It's a bit late for this, but better late than never! This was mainly for Osujxu, but other basketball fans are welcome! I'm mainly going to discuss the Cavaliers decisions this draft, and also the Wizards and Nuggets. I'm too lazy to go in depth for every team. The draft this year was known to be pretty weak; aside from Irving and Williams, everyone else are just going to be solid role players at best. On the contrary, next year's draft is going to have a lot of star power. For the Cavaliers, the smartest thing to do was to trade at least one of their picks away for a lottery pick next year (that means they'd have two lottery picks next year in a very strong draft), but they went on record stating they would be not be trading their #1 and #4 at all. So, they draft Irving and Thompson. In the Cavalier's current situation, drafting Williams over Irving would actually make more sense (I'll explain later), but Irving is an excellent pick nevertheless. Thompson was really unexpected, mainly because there was much better talent on the board and Thompson doesn't really fit in with the Cavaliers when they already have JJ Hickson. Since Thompson is too small to play the C, the Cavaliers couldn't make a Hickson-Varejao-Thompson rotation either. By picking Irving, they should have gone with Vesely or Valanciunas instead. They desperately need a SF, while Valanciunas would allow that three man rotation in the PF/C positions that Thompson cannot. And while Valanciunas must wait a year before he can come play for the Cavaliers because of his current contract with some Euro team, it shouldn't matter for the Cavaliers because it's not like they're going to be competing for a championship next year anyway (not being disrespectful, just realistic). Thompson simply does not make any sense for the Cavs- even if for whatever reason that they're planning on trading Hickson, there are quite a handful of excellent PFs coming in next year that will probably be much better than Thompson, such as Anthony Davis who many expect to be the #1 overall pick. Now, earlier I said Derrick Williams would be the smarter choice at #1, despite many saying Irving is the best player. Williams isn't that far behind, but the key thing is that there are 3 other PGs other than Irving that are lottery talent. Jimmer Fredette is not a fit for the Cavaliers style, leaving behind Kemba Walker and Brandon Knight. Again, this year's draft is not deep at all in star power, and the talent level between Walker, Knight, and Irving is very marginal. They are all very different players with different skill sets, but I'd rather have Williams and Walker/Knight than Irving and Thompson. Again, this isn't just because Thompson simply does not fit with the team, but also because the overall talent with Williams and Walker/Knight far exceeds Irving and Thompson. Again, Williams is not far worse than Irving, and neither are Walker or Knight. In short, the Cavaliers made some poor, poor decisions on draft night. Anyway, I'd also like to talk about the Wizards and Nuggets quickly. They're two HUGE winners on draft day that no one seems to give enough credit to. The Wizards filled their biggest need (unlike the Cavs), by picking Vesely and Singleton, both SFs. Obviously, the Wizards current SFs (Rashard Lewis and Josh Howard) are not getting younger or less injury-prone any time soon. By adding Vesely, you get a SF that is going to be a monster highlight reel player with John Wall. By adding Singleton, they get a SF that is widely regarded to be the best defender to be had in the draft. Considering the Wizards already have Wall, Crawford, and McGee, they are surging forward as a super young, athletic team with lots of talent and potential that should be fun to watch. As for the Nuggets, I really think they are the biggest winner. They didn't even have a Top 20 pick, yet they stole one of the best rebounders in the draft in Kenneth Faried. But most importantly, they traded away Raymond Felton for Andre Miller and the Blazers 1st round draft pick Jordan Hamilton. They won this trade big time. Felton is way too talented to be a backup PG, but the Nuggets clearly have their PG of the future in Felton. By trading Felton for Miller, they free up the playing time for Lawson, and also get a veteran that will surely help develop Lawson into a much better player. Not only that, they get Jordan Hamilton, a major scorer that can replace JR Smith's role of instant offense off the bench. Now they don't have any pressure to resign JR Smith- they can let Smith walk and use that extra money to resign Nene. Already having a pretty solid, deep team aside from these guys, the Nuggets are surely a solid playoff team in a tough Western Conference. Considering this is true after losing their superstar in Carmelo Anthony, that's how you manage a NBA team. EDIT: How could I forget the Pistons? They got Brandon Knight at #8, even though he could've gone as high as #3. Follow this massive steal up with Kyle Singler in the second round, and you have a pretty good draft. Knight is a solid PG, though probably more scoring-oriented then passing-oriented. Singler was a solid player at Duke and it's questionable whether he can make it in the NBA because he's not the most athletic guy around, but he works hard, has great fundamentals, and should have been a late first round pick, not a second round pick.
