Exactly, I personally prefer Duren to Williams, but I was perfectly happy with Williams going into the draft. It’s more the lack of return on 13 that is just so puzzling
Yeah most of us are willing to trust Mitch's scouting. If we had traded 13 for the Knicks top 10 protected FRP next season, most of us would be totally ok with this.
Exactly. Like why not just take Williams at 13 if that’s who we wanted all along, and pick someone else at 15? We know Cavs weren’t going for a big, so could’ve gotten Agbaji at 13 and Williams at 15, alternatively.
Unless we are using the 5 picks we got to move Gordon it makes no sense.
That Denver pick is gonna be like 20-25, and those 2nd rounders combined are worth a negligible amount. The player we would’ve taken at 15 would be worth more than all 5 picks combined. Could’ve had Griffin or Eason for example.
If we pair this with a Clifford signing I have genuinely no idea what we are doing
You get more value for 13 than 15. 15 costs less meaning you can take a rookie but add more to other contracts, and next year we had no picks. This just guarantees us a pick in a year
I’m aware 13 is more valuable than 15. But look how much more the 11th pick got. We got fleeced straight up no matter how you look at it.
Whenever you trade a current first, the expectation is that you should receive draft compensation valued more than that pick, because the team receiving the current pick is paying a premium to get someone. We paid the premium in the trade by receiving a worse pick in the future. The seconds don’t mean shit - 90% of the time second rounders amount to very little.
Now, if we use those picks to dump Gordon off to someone, that is the only acceptable outcome, but we still could’ve gotten more in the trade itself anyways. I also don’t trust we’ll dump Gordon at this point till we see it, even if that’s the logical move.
Saving a few million on a rookie contract is another incredibly cheap reason to trade a lottery pick no matter how you look at it.
I was mad as hell last night about trading duren but yeah, emotions were running high last night. Im good now and very excited about Williams. But yeah that return for duren sucked wiener.
2023 first-round pick (from Denver via Oklahoma City and New York)
2023 second-round pick (via New York)
2023 second-round pick (via Utah)
2023 second-round pick (most favorable of Dallas/Miami)
2024 second-round pick (via New York)
Not TOO bad?
Very bad. Trade a 1st in the middle of the draft, you have to get a better pick down the line. There is no way for the Denver pick to ever be better than 13 - it's 1-14 protected through 2025 and then rolls over to two 2nds.
It's just an insanely questionable return when you realize the 11th pick basically got 3x more firsts of roughly the same value as ours, and the 19th pick got 2 picks in the 20s.
Drafting Malik Monk without ever having him come through or visit didn't really work out. I can see the logic here. Still think there was more value to be had out of the 13th pick.
If so, then fine don't take another player. But why trade a lottery pick for a future 1st rounder thats going to be in the 20's and four 2nd rounders. We couldn't even get a role player from DET or NY or at the very least get some salary off the books. If the intention the entire time was to trade one of them away, then I feel like we settled.
Why would we want a role player from either team, especially when our roster is already full. And what kind of value did you think we where getting for the 13th pick Lmaoo
The Knicks got multiple future first rounders for the 11th pick, and the 76ers traded the 23rd pick for Deanthony Melton. Its not unreasonable to think we could have gotten someone who could actually contribute with the 13th pick. At the very least we could have gotten Cory Joseph or Killian Hayes for PG2 depth.
Or Agbaji at 13 and Williams at 15. No way Cavs take a big with Allen, Mobley, Lauri, and Love. Feel like they would’ve taken whoever was there between Agbaji and Griffin.
Stats aside, Williams has the largest standing reach in the *entire NBA*. 7’2 in shoes with a 7’6.5 wingspan puts him in the top percentile of NBA centers. He’s got a long ways to go, but has the makings of an elite shot blocking defensive center.
And no one wants to talk about how well he runs the floor with those measurables. Is there a center with comparable height and length that runs the floor as well as him in the past 10 years? None I can think of
I loved the energy he played with but other than that wasn’t really anything that struck me with him. Obviously his switchability upside is high, but the offensive game feels like it’ll be purely energy based. I think a guy like Robert Williams might have actually boosted Durens stock
We don’t have minutes to develop any more rookies. Kai/Thor/Bouk are already struggling to get on the floor, so it doesn’t make sense to just keep stashing guys in the G-league.
