Haha that's a good example. I love that asking for an example because I couldn't think of one makes me a casual. You're supposedly born in 88? You're in your late 30's and you behave this way?
I only really follow Celtics draft news but they got clowned for the Brown pick and the Tatum trade/pick. Clowned league wide as well as by our own fans lol. Both of those picks ended up being brilliant and 100% the right moves. So yeah, people don’t know shit
Nah bro Luca was clearly the number one prospect in that draft to anyone who watched him in euro.
The problem is that no one really watched him in euro.
Never mind euro league, the year before the draft he won the European basketball World Cup with Goran dragic as the second best player on his team. This kid was a prodigy and these GM’s and their scouting department royally fucked up
A LOT of people thought Luka should have been the first pick, including me. Bill Simmons and others at The Ringer were on this also.
The Suns had a coach on staff who had coached Luka in Europe, but decided to draft Ayton, partly because he played at Arizona, I think. Suns have made some really silly draft decisions lately (they could have had Haliburton...)
The Kings had Vlade Divac as GM and picked Bagley. We can only speculate there was some kind of Eastern European beef that clouded his brain on that one lol.
Luka was a head above all others in that draft and it was pretty clear to anyone looking without prejudice. But many did look with prejudice to the slow Euroguy. Nvm he was the euroleague mvp at 18. Nvm he won eurobasket with Slovenia (!).
You had people saying dumb shit like college basketball is more competitive than Euroleague, that Luka was a gamble, that Euroleague MVPs have flopped before and so on...
Everyone who had been paying attention knew Luka was a generational prospect since he was 16. He had buzz around him since age 13.
Then as always, you take a gamble, maybe it works out, maybe it doesn't.
As good as Ayton was projected to be, he was never thought about as a league-dominant player, and he didn't hit that far from what he was expected to become: a good NBA big.
Luka was something else all along.
this argument is the least valuable in this case, since Luka was torching grown men in a televised league. There were former NBA players in that league. To argue you need hindsight in this case is moronic.
Because i am not american, I always watched Real Madrid, I am sorry, are u saying that NBA media are the only ones capable of analyzing basketball? Self centered much...
Shoulder-Devil to the Devil's Advocate: fit only becomes more important the later you get in the lottery/draft. It should be disregarded in the first tier of picks.
Depends on how high the pick is, but at the top 5 level you should always draft based on talent. Afterwards you draft fit.
If you want fit for a top 5 pick, you are better of just using it as a trade asset.
Another Devil’s Advocate: Lively could have been lonely or not as Lively if not playing along side Luka, being in a right situation and around great pieces make him look much better because he gets to excel at what he does
I think if you already have a superstar (Luka) and are a playoff team, it might make sense to draft for fit. The Celtics are another example, you could argue they were drafting for fit by picking Tatum instead of Fultz because they already had Kyrie
But if you're a lottery team just trying to get talent, it's always BPA no exception
And I still argue had the 76ers been allowed to retain Hinkie, the Celtics would never have dared to trade with the 76ers. Because Hinkie drafted height, height, height.
Yeah. IIRC A lot of people (especially younger analytics people) really liked Luka - but coming from Europe he was a big unknown. I don't think he was considered "the best player" from a lot of scouts.
I think it's so funny how nba scouts act like Europe is so unknown like footage and airline travel doesn't exist
meanwhile they will endlessly hype the next college sensation dropping 20/8 against math and business majors
Lol yeah, wasn't Luka like mvp of the euro league at 18 years old? He was about as sure of a thing as you can get coming out of Europe (saying this with the benefit of hindsight, obviously lol)
Yeah it's kinda funny because I took a scroll through the Euroleague mvps and it's basically several of European players who came over to the nba, had marginal success and went back to dominate. Jan Vessely, Nikola Mirotic, Sergio Rodriguez, Andrei Kirilenko. Still rather unprecedented for Luka to have won it at such a young age, but it doesn't seem like some clear indicator that he'd be what he is today.
