Not to mention they probably could have traded down with utah and ended up with smart and utahs left nut

I do kinda wish they traded down, but hey Parker could be great.

Parker has said he wants to be an old school "one team" player for his career, take it with a grain of salt obviously, but he seems genuine and that's awesome to have in Milwaukee.

Yup

Someone should've taken advantage of the Utah situation like I was posting about before the draft

Poor choice Mallory

So is there any evidence yet that Hinkie is actually good at drafting?

It's quite clear he is excellent at getting value ripping off other teams, & is a skilled tanker...& I think Embiid & KJ are excellent picks...but is there anything to show that he is more likely to nail a 2nd round pick than any one else & that we should think players like Grant are good just because he took him?

Not saying there is any evidence to the contrary either, but the talent evaluation slurping might be a tad premature.

Good article again tho

debate whether or not mcwim is actually good, but he was obv slick value at #11 overall. i don't see how the nerlens pick was anything less than stellar. same with embiid and KJ and micic.

thus far i have loved pretty much every pick he has made, and that's supplemented by also loving every non-draft pick move he has made and the guy generally seeming sharp as hell.

i do think you raise an interesting question, which i was considering...next year is philly my #1 pre-draft FO or not? i think not unless pop retires. the spurs are too awesome and proven over the large sample. it is definitely too soon to feel confident that hinkie is on their level. but i do feel he is probably less liable to spew than ainge, presti, ferry, masai, mcdonough, hollinger, svg, etc. so i'm probably keeping 2. philly.

while i don't like jabari much i do think that between larry sanders and giannis or hayward and favors are two favorsable places for him to end up 'fit' wise.

i think jabari might actually be pretty good. probably average at best on D, but he's a physically imposing guy already with some basketball skills and WIM, bucks are a hard environment to succeed in at the moment but if they fire larry drew after this year and pick up a guard in the draft or free agency or via trade i could see them fighting for a playoff spot as soon as 2015-2016

To add to your point; if all reports are true then the fact that he wants to be the face of your specific franchise and you're Milwaukee - that's gotta be worth something sizably extra too

honestly i'm not even THAT worried about his defense. i think he's a dog to be neutral or better, but he has a shot and he's not going to be turrible a super high%. i just don't know if he can be an impact player offensively.

Yeah...it's definitely cool that he takes players that are future assets & isn't confined to taking guys that can actually help them win now.

Fully embracing the tank is happening for the 1st time in baseball with the Astros, & in basketball with the 76ers, & I think that it's smart, & ripping off people who are desperate to keep their jobs is pretty lol & cool.

Also cool that he drafts a lot of people that you & others here, including me, like. But until some of them actually play & turn out to be really good at NBA basketball, a lot of how good he is at drafting is just speculation.

All that being said...I can't argue with 1. 76ers this year or 2. 76ers going into next year...but it is possible that there is some spew in these picks & just because he's functioning on a higher level strategically, he might be fallible.

Of course, even if Grant doesn't pan out, that doesn't mean it's a bad pick either. It's not like they need people to contribute this year, so they can afford to gamble on upside, even if there's only like a 10% chance he'll ever be any good.

Yeah...I don't know what my point is.

I think Parker going to the Bucks is great for him, assuming the Bucks throw him into like 25mpg+ right away. Give the kid the chance to score and lead us, that's what he needs to succeed.

If we make him ride the pine like we did with Tobias he will probably fail, but no way that happens again.

^^ If the so called most nba ready player in this draft dont start and play 30+ mins right off the bat ide be pretty shocked.

I think wiggins gets alot of mins as well for cleveland.

Only nba ready players who wont get big minutes is prob marcus smart & tis because celtics is conflicted on what to do with rondo- bradley yet.

new orleans fans gonna be kind of upset when they realize that they could have gotten the 2014-15 rookie of the year in 2013 draft but decided to give him to philly instead.

you're going to love him

I know what you mean. The precise truth is slippery, and we don't know what it is, and Hinkie doesn't know what it is. If we agree with Hinkie it strongly hints at correctness, but doesn't prove it.

I agree on your point on Grant. Like the other BPA's were Nikola Jokic, Walter Tavares, Nick Johnson, GR3, Vasilije Micic (who he got later anyway), Dwight Powell. You only need to assign a small chance of Grant panning out for the pick to be +EV. Further it's not a really important pick to get right, and we don't know what sort of logistical hurdles he is dealing with at that juncture.

I give every GM some room for spew. I can't believe Morey took Marcus Morris over Kiwi. That was such a crucial error, VJL's stat model had Kiwi about 2x better and he had better tools. I doubt the Spurs would have traded George Hill for Marcus Morris. Sooo pretty much the Spurs are the only spew proof team in my mind. But if 39. Grant is the biggest possible spew Hinkie is capable of, he's off to a fairly razor sharp start.

if anybody wants to trade ROY equity at these prices, i'd sell wiggins/jabroni/ougie/napier/randle at those prices to buy either smart 15-1 or nerl 12-1 if anybody cares for action

what odds can i get on pierre jackson?

Loving 25/1 on Warren too

i was thinking about warren 25-1, gordon 20-1, exum 10-1, elfrid 14-1. but i kinda wanna see how their respective roster situations take shape before investing.

I think Jabari's lack of play making is majorly overblown. It is impossible to argue that point based on the numbers since they indicate he was terrible in that regard at Duke, but he projects as a very smart player with an excellent handle for an NBA PF. I think he understands how to read a defense pretty well for such a young, offensive minded player.

The comparisons to guys like Robinson are odd because, not only can Parker actually dribble (and play PF), he's not obviously dumb. I grew up a fan of the Bucks and liked Dog as a kid, but he was the kind of guy you'd watch game in and game out and be really frustrated by how clueless he was.

I suppose it is possible that he plays like that in the NBA, but part of projecting is getting a read on the type of basketball IQ you'd expect the guy to have 4-5 years into his NBA career after developing their game and bit and playing thousands of minutes against NBA defenses.

I think people are making a bad read if they can't see how he projects to have clear upside as a play maker offensively.

it's what everybody says, but it's not supported by the way he plays.

Take into account that, unless one of them clearly stands out, they could split their vote if it's based on surprise team success or something.

Gordon is worth a flier at that # tho, I like Exum there too

Great article.

i'm not sure, but i doubt it's the guy who is drawing dead to become a top 5 NBA player.

Disagree with bolded. Much like pre-internet poker, the sample size is woefully inadequate to evaluate. I think you'd need 10,000+ draft picks to have anywhere close to a valid sample size when discussing a person's ability to draft well. Obviously we'll never get close to that, so I greatly prefer the method of evaluating the reasoning behind the picks rather than results oriented thinking.

there is no way you need THAT many picks to get a feel for who drafts the best. i get your point in general but if everybody made 100 picks you'd see a BIG disparity between the buford/morey/hinkie types vs the jordan/flip/billy kings of the world. There's variance in the draft but being sharp gives you such a big big EV advantage that it adds up in a hurry

10k+ is laughable. If you're drafting 10-15 spots above where you're slotted year in and year out, the only reason that isn't enough is because of all the other factors. Drafting someone that is temperamental and a toss-up to pan out is going to be great a lot more often on the Spurs than the Kings.

That being said, if some of these guys had 5 picks a year and literally got the best or 2nd best value that was available there every time, I would think that is enough after like 4-5 years. Or, like the Spurs if they make a major move to get a player that pans out over and over.