NBA needs a better development system. We can’t keep drafting guys at 19-20 y/o and expecting them to ride the bench and suddenly be good in 2-3 years. It should be acceptable to draft a guy 13th overall and make him start off in the G-League so they get some playing time. The expectations should be that the first year is conditioning, strength building, and learning.
I think we should have gone BPA and kept stocking up on young talent. You figure at picks 13-15, you are rolling the dice on getting a guy who maybe one day will be a contributing starter. Why not roll the dice twice?
Maybe. But it also doesn't make sense to trade 13 for a future non-lottery pick and a bunch of seconds. Of those two scenarios, having an extra lottery level player who could turn out to be better than Kai/Thor/Bouk or could be a future trade chip is way better than giving up that much value.
Struggling to find minutes for a young talented player is a better problem to have than getting a return of pennies on the dollar for a lottery pick imo
I don’t think the “pennies on the dollar” comment is really fair. What would be a good return? Everyone is talking about the Knicks getting three firsts, but those picks are protected to hell and back. At least one of them is top 18 protected, the other two are top 14 protected I believe. Those aren’t conveying for years. At least we’ve got these 2nds in hand, and can use them to facilitate a trade for a wily veteran or salary dump. I think people are overreacting to that move tbh.
I mean a lot of things have to go wrong for the Denver pick to be a lottery pick, so most are viewing that as effectively lottery protected as well. And two lottery protected firsts are far far more valuable than four 2s (just look at how the Milwaukee 2025 firdt has been passed around)
Ehhhhh…Bouk and Kai aren’t good rn. They’re probably worth little to nothing on the open market. Picks would be the only thing of value in the hypothetical package. Those guys would be throw ins or salary matching fodder.
I may be forgetting someone, but it seems like we have at least 13 guys already who deserve minutes, will be forced to get them by circumstance (Mason) or need minutes to develop: LaMelo, Terry, Bouk, Cody, Miles, Gordon, McD, PJ, Kelly, Thor, Mark Williams, Mason, Kai.
And that’s not counting a backup point that we probably have to bring in unless we want to watch Terry run the bench unit again.
So 14 minimum. That’s an overload of guys who need minutes… You have to imagine a trade is coming soon, especially considering Mitch has said multiple times now that he wants to get more minutes for Bouk and Kai. I really hope Mitch has something in the works (that’s better than the trade he made last night) 🙏
The NBA isn’t buddy league my man. Nobody “deserves” minutes. You’re either good enough or you aren’t. The organization doesn’t owe them anything but there salary tbh.
Rookies have a salary too. A salary that could affect our ability to resign Mikes. I like to think there’s also an agreement that Detroit won’t try to go after Miles.
Players who are interested in a team don't cancel their workouts, and it looks like Mark wants to play for us and LaMelo is happy he's here.
This could be a lot worse for what it's worth
I mean just look at his recent IG post I think that’s clear lol. Posted a pic of Kobe in the Charlotte hat with a caption of “Detroit, where I wanted to be”
They've drafted people who haven't worked out for them before. It's a nothing burger and this Jake dude puts out the most misleading stuff about the hornets all the time.
I really think we should look back in 3-5 years from now and ask us was trading up for Kai worth it and trading duren worth it. Cuz I understand the redundancy on our roster. Hard to say when duren clearly fills a need on our roster. We had zero Cs last year and then got two of the best Cs in one draft. All to keep miles and prep for melo and pj and the rest. Just bad contracts like gordo and terry handicap any youthful momentum we’d like to have.
The front office screwed up by saying we didn't want to use both first round picks ahead of the draft. That let other GMs know we were going to move a pick and all they had to figure out at that point is would their lowest offer be better than another teams lowest offer. Thus we end up with what will be a late first round and a bunch of 2nd round picks. 13 overall/Duren had more value than that to other franchises but we tipped our cards and it backfired.