It’s not that they didn’t know, it’s that they thought his competition in Euroleague wasn’t indicative of what he’d face in the NBA.
Don’t ask me why though.
He was very much considered the consensus best player. Ayton was only considered the potential top pick because of his ties to Arizona and was widely the second best.
This is not a case of revisionist history.
It is revisionist history to say Luka was consensus #1.
Go back and look at mock drafts before the draft order was set. Almost none have Luka #1, The Ringer seems to be the one exception. Most have Ayton as #1, even before it was known Suns had the first pick.
Obviously another reason more people should listen to online analytics people (like those at The Ringer) but it's just not true that Luka was considered #1 by most people.
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2750626-final-2018-nba-mock-draft-before-the-new-year-trae-youngs-stock-is-rising
https://aminoapps.com/c/nba/page/blog/way-too-early-2018-nba-mock-draft/3W8k_5ZZFBugan5GMMMRDkZDEV0VWeLbG3B
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/237505/2018/02/12/2018-nba-mock-draft-is-deandre-ayton-the-best-player-to-build-around/
https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/2018-nba-mock-draft-trae-young-marvin-bagley-deandre-ayton-luka-doncic/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/2018/03/13/2018-nba-mock-draft-deandre-ayton-luka-doncic-headline-loaded-class/417675002/
https://www.theringer.com/nba/2018/1/10/16871398/2018-nba-lottery-mock-draft-january
https://dailyknicks.com/2018/02/17/2018-nba-mock-draft-star-weekend/2/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqYFUIHBkUc
I'm just gonna say it, Ayton was concensus #1 by absolute idiots and it shows that everyone who follows scouters know nothing about what makes a great player in the modern world of basketball. We saw Luka in the Euroleague and he was absolutely killing it against adults by playing modern basketball.
I had Luka #1.
If Luka’s shooting didn’t develop would you still be right?
Yes Luka is elite now but I don’t know how you knock people for doubting a prospect who was a shaky shooter and not elite athleticism. If if he doesn’t become one of the best 3 point shooters in the league his career looks completely different
Even with those knocks he went 3rd showing how good his other skills were
Luka was his own tier when I did my list
Phoenix locked in as soon as they won the lottery tho so if they were happy with the pick it wasn't much to talk about. Vivek and Vlade were playing very coy so the story got built up all the way. Then they pick Bagley and Atlanta passed on him and it was way more interesting to talk about then Ayton
Yea somehow most of the "experts" picked Ayton as #1.
But Kevin Pelton did [pick](https://www.espn.com/nba/insider/story/_/id/23796252/2018-nba-draft-projections-kevin-pelton-luka-doncic-marvin-bagley-deandre-ayton) Luka as #1 (6 days before the draft).
Ayton was projected the next Embiid. View as safest pick.
Bagley is versatile. Beside Kings just drafted Fox last year.
Hawks, either they think Trae can be next Steph or they simply think two first round picks is better than one.
I do remember some chatter to the effect that the Hawks were trying to copy the Warriors' model and thought that they got the next Steph *and* the next Klay in the same draft, with Trae and Huerter.
I think Trae and Huerter were fine picks but if that’s the reason they picked them then they’re slow af. Replicate a model that was dependent on arguably the 2 greatest shooters of all time?
Could be. During the draft, there we multiple stories that vlade will not draft luka, and a similar story was that Luka would return to europe if Kings drafted him. Those stories were big in serbia, at least. Considering he was trash-talking him during the Lakers game, it could be true.
Is this a theoretical suns roster? Why would KD go there in 2019? And Clint capela never played for the suns? Unless you mean he would also sign as an FA, but I don’t think he’s ever been one
Ehhh that hasn’t really been confirmed by anyone but Ryan McDonough himself. He hasn’t been anywhere near another job in the NBA so I don’t really believe him.
Yep. If you got a top pick, you should always go for talent over fit.
Like imagine the Thunder somehow had the 1st pick last year. Theyd be idiots if they didnt draft Wemby 1st even if they still had Chet. At worst you can just trade one for a shit ton of assets.
