I'd trade my 3rd round pick for RoCo...

This was who I was considering also

Great value

I really had Westbrook Brow Giannis Wall all super close. Think you can build a contender around all 4 of them but went with Westbrook because he's the best player and didn't think I'd get enough savings from the other guys to justify passing on him. Maybe I'll regret it at the end of the draft

Had Gobert George and Butler in the next tier down. Don't think they are bad picks though and better than some earlier picks for sure

I didn't have to make this decision but what do you guys think about Harden vs Westbrook?

Same salary, seem similarly hard to build around? I personally like Russ better but the fact that Hardens team is much better is a point in his favor. Idk

Harden is much more efficient but worse defender than rwb. Rwb is a stat whore. I think harden is a better teammate and more likely to win a a title.

Offensively, Harden is incredibly easy to build around. He can play off-the-ball due to his shooting. Defensively I think they are both poor, although Westbrook seems to at least have the physical tools to be good.

I think it is indeed somewhat close, but I can't see much of an argument for Westbrook(although its worth noting I had him as only 4th in MVP last year, so I've never been his biggest supporter).

Makes sense

I also feel like there's better mid/late round PG value overall in this format which is another reason to take Harden over Russ. in a vacuum it's tougher for me and I'm glad I didn't have to make that choice

With Utah having so few offensive options and Gobert being a quite high IQ bball player, he might have a higher usage that results on more assists and a few more points.

He'll be as efficient as last year with his defensive activity + pick & roll and O-Reb

He's a candidate to have a leap next year, could stats up to 17/18 pts and 3-4 assists

So I don't know if AIM is actually no longer itt and/or it's tchaz's team, or if we're down one team and it's LFC or what.

No PM sent.

Is it on me? Ready to pick if so. Sniped on both Wall and Gobert. Late first round is a brutal spot

There's supposedly a team before you but maybe not?

Will wait for confirmation before picking. Torn between two players but think I have my mind made up

I had Gobert pretty high and think he's very easy to build around. He's a top 2 defender, but perhaps more importantly is that he's can also be a very good offensive player with just a few pieces that shouldn't be too hard to find.

Perhaps more importantly, I think dominant centers in general are going to be undervalued in this draft. They are the most expensive position in the league and probably the least talented. What I presume will happen is that teams will either go center-less or grab guys who aren't good but are very cheap. The former doesn't seem like it'd fly in a typical season and the latter puts teams at a distinct disadvantage against guys like Rudy/KAT and others. There's a reason teams don't go small for a whole season despite the position being expensive and relatively talent-less.

mclovin withdrew and tchaz said same thing so I guess its on lfc.

I'll update the spreadsheet then. I'll see if I can clean it up but I'm not good at the googledocs.

can split hairs on ordering within tiers, but philosophically this is about how i felt. russ is my least favorite player in the nba, but i would have taken him over embiid for example who i don't think is mature enough to be a team leader and i'd be worried playing him 40 hard playoff mins even if there's no b2bs.

Sniped on a few other guys, but I still think he's fine value.

In his 25 y/o season. Made a big jump from his 23 to 24 season, hopefully will make another.

14.9/13.6/2.8 blocks per 36

* 8th in the league in RPM
* 2nd in fg%
* 1st in TS%
* 2nd in efg%
* 4th in rebounds per game
* 5th in rebound %
* 1st in blocks per game (2.6 compared to AD's 2.2)
* 1st in block %
* 18th in PER
* 3rd in ortg
* 3rd in drtg
* 10th in OWS
* 1st in DWS (6.0 compared to Draymond's 5.4)
* 2nd in WS
* 4th in WS/48
* 13th in Box +/-
* 8th in VORP

That's a pretty nice package of attributes from a 24 y/o who is only improving, can be the centerpiece of my defense, & provide strong efficient offense & very good rebounding.

This is probably a better explanation

I have no problem with the Gobert pick, but I don't think more stats next year necessarily means another leap. Unless more stats due to higher usage means better player. In this format it's not really about how they end up playing on their real NBA team, but how they play on that team + how it translates to the team they're picked on.
Splitting hairs mostly.

Think I'm ready to go once Chaz picks. Have two guys in mind and a third could possibly be better right now for team construction, but not sure

i'm here so once lfc picks, i can pick pretty quickly

Chaz is out, it's LFC who's debating then loldolphins then you... I think?

So far the draft is going pretty much as I thought save for a few picks and one or two omissions that may be leaks on my part.

My theory is that the first round would have incredible value late and put those guys at an advantage. Being able to snag picks early in round two means you can almost certainly pair your already very good player with another all-star caliber guy, which is going to be harder to do as one of the top picks. In addition and perhaps more importantly, the late-picking teams will also have their pick of the very good players on small contracts like RoCo--those guys just aren't going to be around at pick 65. I had the draft going:

1st round - Elite players and a few rookie scale very good guys
2nd round - Expensive all stars and a few cheap but good players
3rd round - Early on the last of the good contracts, then broke teams trying to fill out rosters with rookie deals and olds on good contracts

That's why I thought it was a clear advantage to go cheap and very good early vs elite and expensive, because imo there are going to be a glut of 8-13M/yr players that teams simply can't afford. Rookie contracts are valuable, but the fact is there have been only a handful of those guys to even be positive in the last 3 years as those drafts have not produced many positive players yet. The guys drafted just prior got their second contracts during the cap explosion and are considered overpaid as well.

1st Round has to be BPA. With that said I think I'm still getting a relative bargain on this player. Fines and technical fouls do not affect the salary thankfully so with the 20th pick we are thrilled to take:

good pick

im skeptical about boogie, but seems fine.

at my pick i was considering

towns (drafted right before me)
embiid
jimmy butler
paul george
giannis
AD
draymond

ultimately i had a ton of trouble deciding between the first two (embiid was MUCH better than towns last year on a per minute basis, obv it's a gamble that embiid plays 30 mpg and 60 games this year, both were pickable at that spot though)

i think butler > pg by a lot in the regular season, but i understand reasons ppl like pg and he definitely does fit more fluidly on a variety of teams

i thought AD/giannis were insanely close, insanely similar, but giannis was really difficult to build around in the last draft-- having a wing (and primary bh) that can't shoot is just tough.

and dray is dray, i'd have been fine picking him, embiid gives me more options though and seems more fun to build around