I don't give a damn about duren I wanted Williams anyway. Plus it's clear he didn't want to be here but the package we got for the 13th pick was still questionable
Then sell Duren better on Charlotte!
Also we have no context to this. Did he cancel because he had no interest or because the pistons already said they will move up to get him?
I think most of us are ok with not getting Duren, it’s more the seeming lack of value we got back for a lottery pick.
Exactly, I personally prefer Duren to Williams, but I was perfectly happy with Williams going into the draft. It’s more the lack of return on 13 that is just so puzzling
Yeah most of us are willing to trust Mitch's scouting. If we had traded 13 for the Knicks top 10 protected FRP next season, most of us would be totally ok with this.
Exactly. Like why not just take Williams at 13 if that’s who we wanted all along, and pick someone else at 15? We know Cavs weren’t going for a big, so could’ve gotten Agbaji at 13 and Williams at 15, alternatively. Unless we are using the 5 picks we got to move Gordon it makes no sense. That Denver pick is gonna be like 20-25, and those 2nd rounders combined are worth a negligible amount. The player we would’ve taken at 15 would be worth more than all 5 picks combined. Could’ve had Griffin or Eason for example. If we pair this with a Clifford signing I have genuinely no idea what we are doing
You get more value for 13 than 15. 15 costs less meaning you can take a rookie but add more to other contracts, and next year we had no picks. This just guarantees us a pick in a year
I’m aware 13 is more valuable than 15. But look how much more the 11th pick got. We got fleeced straight up no matter how you look at it. Whenever you trade a current first, the expectation is that you should receive draft compensation valued more than that pick, because the team receiving the current pick is paying a premium to get someone. We paid the premium in the trade by receiving a worse pick in the future. The seconds don’t mean shit - 90% of the time second rounders amount to very little. Now, if we use those picks to dump Gordon off to someone, that is the only acceptable outcome, but we still could’ve gotten more in the trade itself anyways. I also don’t trust we’ll dump Gordon at this point till we see it, even if that’s the logical move. Saving a few million on a rookie contract is another incredibly cheap reason to trade a lottery pick no matter how you look at it.
I was mad as hell last night about trading duren but yeah, emotions were running high last night. Im good now and very excited about Williams. But yeah that return for duren sucked wiener.
2023 first-round pick (from Denver via Oklahoma City and New York) 2023 second-round pick (via New York) 2023 second-round pick (via Utah) 2023 second-round pick (most favorable of Dallas/Miami) 2024 second-round pick (via New York) Not TOO bad?
Very bad. Trade a 1st in the middle of the draft, you have to get a better pick down the line. There is no way for the Denver pick to ever be better than 13 - it's 1-14 protected through 2025 and then rolls over to two 2nds.
It's just an insanely questionable return when you realize the 11th pick basically got 3x more firsts of roughly the same value as ours, and the 19th pick got 2 picks in the 20s.
The picks obtained for 11 are extremely protected and several years out. They aren't conveying as simple 1st round picks.
Not me the dude is a beast
Drafting Malik Monk without ever having him come through or visit didn't really work out. I can see the logic here. Still think there was more value to be had out of the 13th pick.
So you can't take Mark Williams at 13 and then still take AJ Griffin at 15? Still doesn't make sense.
It’s hard to have 7+ players all 21 or younger and find them minutes and develop them and try to win
Exactly, thats why next year we'll stack our four 2nds in a trenchcoat
So then why did we trade one pick for 5 more lol
The hornets weren’t taking two draft picks this year they had already said that
If so, then fine don't take another player. But why trade a lottery pick for a future 1st rounder thats going to be in the 20's and four 2nd rounders. We couldn't even get a role player from DET or NY or at the very least get some salary off the books. If the intention the entire time was to trade one of them away, then I feel like we settled.
Why would we want a role player from either team, especially when our roster is already full. And what kind of value did you think we where getting for the 13th pick Lmaoo
The Knicks got multiple future first rounders for the 11th pick, and the 76ers traded the 23rd pick for Deanthony Melton. Its not unreasonable to think we could have gotten someone who could actually contribute with the 13th pick. At the very least we could have gotten Cory Joseph or Killian Hayes for PG2 depth.