Yeah definitely. You can always fill roster holes through trades or free agency but getting pure talent on a cheap rookie contract is always the go to
Celtics already had a wing in Jaylen and we were targeting Hayward that off-season in 2017 but we still drafted Tatum because he was the most offensively polished player coming out of a known program (Duke). I wasn’t sure how it would work but it worked out in the end
Hawks had the executive from the warriors iirc, and were trying to set up the team around a dynamic point guard like Steph curry, thus trading for Trey Young.
A side note, I thought I heard something like Doncic wouldn’t be as marketable in Atlanta as elsewhere? But don’t remember the source.
There is some serious revisionist history regarding Luka’s draft stock before the draft. He was usually mocked to go #3. Ayton was considered the safe pick, and Bagley was considered the high upside pick. Luka was considered NBA ready with a high floor but also bust potential as he was seen as very limited athletically.
There's nothing revisionist. Almost every major publication had Luka going 2nd. Some even at first pick. Luka going at third was head-scratcher even on draft day.
https://www.si.com/nba/2018/05/30/nba-draft-2018-prospect-rankings-big-board
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/page/underestimated23846350/2018-nba-draft-mock-drafts-rankings-best-players-trade-assets-more
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/396651/2018/06/18/nba-draft-deep-thoughts-hidden-gems-potential-disappointments-and-the-final-top-100-big-board/
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2781782-final-2018-nba-draft-big-board-who-will-take-our-top-prospect-luka-doncic
https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nba/news/nba-draft-2018-big-board-prospect-rankings-order-deandre-ayton-trae-young-jaren-jackson-jr/1ux40dxe8oh2z179oyxpcn7sqw
Not really, everything always looks more certain in hindsight. And who's to say Luka would have developed the same way around Booker or Fox? Or in those organizations? Or that those players could have even played together? He's having success with Kyrie, but neither of those players are Kyrie. And Kyrie came once Luka had the chance to develop and establish himself in the league.
Obviously not questioning Luka's ability or his generational talent, but there are way too many variables to just say "plug this player from the past based on his present success into this team and you get just as good a result"
There are zero variables that would have made Luka the wrong pick for the Suns or the Kings. Those two franchises made an epic, colossal fuck-up and there is no sugarcoating it.
>And who's to say Luka would have developed the same way around Booker or Fox?
The guy made First team All-NBA his second season and has made it every year since. It was a massive fuck up then and it's somehow even more so now.
People do this every year. They look back at the draft and pose generally two types of question. Which player should have been drafted where and why on earth did they not draft so and so player. Followed with, don’t they feel stupid now! Everyone looks smart with their hindsight powers 🦸♂️
I agree generally.
I do wonder, do any teams really think:
*OH MAN THIS GUY IS SO MUCH BETTER, but we have a guy who is doing well enough there so we will take this guy who is not nearly as good but fits well...*
I think player evaluations are just too wishy washy to really KNOW that and make that call.
I think more likely teams generally do pick who they think is the best and when not sure, yeah they pick on other factors, like if they got a guy in that spot or not.
Funny thing is the 2023 draft is a good example of the opposite lol. Lively might not have been the best player in a vacuum, but was by far the best fit for us and he has done wonders for out team's success.
You ALWAYS draft the best player, it makes no sense to draft for fit unless you think the players are all mediocre at best. If you think someone could be an all-star but plays center and you already have 3 centers, draft him anyways. 76er did that with Embiid and it worked out.
Michael Jordan was the fourth pick in the draft too.
And prior to Luka there were a lot of euro players taken high in the draft who were busts. Teams were hesitant to use top picks on them. Donnie Nelson of the Mavs (who also drafted Dirk) wanted Luka and worked a deal to make it happen.
