2018 NBA Draft Thread

[Split T]

Here's a comparison of how the top prospects are doing this year, stats wise. I'll throw some recent prospects in there for comparison. All stats are per 40 minutes and go Pts/Reb/Ast/Stl/Blk

Lead Guards

Trae Young 36.1/4.3/13.0/2.3/0.3 shooting .485/.411/.860
Collin Sexton 27.7/4.9/4.7/1.7/0.0 shooting .465/.421/.778

Markelle Fultz 26.0/6.4/6.6/1.8/1.3 shooting .476/.413/.649
De'Aaron Fox 22.6/5.4/4.2/2.0/0.3 shooting .479/.246/.736
Lonzo Ball 16.6/6.8/8.7/2.1/0.9 shooting .551/.412/.673

Wings

Luka Doncic 25.9/8.8/6.7/1.6/0.4 shooting .484/.356/.839
Mikal Bridges 22.3/7.5/2.6/2.6/1.9 shooting .514/.460/.814
Miles Bridges 23.5/9.2/3.2/0.9/1.8 shooting .468/.338/.938
Bruce Brown 12.0/9.2/6.2/1.4/0.4 shooting .432/.370/.450
Nickeil Walker 20.3/6.6/3.6/0.9/1.5 shooting .537/.467/.756

Josh Jackson 21.2/9.6/3.9/2.2/1.4 shooting .513/.378/.566
Jayson Tatum 20.2/8.8/2.6/1.6/1.4 shooting .452/.342/.849

Bigs

DeAndre Ayton 24.9/14.5/2.1/0.6/1.8 shooting .617/.304/.708
Marvin Bagley 27.4/14.2/2.2/0.9/1.3 shooting .617/.346/.628
Mo Bamba 15.5/13.9/0.5/1.2/5.9 shooting .500/.158/.610
Jaren Jackson 18.3/13.4/2.0/1.6/5.8 shooting .442/.343/.839
Wendell Carter 23.0/14.1/2.8/0.9/3.1 shooting .616/.500/.673
Robert Williams 11.9/16.6/3.5/2.1/4.1 shooting .600/.000/.364

Jonathan Isaac 18.3/12.0/1.8/1.8/2.3 shooting .508/.348/.780
Kyle Kuzma 21.3/12.1/3.2/0.8/0.6 shooting .504/.321/.669
John Collins 28.8/14.8/0.8/1.0/2.4 shooting .622/.000/.745

[JCSunsfan]

I think Young is going to be the #1 pick. There will be just too much hype about him. He is just a can't miss type of pick. Just look at those numbers. He scores AND distributes at such a phenomenal rate. People hesitate to compare anyone to Steph, but its unavoidable. It does push other players down though.

Young, Doncic, Ayton, Bamba, Bagley, Porter. Its now a big six. Sexton is good too.
Can you imagine a roster of:

Young
Booker
TJ
Bender
Len

Yes. I know people think Bender and Len are horrible. But imagine Bender with open looks all day at the three, while defending the other teams best forward. Len just protecting the rim, rebounding and throwing down open dunks.

The TJ, that opens the game up for him. And Booker. Wow.

[Split T]

I think Young is going to be the #1 pick. There will be just too much hype about him. He is just a can't miss type of pick. Just look at those numbers. He scores AND distributes at such a phenomenal rate. People hesitate to compare anyone to Steph, but its unavoidable. It does push other players down though.

Young, Doncic, Ayton, Bamba, Bagley, Porter. Its now a big six. Sexton is good too.

Maybe, I think young has put himself into that top 5, but I don't see him going 1. Team would have to need a PG and pass on Doncic. Keep in mind, Doncic is playing against better competition. Ayton and Bagley would be hard to pass on too.

Also, I've got Jackson and Carter ahead of Bamba right now. While I'd love to get in the top 3, I think we'll have a chance to draft a really nice player regardless of where we end up.

[Split T]

Can you imagine a roster of:

Young
Booker
TJ
Bender
Len

Yes. I know people think Bender and Len are horrible. But imagine Bender with open looks all day at the three, while defending the other teams best forward. Len just protecting the rim, rebounding and throwing down open dunks.

The TJ, that opens the game up for him. And Booker. Wow.

I would feel so much better about our team if Warren or Jackson figured out how to shoot from 3. I don't see why Warren is so bad. He's a good shooter everywhere else ( 43% from mid range, 39% on deep 2's) but only 28% for his career on 3's. If neither figures it out, I think we'll have to move one of them.

[JCSunsfan]

Can you imagine a roster of:

Young
Booker
TJ
Bender
Len

Yes. I know people think Bender and Len are horrible. But imagine Bender with open looks all day at the three, while defending the other teams best forward. Len just protecting the rim, rebounding and throwing down open dunks.

The TJ, that opens the game up for him. And Booker. Wow.

I would feel so much better about our team if Warren or Jackson figured out how to shoot from 3. I don't see why Warren is so bad. He's a good shooter everywhere else ( 43% from mid range, 39% on deep 2's) but only 28% for his career on 3's. If neither figures it out, I think we'll have to move one of them.

I don't think so. First, Warren should figure it out. If he can get to 33% or so, that's fine. But if Bender continues to shoot well from the pf position, AND we have a pg who shoots from three, it opens the floor just fine.

[Split T]

Ya I hope Warren will get there eventually and you're right that that lineup would be fine. I'm mostly thinking that Warren and Jackson are going to have to be able to play with eachother to stay here. They won't be able to split 48 minutes forever. I guess a small lineup with a shooter at the 5 and two shooters in the back court would work. But we just get way more versatile if those guys can shoot.

[TOO]

I think Young is going to be the #1 pick. There will be just too much hype about him. He is just a can't miss type of pick. Just look at those numbers. He scores AND distributes at such a phenomenal rate. People hesitate to compare anyone to Steph, but its unavoidable. It does push other players down though.