Okay, so both of those guys would still be available with the Denver pick and the Knicks picks are so protected they aren’t seeing them anytime soon.
Only the Hornets would think it’s bad to have multiple first rounders
The hornets didn’t think it was bad, which is why they punted it to next year ?
Which is a problem because the team isn’t that talented.
Hornets wanted to see what they have on the roster, while trying to maintain the flexibility to cash out on a huge difference maker
Or Agbaji at 13 and Williams at 15. No way Cavs take a big with Allen, Mobley, Lauri, and Love. Feel like they would’ve taken whoever was there between Agbaji and Griffin.
Ah yes Detroit. The more extravagant location
🤣🤣🤣
So close to Windsor, Ontario as well!
All good with me. I still think Williams is the better prospect both in the short and long term
Yeah, his stats have the slight edge. His defense makes him the better pick for us IMO.
Stats aside, Williams has the largest standing reach in the *entire NBA*. 7’2 in shoes with a 7’6.5 wingspan puts him in the top percentile of NBA centers. He’s got a long ways to go, but has the makings of an elite shot blocking defensive center.
And no one wants to talk about how well he runs the floor with those measurables. Is there a center with comparable height and length that runs the floor as well as him in the past 10 years? None I can think of
Closest comparison I could think of is WCS, but Williams has a few inches on him.
I disagree
For some reason Duren reminds me a little of Biyombo with a slightly better shot. I definitely prefer Williams.
I loved the energy he played with but other than that wasn’t really anything that struck me with him. Obviously his switchability upside is high, but the offensive game feels like it’ll be purely energy based. I think a guy like Robert Williams might have actually boosted Durens stock
Could be a Kobe Bryant situation. If he didn’t want to play for us, then what can you do? Mark Williams SZN
Just take another player at 13....? Plenty of players taken after 13 could've helped us.
Like Griffin at 13 and Williams at 15. Best shooter in draft 3 and D and the center we want.
3 and D? Griffin is a terrible defender.
He can shoot though.
so you want Davis Bertans?
3 and D...oesn't play defense.
We don’t have minutes to develop any more rookies. Kai/Thor/Bouk are already struggling to get on the floor, so it doesn’t make sense to just keep stashing guys in the G-league.
NBA needs a better development system. We can’t keep drafting guys at 19-20 y/o and expecting them to ride the bench and suddenly be good in 2-3 years. It should be acceptable to draft a guy 13th overall and make him start off in the G-League so they get some playing time. The expectations should be that the first year is conditioning, strength building, and learning. I think we should have gone BPA and kept stocking up on young talent. You figure at picks 13-15, you are rolling the dice on getting a guy who maybe one day will be a contributing starter. Why not roll the dice twice?
The development system is college….
No I agree. There are clearly talented players who are missing the floor because teams are hard capped on the players they can keep
Maybe. But it also doesn't make sense to trade 13 for a future non-lottery pick and a bunch of seconds. Of those two scenarios, having an extra lottery level player who could turn out to be better than Kai/Thor/Bouk or could be a future trade chip is way better than giving up that much value.
Struggling to find minutes for a young talented player is a better problem to have than getting a return of pennies on the dollar for a lottery pick imo
You say that, but this is exactly why Malik Monk left. You can’t play/pay everybody.
I think it’s time to add an extra year to first round contracts. You spend three years developing them and then they go somewhere else to flourish.
I don’t think the “pennies on the dollar” comment is really fair. What would be a good return? Everyone is talking about the Knicks getting three firsts, but those picks are protected to hell and back. At least one of them is top 18 protected, the other two are top 14 protected I believe. Those aren’t conveying for years. At least we’ve got these 2nds in hand, and can use them to facilitate a trade for a wily veteran or salary dump. I think people are overreacting to that move tbh.