For 2/3 of the league, the only chance your team has of being relevant is to acquire a transcendent super star caliber player via the draft. A top 10 player in the league. The next Kevin Durant or Derrick Rose. If you do not have that player on your roster in today's NBA, you are completely screwed. You are done. You have no chance to seriously compete. You might as well just give up. Nobody in this year's draft got that player, because this year's draft did not include (in all likelihood) any transcendent players. There's some decent talent, but decent isn't good enough. Unless you are already one of the top 10 teams in the league, nothing that was made available here is going to make a tangible difference to any team's roster. Better luck next year, if there is a next year. If I owned team, I would throw every season so I could get a top 5 pick. I'd do it for 10 straight years if I had to. I would lose, lose, lose every year until I landed that super star player in the draft. Not every draft even contains a super star player to begin with, so some years are just wasted years. Then I would build my team around him. I wouldn't even try though until I knew I had that player. Until then, you are wasting your time. You control the player once you draft him for 6 or 7 seasons. So, once you get him, you've got that much time to build a championship team around him. Even if you are starting a team from stratch, and he's the only good player you've got, it's plenty of time. The system is horrifically broken, one way or another, and hopefully it will get fixed, but in order for that to happen, the NBA will probably have to cancel the entirety of next season.
Man I was mad that my Sacramento Kings got Jimmer. If they didn't trade their draft pick they could've gotten Knight or Kemba. I'd easily pick those two over Jimmer.
Hahaha woah tilt I wasn't expecting a full essay, but it was definately interesting to read. About the Williams vs Irving thing, I thought the cavs should draft Williams and then knight as well, and the cavs put some thought into it too. The reasons they went with Irving, is because with the number one pick, you always draft the best talent there no matter what position it is, and Derrick Williams was supposed to be a power forward which is the same position jj hickson plays as well. Analysts said that Derrick Williams would be too slow to play the 3 position. As for the Tristan thompson pick, I agree it made absolutely no sense. The direction the cavs are probably going is trading jj hickson and ramon sessions plus the trade exception for a small forward. Oh and did you say you were a heat fan? Didn't they draft Norris Cole...who's from Cleveland state....
Yeah, not only did they trade down for Jimmer instead of getting Knight or Kemba, they took on an ugly contract with Salmons, while giving up Udrih (I think he's really underrated) for basically nothing. I don't know what they're thinking. With Jimmer, Tyreke, Salmons, Thornton, and DeMarcus, I hope the Kings understand they can only play with only one basketball on the court at a time. Oh god. No, I am not a Heat fan. Please don't ever think I am again! Anyway, Derrick Williams is in that little 3/4 dilemma, but he himself says he plays the 3 and sounds pretty confident about it. Sure, he might be slow, but he has good enough shooting to offset the fact that he can't drive by defenders. On defense, it might be a little bit of a liability, but look at Michael Beasley. He's another top 5 draft pick who people didn't know if he should be playing the 3/4, but this past year, the Wolves finally gave him ample opportunity and he scored nearly 20ppg. Yes, people criticize his defense, but it's more because he's too lazy to put in an effort rather than his speed (or lack thereof). Williams is a much harder worker in my eyes and honestly, I think he can play the 3. But if they do manage to pull off a trade that sends Hickson and Session for a solid SF, I guess they won't be in that bad shape. If Thompson doesn't work out, like I said earlier there will be plenty of excellent PFs to be had in next year's draft. But then again, the Cavs could've had two lottery picks next year instead of one (unless they can get another lottery pick via a Hickson/Session trade).
