Suns News: Week 18 2/22-2/28

[Mori Chu]

I don't think you can poke too many holes in McDo's draft record. Every year he seems to find a rotation guy, even if it's not a very top pick. And sometimes he hits a home run, as he seems to have done with Booker. McDo draft haters, I challenge you. Show me a GM with a more consistent and clearly better drafting record over the years that McDo has been our GM. And I don't want to hear about Wiggins and KAT who were both obvious consensus #1 picks and were not even both drafted by Minny.

[INFORMER]

Minnesota trading the draft rights for Trey Burke for the other Shabazz and Gorgui Dieng was absolutely brilliant. I'm hoping the Suns make a move like that with Toronto if the Suns miss out on the 1st pick.

[INFORMER]

I think he's good, but I have been revisiting this lately. Booker is the only pick he's made where to this point we can say with some confidence that he took the best player available. I know that's a hard criteria to judge him on, especially this early, but every draft choice he made in 2013 and 2014, he left better players on the table.

Again - still too early to tell with guys like Len and Warren.

Yeah, I like a number of the picks, but honestly none of them have proven anything are established themselves outside of Booker. So I'm not sure what solid basis there is for all this pomp and circumstance for Ryan the Great Drafter.

[pickle]

Don't mean to hate on McD, but OKC has had a pretty damn solid draft record.

[pickle]

And here's a crazy thought... I know this would never happen, but should the opportunity come up to trade one of our first rounders for a coach, would anyone be willing to put up one of the later first rounders for a guy like Carlisle?

[Shabazz]

Utah - Exum could go either way because of the injury, but Hood and Gobert look terrific.

[Hermen]

Utah - Exum could go either way because of the injury, but Hood and Gobert look terrific.

I too like Utah picks, Indiana's probably even more. I also like Portland, Detroit and Bucks (not couting last year, at least yet ). And Chicago does very well in the second half of the first round as well.

[djy2j]

Utah - Exum could go either way because of the injury, but Hood and Gobert look terrific.

I too like Utah picks, Indiana's probably even more. I also like Portland, Detroit and Bucks (not couting last year, at least yet ). And Chicago does very well in the second half of the first round as well.

Indiana's draft is a little deceiving. They traded away Leonard and Plumlee. They got fleeced for Leonard. Hill is a solid rotation player but his ceiling is a 3rd wheel. They sold low on Plumlee to us (thanks). They whiffed on Solomon Hill. Obviously, the Paul George Lance Stephenson was pretty solid but until drafting Myles Turner they had 5 straight years of forgettable picks.

[Indy]

I think he's good, but I have been revisiting this lately. Booker is the only pick he's made where to this point we can say with some confidence that he took the best player available. I know that's a hard criteria to judge him on, especially this early, but every draft choice he made in 2013 and 2014, he left better players on the table.

Again - still too early to tell with guys like Len and Warren.

Yeah, I like a number of the picks, but honestly none of them have proven anything are established themselves outside of Booker. So I'm not sure what solid basis there is for all this pomp and circumstance for Ryan the Great Drafter.

I think it is more about it being in contrast to years of trading away picks or picking guys like Earl Clark and Taylor Griffin.

[AmareIsGod]

I think he's good, but I have been revisiting this lately. Booker is the only pick he's made where to this point we can say with some confidence that he took the best player available. I know that's a hard criteria to judge him on, especially this early, but every draft choice he made in 2013 and 2014, he left better players on the table.

Again - still too early to tell with guys like Len and Warren.

Yeah, I like a number of the picks, but honestly none of them have proven anything are established themselves outside of Booker. So I'm not sure what solid basis there is for all this pomp and circumstance for Ryan the Great Drafter.

I think it is more about it being in contrast to years of trading away picks or picking guys like Earl Clark and Taylor Griffin.

Earl Clark had a good 3 month stretch with the Lakers and Taylor Griffin shares genetics with Blake. Not sure how you can hate on those picks so much.

[OE32]

I think he's good, but I have been revisiting this lately. Booker is the only pick he's made where to this point we can say with some confidence that he took the best player available. I know that's a hard criteria to judge him on, especially this early, but every draft choice he made in 2013 and 2014, he left better players on the table.

Again - still too early to tell with guys like Len and Warren.

Yeah, I like a number of the picks, but honestly none of them have proven anything are established themselves outside of Booker. So I'm not sure what solid basis there is for all this pomp and circumstance for Ryan the Great Drafter.

I think it is more about it being in contrast to years of trading away picks or picking guys like Earl Clark and Taylor Griffin.

It's our prior GMs' records who make me so deeply invested in McD. Colangelo and then D'Antoni gave away picks in consecutive drafts. Kerr traded the pick away in 2007, took Clark at 13, drafted Robin Lopez, but also drafted Goran - a pretty middling record that would amount to nothing were it not for the big win with Dragic. Then the Blanks era - I'd say 90% of the fans would have taken Kawhi over Keef, but Blanks almost took both twins by trading a future pick for Marcus. Then the laughable Marshall pick - no joke, I laughed, cried, and drank the night away, in utter disbelief that we'd made that pick.

McD (likely) took BPA at our spot last year, the guy I *still* would have taken at #14 in Warren, and Len at #5, who, while not BPA, was still a very good pick (look at how many teams fell on their faces that year... I still prefer him to the heralded McCollum, though not to the Freak, and I'm not convinced that Alex can't be better than Gobert, though it isn't likely). The Ennis pick was apparently a failed ploy to screw Toronto. Bogdan is TBD. But he acquires picks rather than trades them away and has yet to fail to get a rotation player in the top half of the draft, fwiw. In short, he's done nothing that I thought was stupid at the time and only one pick (Ennis) that looks stupid in retrospect. Compared to the alternatives, McD is great. Not perfect, but no one is - even the Jazz, who have drafted extremely well, were on the other end of that awful Burke deal. Minnesota, on the right end of that deal, gave up a future 1st for Payne.

I am 100% with McD. I won't have any complaints about Sarver as long as McD's at the helm.

[djy2j]

I don't know which ESPN analyst it was but I remember specifically one of them picked Earl Clark to be Rookie of the Year. I wish I could find that so I can send them a tweet: "Remember when you picked Earl Clark to be ROY? Yeah, well you're fucking fired."

[ShelC]

Draft for talent, trade for need. And always, always, take the basketball player and not the athlete.

[Indy]

Draft for talent, trade for need. And always, always, take the basketball player and not the athlete.

Agreed!

[OE32]

Draft for talent, trade for need. And always, always, take the basketball player and not the athlete.

Agreed!

Word.

[carey]

Draft for talent, trade for need. And always, always, take the basketball player and not the athlete.

That's the thing with Earl. He looked smooth out there. Great athlete but zero between the ears.

[ShelC]

That's the thing with Earl.

And Bledsoe and Knight and Archie. And, also probably the reason why McD regrets trading IT3.

[In2ition]

Stop drafting players with zero between the ears, should be a mandate.

[LazarusLong]

Draft for talent, trade for need. And always, always, take the basketball player and not the athlete.

That's the thing with Earl. He looked smooth out there. Great athlete but zero between the ears.

Many times it comes down to motor or what they call in soccer "work rate."

Clark had a low-revving engine. Even more so with Alton Ford, who looked like comic-book hero designed "4."

I'm not a big fan of PJ, but the guy does bust his ass when he plays.

[djy2j]

Stop drafting players with zero between the ears, should be a mandate.

A nicer way of saying, "Don't draft players from Kentucky"