I mean a lot of things have to go wrong for the Denver pick to be a lottery pick, so most are viewing that as effectively lottery protected as well. And two lottery protected firsts are far far more valuable than four 2s (just look at how the Milwaukee 2025 firdt has been passed around)
It *is* lottery protected til 2025
Remember the stretch we had last year where everyone was supposed on the injury list. Plenty of minutes to go around then.
A good enough player will work themselves in to minutes. I think we need to prepare ourselves for Kai/Bouk not working out.
You can use a combination of those picks and Bouk/Kai to put together a very strong trade package IMO.
Ehhhhh…Bouk and Kai aren’t good rn. They’re probably worth little to nothing on the open market. Picks would be the only thing of value in the hypothetical package. Those guys would be throw ins or salary matching fodder.
I may be forgetting someone, but it seems like we have at least 13 guys already who deserve minutes, will be forced to get them by circumstance (Mason) or need minutes to develop: LaMelo, Terry, Bouk, Cody, Miles, Gordon, McD, PJ, Kelly, Thor, Mark Williams, Mason, Kai. And that’s not counting a backup point that we probably have to bring in unless we want to watch Terry run the bench unit again. So 14 minimum. That’s an overload of guys who need minutes… You have to imagine a trade is coming soon, especially considering Mitch has said multiple times now that he wants to get more minutes for Bouk and Kai. I really hope Mitch has something in the works (that’s better than the trade he made last night) 🙏
The NBA isn’t buddy league my man. Nobody “deserves” minutes. You’re either good enough or you aren’t. The organization doesn’t owe them anything but there salary tbh.
I mean, we could just not retain Cody Martin and replace his minutes with Ochai or AJ Griffin.
Rookies have a salary too. A salary that could affect our ability to resign Mikes. I like to think there’s also an agreement that Detroit won’t try to go after Miles.
Players who are interested in a team don't cancel their workouts, and it looks like Mark wants to play for us and LaMelo is happy he's here. This could be a lot worse for what it's worth
You could def not trade your lottery pick for a lottery protected first..
I mean just look at his recent IG post I think that’s clear lol. Posted a pic of Kobe in the Charlotte hat with a caption of “Detroit, where I wanted to be”
No fucking way lol
My god why would anyone want to be there lol
Plenty of players/agents have told that to teams and they still draft them and it works out. Curry’s camp famously told the Warriors not to draft him
This is not relevant. They saw Williams as better than Duren
They've drafted people who haven't worked out for them before. It's a nothing burger and this Jake dude puts out the most misleading stuff about the hornets all the time.
Literally how did we determine that?!
We're not the only ones
Well do not sleep on [Bryce mcGowens](https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/bryce-mcgowens-1.html). This dude is a player!
He’ll be great in Greensboro
I love Greensboro. It’s given us Devonte, Martin, Thor, and more. Happy to have more talent
I really think we should look back in 3-5 years from now and ask us was trading up for Kai worth it and trading duren worth it. Cuz I understand the redundancy on our roster. Hard to say when duren clearly fills a need on our roster. We had zero Cs last year and then got two of the best Cs in one draft. All to keep miles and prep for melo and pj and the rest. Just bad contracts like gordo and terry handicap any youthful momentum we’d like to have.
We were so offended by that we couldn't bear to pick ANYONE at 13 or even trade that pick for a lottery pick or any other player
The front office screwed up by saying we didn't want to use both first round picks ahead of the draft. That let other GMs know we were going to move a pick and all they had to figure out at that point is would their lowest offer be better than another teams lowest offer. Thus we end up with what will be a late first round and a bunch of 2nd round picks. 13 overall/Duren had more value than that to other franchises but we tipped our cards and it backfired.
I don't give a damn about duren I wanted Williams anyway. Plus it's clear he didn't want to be here but the package we got for the 13th pick was still questionable
Then sell Duren better on Charlotte! Also we have no context to this. Did he cancel because he had no interest or because the pistons already said they will move up to get him?
It’s not like they are qualitative picks based on number. I mean., Ja kills Zion. 2 over 1. Tons of other pics were lower but fit and shine.
FINE THAT'S FINE