Young, Doncic, Ayton, Bamba, Bagley, Porter. Its now a big six. Sexton is good too.
Can you imagine a roster of:

Young
Booker
TJ
Bender
Len

Yes. I know people think Bender and Len are horrible. But imagine Bender with open looks all day at the three, while defending the other teams best forward. Len just protecting the rim, rebounding and throwing down open dunks.

The TJ, that opens the game up for him. And Booker. Wow.

There is no chance Young goes number 1. He's too small, too skinny. He's been an incredible player thus far, nobody saw this coming. I think it's Ayton's spot to lose, you just don't pass on bigs with that upside, even in today's game.

[Mori Chu]

Also, a lot of the currently bad teams already have a decent or good or young PG, so they might not want to "waste" their pick on Young.

[TOO]

Also, a lot of the currently bad teams already have a decent or good or young PG, so they might not want to "waste" their pick on Young.

To be fair, if you think Young is Steph then there arent many young PG that would stop me from taking him.

[Split T]

Also, a lot of the currently bad teams already have a decent or good or young PG, so they might not want to "waste" their pick on Young.

To be fair, if you think Young is Steph then there arent many young PG that would stop me from taking him.

Maybe, but if comes down to a game changing big man and a game changing pg and you have a decent young PG already, maybe you take the big man.

[TOO]

Also, a lot of the currently bad teams already have a decent or good or young PG, so they might not want to "waste" their pick on Young.

To be fair, if you think Young is Steph then there arent many young PG that would stop me from taking him.

Maybe, but if comes down to a game changing big man and a game changing pg and you have a decent young PG already, maybe you take the big man.

Absolutely.

[Split T]

Also, a lot of the currently bad teams already have a decent or good or young PG, so they might not want to "waste" their pick on Young.

Sacramento has Fox, Chicago has Dunn, Atlanta has Schroeder, Memphis has Conley, Dallas has Smith, Orlando has Payton, we have Ulis.

We clearly are the team with the biggest PG need, but outside of Sacramento and Dallas, I don't think the other teams would pass on Young because of their current PG situation. Although that doesn't mean they'd pass on Ayton/Bagley/Doncic to draft Young.

[JCSunsfan]

Also, a lot of the currently bad teams already have a decent or good or young PG, so they might not want to "waste" their pick on Young.

To be fair, if you think Young is Steph then there arent many young PG that would stop me from taking him.

Maybe, but if comes down to a game changing big man and a game changing pg and you have a decent young PG already, maybe you take the big man.

So many bad draft picks have been made over the years based upon this thinking.

[JCSunsfan]

Also, a lot of the currently bad teams already have a decent or good or young PG, so they might not want to "waste" their pick on Young.

Sacramento has Fox, Chicago has Dunn, Atlanta has Schroeder, Memphis has Conley, Dallas has Smith, Orlando has Payton, we have Ulis.

We clearly are the team with the biggest PG need, but outside of Sacramento and Dallas, I don't think the other teams would pass on Young because of their current PG situation. Although that doesn't mean they'd pass on Ayton/Bagley/Doncic to draft Young.

A team would be absolutley nuts to pass on Young because they have Fox, Dunn, Schroeder or even Conley(age). Smith is the only one where I might think about it. Dallas has to replace Dirk.

[Split T]

I think the key here is you have to view Young and guys like Ayton/Doncic/Bagley on the same level as prospects. Of course you just take Young if you think he's a level above those other guys, but I don't think he is.

Sacramento's best young talent is in the backcourt.
Memphis has a bunch of win now vets and their best one plays PG.
Sacramento and Dallas just used their top 10 pick on a PG least year.

These things matter. I hear draft the best player all the time, but too often players get drafted into situations that don't work out because they were a bad fit.

I'm not saying Chicago should say, we've got Kris Dunn already, we don't need Trae Young. But, they could say, Trae Young is really good, but we like our backcourt of Dunn/Lavine and we like Markkanen as a stretch 4, what we really need is a dominant 3 or 5. Oh look, DeAndre Ayton and Luka Doncic are two of the best C/SF prospects in the draft over the last few years, we should probably take one of them.

[O_Gardino]

Also, a lot of the currently bad teams already have a decent or good or young PG, so they might not want to "waste" their pick on Young.

Very good point.


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[carey]

Um, you draft Young unless you have an All-Star PG imho.

I'm definitely not saying draft Young over Doncic if you have a young prospect at PG you like though.

[Split T]

But would you draft young over Ayton/Bagley when you already have a PG you like?

[Ring_Wanted]

But would you draft young over Ayton/Bagley when you already have a PG you like?

Probably not, unless you are convinced he is Tiny Archibald.

Fortunately we don't have to worry about this. If we end up with a top6 pick, any of Ayton-Doncic-Bagley-Young-Bemba-Porter cover a need for the Suns. Hopefully we don't fool around and pass LAL, SAC, CHA and BRY.

[JCSunsfan]

Also, a lot of the currently bad teams already have a decent or good or young PG, so they might not want to "waste" their pick on Young.

To be fair, if you think Young is Steph then there arent many young PG that would stop me from taking him.

People keep wanting to downplay the Steph comparison, but the facts are there. Young is better than Steph was at the same age. Development curves do differ though. This does not mean that he will be as good as Steph is now. But it sure is not a bad sign.

1. He sees the floor remarkably. That should translate.

2. His three point shooting should translate. He shoots from NBA range already.

3. His speed is very good. He is not the fastest player in the draft, but he one of them.

3. He seems to be always under control and his handle is excellent.

4. His slight build is a defensive liability (no offensive). Maybe it’s an injury risk if he gets roughed up a lot.