Everything 2024 Draft

[planetmars]

I hope people still remember Brown and what he did last year this summer. He's got a big contract though. So to bring that in you have to give a lot back. Yet if a "contender" thinks they are one playoff performer away from winning a chip then we have one available.

[Demographic Shift]

I hope people still remember Brown and what he did last year this summer. He's got a big contract though. So to bring that in you have to give a lot back. Yet if a "contender" thinks they are one playoff performer away from winning a chip then we have one available.

They will.. just not at the draft from this cheap seat.
For what Brown brings to the table (solid playoff level defense and decent offence) the Raps should have more leverage at the trade deadline. Browns skills are itop of mind and in demand then not at the draft where young players possibilities are endless.
Somehow yet again we waited too long to move Brown and yet again that delay will cost us. It may force the Raps into picking up his option and trying to trade him at this coming deadline so we don't lose our 12,748th player for nothing as they glide towards Unrestricted Free Agency.

[DanH]

He's been a great collegiate player through so many years though and has never entered the draft. Typically if there is interest in the player there would be someone reaching out to his agent. That's what concerns me more than my own eye test. Why hasn't there (seemingly) been any interest in a player as accomplished as him? Interesting debates for sure.

Well there are concerns now about his NBA fit in terms of mobility. And he improved his mobility dramatically over the past year or so, in my eyes and from what I've read, so it probably went from him not having any shot to hang in the NBA to having a real shot to hang but still concerns, which is generally the difference between being drafted or not.

[planetmars]

They will.. just not at the draft from this cheap seat.
For what Brown brings to the table (solid playoff level defense and decent offence) the Raps should have more leverage at the trade deadline. Browns skills are itop of mind and in demand then not at the draft where young players possibilities are endless.
Somehow yet again we waited too long to move Brown and yet again that delay will cost us. It may force the Raps into picking up his option and trying to trade him at this coming deadline so we don't lose our 12,748th player for nothing as they glide towards Unrestricted Free Agency.

Brown makes $23M and is a role player. He's making 3rd or 4th starter type of money. So to trade for that you have to give a lot of that back in contract value. It's not an easy trade to make as a contender could lose valuable depth to bring him in. So I don't know how valuable that is.

And we could just drop his option as it turns our capped out team into a cap team. We can get up to $29M in cap space without Brown around. So that's another avenue to get better too.

Losing guys for nothing opens up other possibilities at times. It just what you do with those opportunities is what matters. We lost Fred for nothing and brought in both Schroeder and McDaniels. We then traded Schroeder for cap relief a few months later. And McDaniels ended up being a bust. So in hindsight it was not a good gamble to let him walk for nothing.

For Brown it might turn into something positive, or not. I guess we wait and see what happens there.

But if a team wants to give back close to $20M in contracts and a draft pick for Brown I'm fine with it, even if it means we can no longer acquire a good free agent in the summer anymore.

[3inthekeon]

They will.. just not at the draft from this cheap seat.
For what Brown brings to the table (solid playoff level defense and decent offence) the Raps should have more leverage at the trade deadline. Browns skills are itop of mind and in demand then not at the draft where young players possibilities are endless.
Somehow yet again we waited too long to move Brown and yet again that delay will cost us. It may force the Raps into picking up his option and trying to trade him at this coming deadline so we don't lose our 12,748th player for nothing as they glide towards Unrestricted Free Agency.

Seems obvious you did not watch Brown in Indy or Toronto. He did NOT bring playoff level defence. And his offence was below average. Now part of that was due to the fact he played through a knee injury his entire time with Toronto. Raptors took his contract on because they needed to for salary matching. But what kind of idiot GM would trade for an injured player making over $20 million, unless the Raptors gave them a pick to take on his contract.

[Primer]

We can trade up to draft…. Edey! And make sure you post your reaction video.

That's some nightmare fuel right there.

[3inthekeon]

That's some nightmare fuel right there.

Here's some draft nightmare fuel. Sarr, Clingan and Missi all did worse than Edey in the lane agility drill. 2 of those are going top 5.

[Primer]

Seems obvious you did not watch Brown in Indy or Toronto. He did NOT bring playoff level defence. And his offence was below average. Now part of that was due to the fact he played through a knee injury his entire time with Toronto. Raptors took his contract on because they needed to for salary matching. But what kind of idiot GM would trade for an injured player making over $20 million, unless the Raptors gave them a pick to take on his contract.

This is the exact opposite side of the Brown hyperbole.

On one side he is worth a late 1st from a contender.

On the other side we have to give up a pick for someone to take Brown off our hands.

I think the truth is far closer to the former.

