Betrayer

Unfortunately, Jarace Walker doesn't tick the box for best fit or for best player. As for fit vs best available - it's all about draft tiers. You take the guy in the highest draft tier who is the best fit. Same thing Sam Vecenie does. That's why he has Houston taking Amen even though Whitmore is #3 on his board. He sees them as the same tier with Amen being a better fit in Houston. The reverse is true for Amen vs Whitmore on the Pistons because Amen is useless without the ball in his hands. A player in the wrong situation will never reach their potential, so are they still "Best Available"? That's why draft tiers are so important.

Really hope it's more smokescreen (or James talking out of his butt again), but JEIII saying that he's "getting the feeling" it'll be one of the twins or Jarace at #5.

Wow. They got a hot pile of garbage because of that no trade clause. Beal got to choose where to go and they had to make it happen. Oh well, I was already rooting against the Suns because of KD, so making a “super team” with stars choosing trade destinations only reinforces that for me.

Scary numbers for Brandon Miller. Also for Ausar, who apparently couldn't score at the rim against high school kids even though he has "elite athleticism." I've heard of 1, 2, and 3 level scorers, but is "Zero Level Scorer" a new term? Mediocre numbers for Hendricks, who does struggle to score on non-dunks at the rim. Great numbers for Whitmore and (surprisingly) Walker.

YouTube link below - and it's a great listen - but here's the result of Sam Vecenie being forced to put guys into 4 categories with a fixed number of slots based upon historical draft results for the decade prior: Sam really struggled with this. He wanted Duren in the Starter column and Hendricks vs Black was a huge struggle for him as well.

Looks like Miami and now Phoenix are the front runners for Beal according to Shams. I have no idea what they could be offering outside of Ayton or how that trade makes sense for either team.

It’s a solid comparison simply because both guys are going to cap out as fringe all stars and neither guy is leading a team to a championship 😁 Eric Bledsoe is another good comp.

As a former marathon runner, I can tell you that it can be a huge difference. I wear Hoka which have a very thick sole and my wife wears Ons, which have almost no sole. You're talking an inch or more difference. Guys looking to get an advantage and seem larger for their position would absolutely take their measurements in taller shoes. Big men looking to get away from the 7' stigma that now exists in the NBA would measure in the slimmer ones. That's why they take the combine measurements barefoot, so we can all compare apples to apples. And that's why we should compare apples to apples.

Then they should measure them all in shoes. But they don't. Because shoe heights vary so it's not an accurate comparison. Scoot isn't suddenly 2" closer in height to all these other guards because we decided that he's the only one we're going to talk about in shoes to fit our narrative.

Interesting how people want to talk about Scoot "in shoes" now to make him seem taller, but most other candidates are talked about barefoot. The kid is 6'2". If we want to start adding two inches to everyone to put them in shoes then a lot of players look a lot different. Whitmore, the Thompsons, and Walker are now 6'8". Hendricks is now 6'10". A 6'6" Jaden Ivey sounds even better than that 6'4" version we have.

I think the Orlando smoke might be real, but another interesting option is that he doesn't like the fit in Indy who already have their backcourt. There's a lot of talk that Ausar should have the ball in his hands, which is more likely in Washington who's about to trade Beal.

I'm seeing Orlando as the team. They were super high on Amen and there were rumors that they were going to try to trade up to get him. That probably fell through and they like Ausar almost as much.

So, literally all the players in the 4-8 range? OK, got it. There's also a report out there from Givony, Woo, and their "sources" that the Pistons and Mavs have discussed a deal involving #10 and Tim Hardaway Jr for Bogie and the #31 pick. Probably not the entirety of the deal, because that would be a slam dunk for Detroit, but those would be the core parts of it. I'm guessing we'd have to absorb Bertans and maybe send back someone who can rebound (Bagley or Wiseman), but that's just me extrapolating. Either way, I'm doing that deal in a heartbeat. Not only because I'd love another lottery pick, but also because I'd love to move Bogie when his value is highest (and get better defensively as a result).

Should've been more. Lied right to the Commissioner's face a few weeks before doing the exact same thing again. Weak decision made in the interest of ratings. Can't have your biggest stars miss too many games.

Vecinie has Whitmore at 3 on his board though he has him in the same tier as a few others so he still has him going to us at 5 due to Miller with Portland and Amen with Houston being better fits with those teams.

Wizards and Beal are trying to work out a trade that makes sense. He’s the only guy in the NBA with a no trade clause, so he gets all the say on where he goes.

Interesting point and it could actually matter to us. It's probably just draft week smokescreens, but there are some rumors that Whitmore could go before Miller and bump him down to us. If Whitmore goes higher and Amen falls to us I seriously hope we find a trade partner that's in love with him (for instance, Orlando) and trade down. On top of my concerns with Amen's shooting, he needs to be on-ball to do anything on offense, so I see no way we make this work with Cade, Ivey, and Amen.

100% agree that Walker is far more of the Stanley Johnson pick than Whitmore. They aren't even comparable in my opinion. As for Grant, he was a ball stopper but there are a number of factors here. First, that's what he came here to do and was asked to do. Second, who else was going to do it before Cade showed up? Third, things changed as the season went on and Troy said he asked him to play more efficiently. Fourth, Casey has never coached shot selection in his entire career. Fifth, Grant did play much more like we'd want him to play when he went to Portland with a clear pecking order. I'm not sure Grant is leaving Portland and I'm not sure I'm ready to start giving out 30M contracts for non-All-Stars on a team that only won 17 games last year. But...he does fill a huge need, would undoubtedly improve this team, and is a better option than most of free agents this year. That said, I still think Troy uses his cap space in trade rather than Free Agency.