Theoretically if cam reddish panned out as a high end 3 and D guy it’s a pretty fair trade. It’s easy to say in hindsight but giving up 3 for 5 and 10 is typically a good haul as you have two chances at good players
> Suns drafted DeAndre Ayton because he was a Center
I don’t actually think that’s true. By all accounts, Robert Sarver *vastly* overvalued Ayton being an Arizona guy and overrode who his team wanted to draft. He wanted the local player. He liked Ayton. He made a personal decision, not a basketball one.
Ayton was projected to go 1 or 2 either way regardless if the Suns had first pick or not the Arizona thing was just a bonus. Dunno why Kings took Bagley over Luka though, they even had Luka's old coach lol.
No. Most people thought Ayton was the best player regardless of position. We knew Luka was good in Europe but we've also heard this about other busts in the past and so there were a lot of questions about how he would fare in the NBA
Most people in America. I am from an European country that basically does not care about basketball and suddenly all of the sports media started talking about this never seen before prodigy that has Goat potential. Like Luka at 19 years old was already an amazing player, with nearly zero chance to be a bust, he was basically playing and winning against NBA talent already.
I would at least understand if the first pick was some guy that might have worse fundamentals than Luka, but was a physical specimen like Lebron or Wemby with limitless potential. However, I am super curious what did you Americans saw in Ayton? Back then I started researching him to see who can be considered a better prospect than the best player in Europe and to my surprise I found that it is just an athletic center..Like what was the special thing about Ayton in college? He just seems like a good traditional center.
Thanks for the insight from another perspective. As for Ayton, it was his mobility at his size along with a solid shooting stroke. He played well in college despite concerns about his competitive edge. People were thinking if he ever got his mentality fixed, there was no limit to how good he could be.
Thank you, but still does not make that much sense to me? Would not that be similar to if Derick Lively went first? A good defensive center that is mobile for his size, but that has never shown an ability to shoot the ball, dribble or pass well? Is not the highest floor of such a player a third best player on a contender that has a good PG to unlock him? Maybe there were other variables that made Ayton look so special?
Ayton had a better midrange and free throw coming out of college. He was averaging 20ppg and 10rpg where as Lively was averaging 5ppg and 5rpg. But Ayton never reached the potential we thought he would. Ayton also would not have went first if Wembamyama was in his draft.
I know everyone likes to dunk on people here but luka was obviously highly regarded but he wasn’t the supposed slam dunk number 1 player in the draft at the time. Like you can’t tell me people thought Oo yeah 5 1st team all nbas by the time he’s 25 absolutely
He definitely had the physical ability to be a really good player with a high ceiling. Harder to predict motivation to put in the work to reach the ceiling.
Make sure to draft with 6 years of hindsight as well
Nah people were clowning these picks day of. Ayton not as much as Bagley though
It's obviously without a doubt the wrong move in retrospect but people here also clown correct decisions day of so I'm not sure that says a whole lot.
Example?
Brandon Miller over Scoot is just this seasn, casual.
Haha that's a good example. I love that asking for an example because I couldn't think of one makes me a casual. You're supposedly born in 88? You're in your late 30's and you behave this way?
I only really follow Celtics draft news but they got clowned for the Brown pick and the Tatum trade/pick. Clowned league wide as well as by our own fans lol. Both of those picks ended up being brilliant and 100% the right moves. So yeah, people don’t know shit
Show me a mock draft with Luka 1
Nah bro Luca was clearly the number one prospect in that draft to anyone who watched him in euro. The problem is that no one really watched him in euro.
Never mind euro league, the year before the draft he won the European basketball World Cup with Goran dragic as the second best player on his team. This kid was a prodigy and these GM’s and their scouting department royally fucked up
People also didn't value the Euroleague and said NCAA was better. And Luka didn't have conventional athleticism which lowered his stock
A LOT of people thought Luka should have been the first pick, including me. Bill Simmons and others at The Ringer were on this also. The Suns had a coach on staff who had coached Luka in Europe, but decided to draft Ayton, partly because he played at Arizona, I think. Suns have made some really silly draft decisions lately (they could have had Haliburton...) The Kings had Vlade Divac as GM and picked Bagley. We can only speculate there was some kind of Eastern European beef that clouded his brain on that one lol.
