could have Taj (didn't do the math). I'd probably most like to just get Roberson on that team for the money.

This is ridiculously disingenuous, it was basically known that he was going to miss year 1 and then they were tanking for ALL seasons that he's played. This will be the first year in his career that his team is trying to win-- I'm not saying he could have played through random minor meniscus tears, but I doubt we'll ever know. Pretty sure AD played through a few things he got surgery on after the season when they were fighting for the 8 seed (also Embiid played at least one game vs the Rockets this year on his meniscus tear)

Yo I'm not really sure what to tell you here and I don't want to bash Jokic, but if you don't think that Embiid's ability to slide with smaller guys and protect the rim take him make him such a different asset on that side of the ball that the two players are basically incomparable. There's not a universe where Jokic is a positive asset on defense (or one where he tries hard there, frankly), there are only a few where he becomes passable through effort and intelligence. There isn't a universe where Embiid isn't a positive on defense, and there IS a universe where he's the best defender of all time (and possibly already #1 in the league next year). These are the ranges of outcomes we're dealing with on that end. And I'd say defense is roughly 1/3 of value to winning basketball games.

Embiid o/u minutes played this year anywhere?

Seems like it would be a LOW number. So lots of money to be made by Embiid BULLS.

I prob shouldn't dignify this with a response, but I did not move many guys within tiers. A tier is a tier.

Ok. Covington in that tier is bad.

The universe in which Embiid isn't a positive on defense is the one where he's sitting on the bench injured/resting. You probably recognize this universe as the one we all live in, the one where he's spent 93% of his career with CHRONIC injuries.

I'll bet that embiid plays >8% of the minutes that the Philadelphia 76ers play this year, what do you say?

Let's see him crack 2 winshares in a season before you start peacocking all over the thread.

I agree with this - to specify my original point, I was primarily taking up issue with the guys projected as "impact" players in this draft with 1 significantly negative age 19/20 season under their belts

Is there really anything that portends the possibility of Embiid being GOAT defender? That seems ****ing ridiculous on it's face.

I'm usually right there with you ae, I love Oubre and Rozier for example - I have a post history of this. They were both on my list and I wish we could go 10 deep to really differentiate scouting ability.

By the by, I do have multiple guys that have the possibility of next-step type moves as you posted:

Aaron Gordon and Clint Capela primarily. But you can make a case for any of: John Wall, Gordon Hayward, Will Barton, and Spencer Dinwiddie as well. Only Ersan and Gortat don't really have that capacity but serve their roles clearly with little to no risk of them falling off a cliff.

I'm not going to be results oriented about it, I know his track record and sample and I don't really care if he plays 6 games or 60 this season, gotta shoot for the moon-- having a shot at a top 5 player for 6m a year is sweet.

I don't disagree with the drafting of Embiid fwiw. It's all about differentiation (ftmp) when there's absolutely zero at risk here.

Depending on what you're looking to get out of this exercise ldo.