Couple other things: Beard reporting that part of the deal was a private jet that would be made available anytime Monty needed it for his wife to fly back to Phoenix for medical reasons. Also, they set up a fund to handle any medical needs that aren't covered by insurance for her cancer treatment. Cool stuff that continues to demonstrate how they're trying to build a family oriented organization with good character and relationships. This is probably part of the "out of the box" thinking that Troy was talking about with Gores approach to landing Monty. Looks like Dan Burke ("defensive guru"), Jarrett Jack, and Mark Bryant ("big man savant") are joining the coaching roster as well. I think they were on site yesterday as well. This is shaping up to be a pretty impressive and experienced coaching staff. You don't get this kind of team if you hire Ollie. You get them because you landed Monty.

I'm with you on Hendricks being the best day 1 fit. People question the ceiling since he doesn't create, but he does the 2 things this team needs most: High level shooting around Cade and Ivey and excellent defense and rim protection. If they don't have the guts to draft him at #5 I'd love to see them move down, get some assets, and grab him at 7 or 9. He's not falling to 10. For Walker, I guess it all depends upon your belief in the shot. I don't recall the exact stat, but it's extremely rare for a guy with a 66% FT percentage to become a good three point shooter. He wasn't a good three point shooter even though they were all assisted, easy shots. He also had very bad looking misses (looking at misses rather than makes is something a lot of scouts believe in). He's afraid of contact, can't create, and can't shoot midrange either. On offense, he's a train wreck to me unless you have a ton of elite shooters around him and just need him to Draymond-lite. That's not us. We need to surround Cade and Ivey with guys who can space the floor and make their lives easier. And although his defense is versatile, it's not as good as Hendricks, so I don't see the appeal here on any front over other guys in this range.. As for Whitmore: -Super high finishing stats - 65% at the rim -Explosive leaper/athlete (40.5" vertical) to go along with strong frame. Not just trying to muscle guys (Bey, Stuckey) because he also has the athleticism to get by and go over them (Anthony Edwards, Miles Bridges). -Excellent cutter and finisher off of cuts and lobs -Explosive first step, solid handle, can create for himself and finish through contact -Great rebounder for his position -40% on Catch and Shoot threes even though he started the season slow (thumb injury to shooting hand) -Excellent in transition -Good on-ball defender with quick hands and good lateral movement to cut off drives -Potential to switch up and down on defense due to the combo of strength and athleticism -Very young - will be 18 on draft night He has some issues as well. Obviously the assist rate is a red flag and he needs to get better at his off-ball awareness on defense. Some have pointed to the new coach in Villanova and the fact that the team itself was abysmal at passing to say he's a product of their system - I'm not so sure that's the reason. However, he's super young and I only need to teach him first level reads to unleash him. At the end of the day, the ball is going to be in Cade and Ivey's hands most of the time and Whitmore is going to be a play finisher. At that he's excellent. His potential is sky high on offense and defensively he has all the tools to be lock down.

I love that. No LA. No Boston. No NY. No Lebron, Steph, or Giannis. Biggest star was not a household name. And yet, it was the most watched NBA finals in 5 years.

Cool to see all the players show up except Bogie (who I assume is overseas since he's not from here). Anyone else catch the tension in the room with Gores and Weaver when they talked about those "5 days" at Gores' house when they were hashing this out? At one point Gores said something like, "I wouldn't call it a yelling match" and later Troy said something about them having to be "refereed" for 5 days. In the end he said he respected Gores generosity and making him "think out of the box." It's interesting to see where this goes depending upon how Monty works out (or not). Usually the GM goes out and gets their guy, but in this case it's clear that Gores went out and got Monty. I'm sure Troy wanted him as well and maybe didn't believe they could get him so he fought for someone else, but in the end it sounds like Gores fought Weaver on this and was the one to make it happen. He flew Monty out to his house on his personal plane and made the pitch, not Weaver. So really, this is more the Owner's guy than the GM's, which I find interesting.

All of that stuff is fun and definitely carries you through part of July, but then it's a long 2 months of wild speculation, over-hyped workout videos, and feel-good stories about Bey's mountain hikes and Killian's reworked jumper before preseason actually starts.

There's way too much talk of the Pistons taking Jarace Walker. I'd take Hendricks, Whitmore, either Thompson, and probably a few others over him. -Not a good three point shooter - less than 35% even though most were assisted (so, they weren't difficult pull-ups) -Poor free throw shooter - 67%, and history says those guys don't become good shooters -Afraid of contact in the lane and not a good finisher unless he's open for a dunk -Terrible in the mid-range (40%) even though he took the majority (41%) of his shots from there ---30% on pull up 2s ---34% on floaters -Less switchable than Hendricks due to weaker lateral speed -Weaker shot blocker than Hendricks -Nothing special about his handle or creation -He's an undersized 5 playing the 4 with no real scoring skills (don't we have one of those already?) On the plus side: -He's a good defender -He's a good passer I honestly wonder how this kid is even being talked about before pick #10, let alone the top 5. Any Walker stans in here want to talk me off the ledge I'll be on when they pick this kid?

Great seeing Denver win it last night. Joker should've won the regular season MVP, so it was good to see him do it on the biggest stage while Embiid sits on his couch and Marc Jackson (who "forgot" to cast any MVP vote for Joker) calls the game. Also great to see KCP and Bruce Brown get rings. Those guys were pretty much the only 2 players I actually liked from those Piston teams. All hustle and effort. Perfect role players for a championship team. What a slugfest too. Felt like a Going to Work era game and I loved it.