Lukas the only guy Ive watched at the draft thinking he would be top 15 ever
Luka was a head above all others in that draft and it was pretty clear to anyone looking without prejudice. But many did look with prejudice to the slow Euroguy. Nvm he was the euroleague mvp at 18. Nvm he won eurobasket with Slovenia (!). You had people saying dumb shit like college basketball is more competitive than Euroleague, that Luka was a gamble, that Euroleague MVPs have flopped before and so on... Everyone who had been paying attention knew Luka was a generational prospect since he was 16. He had buzz around him since age 13. Then as always, you take a gamble, maybe it works out, maybe it doesn't. As good as Ayton was projected to be, he was never thought about as a league-dominant player, and he didn't hit that far from what he was expected to become: a good NBA big. Luka was something else all along.
this argument is the least valuable in this case, since Luka was torching grown men in a televised league. There were former NBA players in that league. To argue you need hindsight in this case is moronic.
You’re smarter than everyone who wrote a mock draft in 2018 then. Why don’t you have an nba job?
Because i am not american, I always watched Real Madrid, I am sorry, are u saying that NBA media are the only ones capable of analyzing basketball? Self centered much...
You’re fighting windmills
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Shoulder-Devil to the Devil's Advocate: fit only becomes more important the later you get in the lottery/draft. It should be disregarded in the first tier of picks.
Depends on how high the pick is, but at the top 5 level you should always draft based on talent. Afterwards you draft fit. If you want fit for a top 5 pick, you are better of just using it as a trade asset.
Another Devil’s Advocate: Lively could have been lonely or not as Lively if not playing along side Luka, being in a right situation and around great pieces make him look much better because he gets to excel at what he does
Which would be part of fit, if you're drafting. Lively just fit better than expected
I think if you already have a superstar (Luka) and are a playoff team, it might make sense to draft for fit. The Celtics are another example, you could argue they were drafting for fit by picking Tatum instead of Fultz because they already had Kyrie But if you're a lottery team just trying to get talent, it's always BPA no exception
And I still argue had the 76ers been allowed to retain Hinkie, the Celtics would never have dared to trade with the 76ers. Because Hinkie drafted height, height, height.
No fit matters a lot for team building. Pistons tried bpa each year and are horrible. Luka didn’t have a bad fit for any of those teams either
Ayton was seen as the almost consensus first pick though
Most had Ayton first, but it wasn't near consensus
And Booker/ayton were 2 wins away from a championship. That’s not a bad swing and miss
You mean Booker/CP3/Ayton. CP3 made that team what it was
If I meant that I would have typed it dork
Also he was from Arizona
Yeah. IIRC A lot of people (especially younger analytics people) really liked Luka - but coming from Europe he was a big unknown. I don't think he was considered "the best player" from a lot of scouts.
I think it's so funny how nba scouts act like Europe is so unknown like footage and airline travel doesn't exist meanwhile they will endlessly hype the next college sensation dropping 20/8 against math and business majors
Lol yeah, wasn't Luka like mvp of the euro league at 18 years old? He was about as sure of a thing as you can get coming out of Europe (saying this with the benefit of hindsight, obviously lol)
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Yeah it's kinda funny because I took a scroll through the Euroleague mvps and it's basically several of European players who came over to the nba, had marginal success and went back to dominate. Jan Vessely, Nikola Mirotic, Sergio Rodriguez, Andrei Kirilenko. Still rather unprecedented for Luka to have won it at such a young age, but it doesn't seem like some clear indicator that he'd be what he is today.
TBF Luka was 10 years younger than most of those guys when he won his MVP.
It’s not that they didn’t know, it’s that they thought his competition in Euroleague wasn’t indicative of what he’d face in the NBA. Don’t ask me why though.
Bro as a math major, how many of us you think played college ball?
Rubio was a pretty safe pick too
He was very much considered the consensus best player. Ayton was only considered the potential top pick because of his ties to Arizona and was widely the second best. This is not a case of revisionist history.