He has 1 year left, the money is inconsequential beyond salary matching rules. Every team has some contracts they don't want that could be swapped for Brown. If a team is happy with every contract on their roster they wouldn't be looking to make trades in the first place.

[Primer]

Here's some draft nightmare fuel. Sarr, Clingan and Missi all did worse than Edey in the lane agility drill. 2 of those are going top 5.

Everything at the combine is meaningless other than body measurements.

I just watched Edey play all year. An agility drill time isn't gonna override a year of watching him play actual basketball.

[golden]

That's some nightmare fuel right there.

If we draft Edey… honestly, I would pay money to see your reaction. lol.

[3inthekeon]

Everything at the combine is meaningless other than body measurements.

I just watched Edey play all year. An agility drill time isn't gonna override a year of watching him play actual basketball.

If it was meaningless, they wouldn't do it. Now for the best players in the league, they were mostly meaningless. But for most players lane agility especially wasn't meaningless.

https://wilson-wang.medium.com/the-p...s-b45d15931fe5

As for Edey, I don't believe you watched him play all year. You dislike him and wouldn't have wasted your time unless you have no life. You watched him some. But even though pretty well every talent evaluator has mentioned his improved mobility, you are one of the only people who failed to see it.

[golden]

If it was meaningless, they wouldn't do it. Now for the best players in the league, they were mostly meaningless. But for most players lane agility especially wasn't meaningless.

https://wilson-wang.medium.com/the-p...s-b45d15931fe5

As for Edey, I don't believe you watched him play all year. You dislike him and wouldn't have wasted your time unless you have no life. You watched him some. But even though pretty well every talent evaluator has mentioned his improved mobility, you are one of the only people who failed to see it.

That article was a good nerdy read - thx for sharing. It's too bad that the combine doesn't have a BBIQ test - that's the big missing piece.

Let’s summarize these results (for good players):

• Useless predictors: bench press, sprint speed, lane agility, vertical jump,
• Might be useful: weight ratio.
• Strong: wingspan ratio.

The interesting thing about these results (for good players) is their similarities/differences compared to the results for all players:

• Bench press is useless in both cases.
• Weight ratio is useless for all players, but may be useful for good players (and the sign of the slope is positive, meaning heavier players might be better)
• Wingspan ratio may be useful for all players, and is a strong predictor for good players
• Most notably, vertical jump, lane agility, and sprint speed are strong predictors for all players, but useless for good players.

Overall, what conclusions can we draw? First, the NBA draft combine is not useless. Some tests at the combine do predict future player impact. With that being said, not all the tests are useful. Bench press in particular seems to have no predictive power at all. Also, there is a huge difference in the predictive tests for all players vs. good players. Why a particular test is predictive for all players vs. good players (or vice versa) is hard to explain without deep basketball knowledge, so we won’t go into that here.

[3inthekeon]

This is the exact opposite side of the Brown hyperbole.

On one side he is worth a late 1st from a contender.

On the other side we have to give up a pick for someone to take Brown off our hands.

I think the truth is far closer to the former.

He has 1 year left, the money is inconsequential beyond salary matching rules. Every team has some contracts they don't want that could be swapped for Brown. If a team is happy with every contract on their roster they wouldn't be looking to make trades in the first place.

Let me summarise:

Brown had negative value at the deadline. Too much money for a player playing poorly through injury. You are correct that taking back a bad contract could yield a pick. But how many bad contracts changed teams at the deadline? Fournier went to Detroit and the Knicks didn't even send a pick, only an injured Grimes for 2 healthy (at the time) players.

Now if he's healthy maybe he can be moved this year, I agree. But it wasn't a blunder by Masai not getting anything for him at the deadline.

[3inthekeon]

That article was a good nerdy read - thx for sharing. It's too bad that the combine doesn't have a BBIQ test - that's the big missing piece.

Agreed. Pretty sure BBIQ is one of the major factors, maybe THE major factor interviews/individual team workouts try to parse.

Wasn't the only factor, but definitely helped set players like Jokic, Curry, Lowry to be much superior to their physical abilities.

[golden]

Agreed. Pretty sure BBIQ is one of the major factors, maybe THE major factor interviews/individual team workouts try to parse.

Wasn't the only factor, but definitely helped set players like Jokic, Curry, Lowry to be much superior to their physical abilities.

Projecting BBIQ at the NBA level is probably the #1 reason why predicting the draft is like weather forecasting a few decades ago. What makes it even worse is that prospects are coming from diverse leagues: NCAA, Europe, G-League, Australia, Turkey, BAL, etc... What the article seems to be saying is that the safe thing to do is bet on a wing(span) and a prayer.