1. Oladipo - dude is already a + defensively. a pretty big mess offensively but he is playing pg a lot just for the tank and future secondary ball handling duties. Already a pretty decent shooter. A better tony allen is in order for him
2. Noel- rim protecting bigs that finish well don't come often. have to take it
3. Giannas - dat length
4. MCW - don't really want to put him even this high just because there are so many good pgs in the league.
5. Mason - dude is shooting 69% post all star break
6. Dieng - been a beast also
7. burke - same as mcw. too many pgs.
8. Adams - a defensive big with decent hands. prob good vlaue
9. Zeller - after a horrible start, seem to be improving
10. THJR - dude just yolos it. he will stick around for a while

otto porter has a 6.5 PER in 315 mins
anthony bennett has a 6.7 PER in 645 mins

i don't think it's fair to say that bennett has demonstrated any level of superiority to porter. they have both been awful. maybe porter would have looked better in his next 330 mins after having some baseline of experience to catch up to speed. maybe he'd look better if he hadn't dealt with injuries.

i take porter > bennett bc i think porter was a better prospect on draft night and neither has shown any promise that the other hasn't in their rookie seasons.

Bennett was much better after the new year.

so what? he was still awful in 2014 and awful overall.

and like i said porter would probably have seen an improvement in his performance too if he got as many minutes as bennett.

you're giving bennett way too much credit for being historically, embarrassingly bad to start the season and then upping his game to a generic level of suck. it's not like he demonstrated amazing learning ability or anything. he just learned to stop playing like the worst player of all-time-- that is not a feather in his cap in the least.

One of the funniest moments of the season was when the Cavs booth got ecstatic about Bennett scoring in double digits 11 POINTS! I dont remember the game but was laughing pretty hardily over it.

i think kelly could go as high as top 5, he's been pretty great lately. i'd consider nerl #1 given his apparently dramaless recovery and clearly higher upside than anyone else

i think dieng>mason just more upside both offensive and defensively, dieng showed some decent passing and shooting flashing in ncaa play that have yet to really reveal themselves

mcw is hard because all the concerns about him have been emphatically been proven valid, he can't shoot and put up poor efficiency playing in a super fast offense that theoretically helps him. still deserves a high pick for pure productivity

there's a lot of solid roleplayers/starting level players in this draft but not much star equity, pretty well aligned with predraft consensus

Kelly being historically slept on in these redrafts

Kelly sucks. Will always suck. Lol Boston. Lol Canada. Lol whites. That's a lot to overcome.

lol at hating on dirk jr

i'm fairly certain kelly suffers from biases against being ugly with long hair and having zero physical definition whatsoever.

he's really cut down on the turnovers and gotten his shot going in 2014 and overall it looks like he had a solid rookie year. he is old (turns 23 in a few days) and his D is still lol, but if he posts like a 17-18 PER next year while playing not horrific D do people start acknowledging him as an actual player then?

I'd be more interested in seeing him put up decent numbers on a good team. He put up decent offensive numbers but he rebounds really poorly for a 7 footer, is lol at defense and still turns it over too much. He'll be a legitimate player but I think he'll always be a better fantasy player than irl player.

turnovers aren't an unfixable flaw. his turnover rate was like 20% at some point around the new year and he finished at 16.3%. a lot of his early turnovers came from traveling before he made his move and he straight up stopped doing that. also it's something that players naturally improve on w/ competitive reps and kelly seems good at learning.

his rebounding isn't bad at all. 11.1% orb 18.7% drb. dreb rate could be a bit higher but that's not turbl and his oreb rate is good.

his defense is really the big concern. idk if he can learn to hold his own or whether he's going to be lol forever. he def needs to add strength, he commits so many friggin fouls that get finished for and 1's.

18.7% defensive rebounding is pretty bad for someone that tall

Is there any study as to what categories players improve or don't improve as they age? I feel like turnover rate is fairly constant.

i don't think his rebounding is super concerning, he pretty much played all his minutes at center and boston's rebounding was actually decent overall with him on the floor despite playing some poor rebounders at pf (green/bass)

i think him spending all his time at center was just was personnel driven. imo his mobility and size seems adequate for pf, and his skill level is there offensively. if he ends up at pf full time that alleviates some of the concerns over his main weaknesses

turnovers are the area that improve the most i think

it makes sense intuitively. turnovers are normally the result of making bad decisions, and it stands to reason that players would regress toward superior decision making as they gain competitive reps.

He's a better fit at PF but his offense is going to be worse there than it is at center. And his defense is still going to be bad. His defense will be better at PF than C but there are so many great scoring PFs in today's game that it's always going to be a problem.

Plus, he's always going to be playing the 5 in small lineups which are becoming more and more popular with how teams are valuing the 3 pointer.

Looking at older players with low turnover rates, it does look like there are some bad, outlier-ish years in their rookie years. So I'll give him the benefit of the doubt for a year. I have serious doubts that he turns into that type of player though.

But the thing is he fits at the 4 bc he can make 3's

If the Celtics box Embiid, the C's may need to consider telling Sully to hit the bricks and making Kelly the guy. Maybe Sully ran bad but he only shot 27% from 3, and Kelly shot 35%. So if Sully keeps bricking it prob will make more sense to play Kelly w/ Embiid and ship Sully for a decent return. Once you have Embiid in the middle you get exponential returns on spacing imo.

Dumars was just holding KCP down.

edit: am taking him over THJR always

Taking Cody over water trash doofus all day. They were equally bad but Cody was a much better defender and also showed improvement throughout the year.

I gamble on Len over Kelly all day too.

Fyp

Kelly looking like a stud to close the season...there really is a case to be made for 5. Kelly. He's tall and smart and good at scoring from everywhere. That's a good baseline of value to bring to the table, and he has plenty of room to grow as he improves his shot selection/making and cuts his turnovers.

He also supplements this by being a good passer and a competent rebounder. The only concern is D, but he would be way less bad as a 4 IMO.

He's going to finish the season w/ a ~15 PER even though he started off turribly. He improved by leaps and bounds and w/ another offseason to work on his shot and body I am really interested to see what he can bring to the table next year when the Celtics are playing for serious.

He showed quite a bit of improvement with regard to making moves to the rack.

I watched porter and the wizards live 6 x this year plus a ton of games on TV. Unfortunately I watched almost every cavs game too.

Bennett was god awful but being out of shape and out of position in a non existent offensive scheme sure didn't help. Baring a big injury Bennett will out perform porter next season.

He doesn't get any credit for looking like a stud in meaningless games that his team was trying to lose on purpose, a mission that he very actively contributed to for most of the year.

Bennett>>>Porter for sure. Porter has no business being in the league. There is nothing he's good at.