I think Dean puts too much stock in the idea that great talent makes itself recognizable immediately. I think the eye test is generally overrated, but I don't want to go nuts like Nate Silver and overcompensate by making it strictly about numbers. Still, I think Dean falls too much in love with players that he thinks "crush" the eye test, like Lonzo. Personally, I had my concerns about Lonzo's mental abilities.

A lot of draft evaluators are going to overrate athleticism because that is what they have the most access to. I, personally, prefer a good but not super athlete with high motor and BBIQ to an elite athlete who might be a lazy knucklehead. Overrating height used to be another example of the accessibility heuristic, but people are getting smarter about valuing wingspan relative to height even if you can't necessarily tell just by looking who has the greater wingspan like you can easily see who is taller. I think lateral quickness gets undervalued relative to leaping ability because the later is more easily observable and measurable.

caveat: there is an insane amount of variance in drafting

but it's interesting you say that, because i think the exact opposite!

i think dean brute forces the stats a little too much without consideration for growth.

i think he is very good at finding value in the middle and back end of the draft.

for the front end of the draft, your choices are a little bit narrowed. for instance last year everyone pretty much had the same 8, but some in different orders than others. based on the variance of the success of those 8, you can look like a genius or a total clown.

methodologies differ, variance is huge, process is most important.

i highly recommend everyone read "the undoing project" just for the first couple chapters detailing morey's process and how you have to blend raw numbers and feel for building the best model.

dean's model is pretty strong for the resources made available, but i'm sure his model lacks some stuff that GMs are privvy to, which can impact results.

just a thought here. but maybe for the boom

Dean would be a slam dunk Top 5 GM.

barely ever saw Tatum play at Duke, spent 5 minutes looking at his stats/info:

me >>> TZGMs >>>>>>>>>> actual GMs

#langer

yall act like bradGOAT wouldnt have done the same wizardry with josh jackson

context matters. many were bearish on tatum for the correct reasons, and many shouldnt have been surprised that bradGOAT turned tatum into a stud real quick.

this is why i dont really get mocks or power rankings, because players are going to diff teams and diff situations.

put tatum on the suns and put jackson on the celtics and lets see what happens. just because jackson hasnt become a stud yet on clearly the worst team isnt an indictment on putting him higher in mocks than tatum, who gets put into one of the best situations of all time.

Damn. When are you going to launch 72offOnDraft.com?

heres my "mock". this is not based on who i think best players are, but who i think they *should* take

suns: doncic
kings: JJJ
hawks: ayton
grizzlies: bamba
mavs: bagley
magic: shai
bulls: trae
cavs: porter jr
knicks: wendell carter
sixers: miles bridges

and zhaire is prob gonna be the guy everyone wonders why he fell all the way to 15 or some ****

suns: doncic is the goat, you want him running the show, he is elite PnR player and will defend the other teams worst shooter to start. have him help booker become even better at PnR, coach up jackson and sign capela to a max. EZ

kings: frontcourt is a nightmare but take the best player available which is JJJ

hawks: best player available is ayton, hopefully new coach (former sixers assistant and defense coach) teaches him how to defend the rim

grizzlies: gasol is borderline washed, gamble on the guy with mega unicorn potential and gumby arms. your team is not gonna compete and eventually you're gonna be eating that conley contract, so start the quasi-tank now and build with experimental guys with super high ceilings.

mavs: i want to say take shai but since they are not taking a point guard then they just have to gamble on bagley and pray. i dont feel good about this draft for mavs in general and i think this is a great spot for them to trade down if the price is right.

magic: you need a pg, get the best pg which is shai imo.

bulls: seems like a good spot to gamble on trae and you can suck for another year and add a piece to the trae+markkanen core

cavs: if we think lebron is gone, take the guy with the most upside. if we think he's staying, take miles bridges.

knicks: you want to tank another year without KP so get the center that you can pair with him and continue running frank+mudiay into the ground. if there was another great PG here then i'd say take that dude and let him learn for a year, but afaik there ain't one. not a fan of sexton at all.

sixers: best wing available, can go zhaire/miles/okogie, someone who can play the 2. could also go center for embiid insurance.

Jackson was coached by TrianoGOAT tho, so he's obv FINISHED now as a complete BUST

just subscribe to my posts here so y'all don't miss any of these pearls of wisdom i be droppin' for free yw

Bamba is way too much like Thabeet (Bamba is obviously better) but I can't see the Grizz gambling so hard again in such a key spot. Unless they can blow up everything and flip Gasol/Conley/Parsons to dump for picks I can't see them moving on Bamba. Porter makes a ton more sense IMO.

