Draft Day
The first round of the 2024 NBA draft takes place tonight. This is not pegged to be a notable draft and hasn't gotten the hype of previous drafts but it is always great to see young men have their dreams come true.
Even though it is not supposed to be a great draft, I am sure there will be at least a few guys who become notable NBA players.
In honour of the draft, I was looking back at some of the biggest hits and misses in recent drafts and the most notable one was Nikola Jokic being drafted 41st overall in 2014. Some teams missed on him twice that draft. Ouch. This was a big hit for Denver and a miss for every other team.
So, shill me your biggest hits and misses from the last decade of drafts. Sats for all of them, and extra sats for ones that make me say "damn that was a steal" or "ouch that was a bust".
Sats for all, GR
The Suns drafting Bender and Jackson in back-to-back years at the #4 spot has to be pretty high up there in terms of busts.
Ouch. Back to back misses when you have a top 5 pick is costly.
Past 10 years you say. Feast your eyes on these 1st round gems:
2016: 14th Karl Joseph (safety) 2017: 24th Gareon Conley (CB) 2019: 4th Clelin Ferrell (DE) 2019: 27th Johnathan Abram (safety) 2020: 12th Henry Ruggs (WR) 2020: 19th Damon Arnette (CB) 2021: 17th Alex Leatherwood (OT) 2023: 7th Tyree Wilson (DE)
How did we get onto Raiders drafts? I thought we were talking NBA draft. Haha.
Any chance to slag your Raiders huh?
By the way Clelin Ferrell was the 49ers 2nd best DE last year. He had a really good year. Still not worth a 4th pick but he is a run stuffing madman. Unfortunate that they couldn't keep him.
You didn't specify NBA Draft hits and misses. If you bring up draft misses with me, my brain goes straight to the Raiders.
For basketball, Giannis was also a huge hit. Ayton and Bagley were huge whiffs in 2018 with Luka and Trae on the board.
Bagley. Ouch. At least Ayton looked liked he was going to be something before dropping off.
How many titles would Steph, Klay, Draymond, Luka, and KD have won?
All.
Even 2019?
That's interesting because KD got hurt. Would Luka have been enough of a factor in his first playoffs to overcome the KD loss? Hmmm tough one.
Ruggs was so fast 💨
Yep and now he's in jail for being so fast.
Anthony Bennett was 2013, so that's 11 years ago, outside of your 10 year window. But you can't not mention his name when you talk about NBA draft bust.
Is he still playing for the national team?
Yeah, it was definitely unfortunate that he got so hyped. I think it weighed on him his whole career. He probably would have been a decent role player if he was drafted mid first round but because he was drafted first overall he was expected to be an all star.
I'm not sure, but I feel we have so much young talent on the national team, we don't really need him anymore.
If everyone plays.
What did you think of the Raps pick last night. I don't know much about him.
I don't know much about Walter either.
Found his wikipedia page and had a quick read, seems like a pretty good high school and college player, although he was only in Baylor for 1 year. Don't know how he will transition into the NBA. Time will tell.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ja'Kobe_Walter
Hopefully a good shooter.
They extended Barnes and they need to pay IQ, probably not much cap space left after that but they could move some things around. Do you think they will add any notable pieces this offseason?
I don't think they will make big moves in the off season because Barnes still need time to develop and get better. Our window to win isn't here yet, so I think they will keep developing and tweaking this group for a few seasons to see what they can do and get them more ready to win before making big moves.
Of course I can be completely wrong given Masai being the unpredictable genius that he is.
This would make sense especially since the gap between the Raptors and say the top 5 in the east is pretty steep. I don't think they are one piece away from being contender so reaching now to get a play in spot doesn't make sense.