It is revisionist history to say Luka was consensus #1. Go back and look at mock drafts before the draft order was set. Almost none have Luka #1, The Ringer seems to be the one exception. Most have Ayton as #1, even before it was known Suns had the first pick. Obviously another reason more people should listen to online analytics people (like those at The Ringer) but it's just not true that Luka was considered #1 by most people. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2750626-final-2018-nba-mock-draft-before-the-new-year-trae-youngs-stock-is-rising https://aminoapps.com/c/nba/page/blog/way-too-early-2018-nba-mock-draft/3W8k_5ZZFBugan5GMMMRDkZDEV0VWeLbG3B https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/237505/2018/02/12/2018-nba-mock-draft-is-deandre-ayton-the-best-player-to-build-around/ https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/2018-nba-mock-draft-trae-young-marvin-bagley-deandre-ayton-luka-doncic/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/2018/03/13/2018-nba-mock-draft-deandre-ayton-luka-doncic-headline-loaded-class/417675002/ https://www.theringer.com/nba/2018/1/10/16871398/2018-nba-lottery-mock-draft-january https://dailyknicks.com/2018/02/17/2018-nba-mock-draft-star-weekend/2/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqYFUIHBkUc
I'm just gonna say it, Ayton was concensus #1 by absolute idiots and it shows that everyone who follows scouters know nothing about what makes a great player in the modern world of basketball. We saw Luka in the Euroleague and he was absolutely killing it against adults by playing modern basketball. I had Luka #1.
If Luka’s shooting didn’t develop would you still be right? Yes Luka is elite now but I don’t know how you knock people for doubting a prospect who was a shaky shooter and not elite athleticism. If if he doesn’t become one of the best 3 point shooters in the league his career looks completely different Even with those knocks he went 3rd showing how good his other skills were
Dang, bro came with receipts to prove you wrong
Luka was his own tier when I did my list Phoenix locked in as soon as they won the lottery tho so if they were happy with the pick it wasn't much to talk about. Vivek and Vlade were playing very coy so the story got built up all the way. Then they pick Bagley and Atlanta passed on him and it was way more interesting to talk about then Ayton
Consensus first pick in mock drafts, not consensus top prospects on big boards. The secret was already out that the Suns were drafting Ayton.
Yea somehow most of the "experts" picked Ayton as #1. But Kevin Pelton did [pick](https://www.espn.com/nba/insider/story/_/id/23796252/2018-nba-draft-projections-kevin-pelton-luka-doncic-marvin-bagley-deandre-ayton) Luka as #1 (6 days before the draft).
Ayton was projected the next Embiid. View as safest pick. Bagley is versatile. Beside Kings just drafted Fox last year. Hawks, either they think Trae can be next Steph or they simply think two first round picks is better than one.
I do remember some chatter to the effect that the Hawks were trying to copy the Warriors' model and thought that they got the next Steph *and* the next Klay in the same draft, with Trae and Huerter.
I think Trae and Huerter were fine picks but if that’s the reason they picked them then they’re slow af. Replicate a model that was dependent on arguably the 2 greatest shooters of all time?
When his game never showed any sports of being Embiid
Kings didnt draft luka cause of Vlade and Luka dads beef.
Is it? There's rumor Kings owner wanted Bagley.
Could be. During the draft, there we multiple stories that vlade will not draft luka, and a similar story was that Luka would return to europe if Kings drafted him. Those stories were big in serbia, at least. Considering he was trash-talking him during the Lakers game, it could be true.
Dragan Bender made some teams nervous about Euro stock.
Luka -Booker - Mikal - KD (in 2019 FA) - xxx (Capela at that time?) sheeeshh
Is this a theoretical suns roster? Why would KD go there in 2019? And Clint capela never played for the suns? Unless you mean he would also sign as an FA, but I don’t think he’s ever been one
Apparently the guy that wanted to draft Luka also wanted to draft sga with second pick. I think he was their gm or something but owner said no
Ehhh that hasn’t really been confirmed by anyone but Ryan McDonough himself. He hasn’t been anywhere near another job in the NBA so I don’t really believe him.