Don't Sixers need more 3-D guys? A big issue in the Celtics series was having to play Marco and Redick a ton and both are liabilities on D. I like Mikal and I think the fact that he went to Nova helps even more. He's a little older but the Sixers don't need a swing for the fences type pick. They need someone to play backup minutes and eventually fill an important role as Redick either leaves or gets too old.

i dont like porter jr at 4 cuz i dont like his body of work. i think he has a high risk of fraudulence given that he follows the mold of "super athletic dude who looks amazing because he beat up on tiny high schoolers but his game doesnt actually look that great against grown men". plus the injury risk.

i think memphis is dead for title equity with conley+gasol and they need to have a longer view, which imo means taking the guy with the highest ceiling available, and i think thats bamba ainec.

theres no guarantee redick continues, cuz they may wanna use that cap space for some max players. or they go allin on trades for kawhi.

also i said miles, not mikal.

i know you said miles, mikal makes more sense. miles is a weird tweener forward that I'm not sure how he fits on the Sixers. isn't holmes a good enough embiid backup? i think he was restricted a little on minutes this year due to injury but in limited minutes he was quite effective.

memphis got f'ed with the 4th pick. i too think they should blow things up but it'll be hard to move their weak assets that will hamstring the team for a while. I'm hoping JJJ falls and they build around him. Bamba is exactly the player that the league is fading away from. I know he "shoots" 3s in practice but he's really raw offensive. I guess you can hope he's the next Gobert but I wouldn't bank on it. I'd rather them gamble on Trae and ship conley who may still have some value. I expect Gasol if Conley returns to play much better next year. His relationship with Fiz really hurt his play in addition to the dumpster fire around him in addition to the Grizz wanted to tank.

Memphis has to suck carefully as the Celtics have their pick top 9 protected 19, top 7 protected 20 and then unprotected in 21

memphis will likely suck for all those years.

holmes is already 24 and cant crack the rotation in the playoffs, idk. i think their non embiid center lineups can be a little different. i want to see them try more of their "united nations" lineups with a bunch of 6'8 dudes that can shoot the 3. they had the formula with ilyasova and marco but the problem is marco got super bumhunted on D. just find dudes that can play the role and are more athletic on the defensive end. i dont think i'm 100% correct on miles, that's just who i'd go with. there's a ton of options for them at the 10 spot. if wendell carter falls to them, that's probably a slam dunk as their embiid insurance.

mikal probably fits better as a guy you can slot in now but he's 1.5 years older than miles and i don't feel good abt selecting a dude that old at #10. miles can be less of a weird tweener in a lot of these philly lineups that are tall and can defend everything.

Mikal Bridges

To fine-tune it a bit, I think he relies on the eye test too much for who he thinks will be a star. If they look like a star to him, then he is going to find ways to downplay their weaknesses. In the middle and back end of the draft, no one blows you away and he can rely more on data.

My theory is at the top of the draft, usually you have a lot of players with the physical tools to become a star, so the biggest difference maker is going to be mental make-up. I'm big on two-way players, so the biggest red flag for me is thinking a player is a candidate to be a lazy defender, especially after he gets his first big contract.

i guess it really depends on what the sixers expect to do in FA and i wouldn't be shocked to see the pick traded. i guess the sixers should plan for matching up with celtics/rockets/warriors and if that means going smaller, then so be it.

This is basically every gm in this thread- Draft a player who's tall for his position, long, great athlete, has little to no offensive skillset but who cares.

JJJ OMG he can run fast & jump high, has no way to ever be a good offensive player but who cares, taking him over Ayton all day everyday. Shai is 6'6 & even though he's the most random p.g ever, let's take him over Trae & call him the best p.g in the draft, even though Trae is the best offensive p.g in college since Steph & pretty much plays the exact same as Steph.

Paul Pierce, Dirk, Ray Allen, Reggie Miller, James Harden, Damian Lillard, Kyrie etc would probably go undrafted if some of you guys were gm's.

This is a HOF post

JJJ was great offensively for a freshman but for some reason his coach wouldn't play him serious minutes. He shot 40% from 3 despite being 6-10 and 80% from the line and 3 blocks per game despite only playing 22 mpg. Not sure about all your takes. I do have concerns about why he didn't play a ton but he has a ton of talent.

If I am looking for a player who I can build a team around, I am avoiding the guys I project to be 20+ppg scorers who will be defensive sieves. I don't need a lockdown defender, but I need a guy who is smart enough and willing enough to do his role in a complex defensive system.

I'm not looking for the next DeMar DeRozan or Carmelo Anthony. I'd rather have a guy who can potentially be an elite defender and will be a useful offensive player who opponents can't rest a star on, but I don't necessarily need him to be first option, go-to scorer.

As I get later in the draft, when I am looking for players who project as role players, I can relax some of those minimums.

Being able to shoot is 1 offensive skillset, 1. There's a reason Durant a few years ago spoke about Kawhi being a system player & thought PG13 was a better player. Not sure if he still thinks this way as Kawhi has developed since then.

JJJ was held back by his coaching. His biggest issue is he was a foulbox. I didn't watch a ton of his games but his stats look pretty sick and his body type looks pretty perfect in the new NBA.