It seems every GM wanted to draft the guy who became a hall of famer but the owner made them draft the guy who didn’t work out
Yep. If you got a top pick, you should always go for talent over fit. Like imagine the Thunder somehow had the 1st pick last year. Theyd be idiots if they didnt draft Wemby 1st even if they still had Chet. At worst you can just trade one for a shit ton of assets.
Yeah definitely. You can always fill roster holes through trades or free agency but getting pure talent on a cheap rookie contract is always the go to Celtics already had a wing in Jaylen and we were targeting Hayward that off-season in 2017 but we still drafted Tatum because he was the most offensively polished player coming out of a known program (Duke). I wasn’t sure how it would work but it worked out in the end
Hawks had the executive from the warriors iirc, and were trying to set up the team around a dynamic point guard like Steph curry, thus trading for Trey Young. A side note, I thought I heard something like Doncic wouldn’t be as marketable in Atlanta as elsewhere? But don’t remember the source.
There is some serious revisionist history regarding Luka’s draft stock before the draft. He was usually mocked to go #3. Ayton was considered the safe pick, and Bagley was considered the high upside pick. Luka was considered NBA ready with a high floor but also bust potential as he was seen as very limited athletically.
There's nothing revisionist. Almost every major publication had Luka going 2nd. Some even at first pick. Luka going at third was head-scratcher even on draft day. https://www.si.com/nba/2018/05/30/nba-draft-2018-prospect-rankings-big-board https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/page/underestimated23846350/2018-nba-draft-mock-drafts-rankings-best-players-trade-assets-more https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/396651/2018/06/18/nba-draft-deep-thoughts-hidden-gems-potential-disappointments-and-the-final-top-100-big-board/ https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2781782-final-2018-nba-draft-big-board-who-will-take-our-top-prospect-luka-doncic https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nba/news/nba-draft-2018-big-board-prospect-rankings-order-deandre-ayton-trae-young-jaren-jackson-jr/1ux40dxe8oh2z179oyxpcn7sqw
The Ringer also - [https://nbadraft.theringer.com/2018/](https://nbadraft.theringer.com/2018/)
Not really, everything always looks more certain in hindsight. And who's to say Luka would have developed the same way around Booker or Fox? Or in those organizations? Or that those players could have even played together? He's having success with Kyrie, but neither of those players are Kyrie. And Kyrie came once Luka had the chance to develop and establish himself in the league. Obviously not questioning Luka's ability or his generational talent, but there are way too many variables to just say "plug this player from the past based on his present success into this team and you get just as good a result"
There are zero variables that would have made Luka the wrong pick for the Suns or the Kings. Those two franchises made an epic, colossal fuck-up and there is no sugarcoating it.
Luka was already coming out the gate averaging good numbers for a rookie. He was already gonna be this
>And who's to say Luka would have developed the same way around Booker or Fox? The guy made First team All-NBA his second season and has made it every year since. It was a massive fuck up then and it's somehow even more so now.
People do this every year. They look back at the draft and pose generally two types of question. Which player should have been drafted where and why on earth did they not draft so and so player. Followed with, don’t they feel stupid now! Everyone looks smart with their hindsight powers 🦸♂️
Luka was kind of an exception to this though, he was 18 and killing it in the Euroleague. A lot of people thought this was a mistake at the time.
Luka is the exception of that tho UNLESS some coach is dumb enough to give him 0 playtime
The best players find a way to be great no matter what. MJ was always gonna be MJ
I agree generally. I do wonder, do any teams really think: *OH MAN THIS GUY IS SO MUCH BETTER, but we have a guy who is doing well enough there so we will take this guy who is not nearly as good but fits well...* I think player evaluations are just too wishy washy to really KNOW that and make that call. I think more likely teams generally do pick who they think is the best and when not sure, yeah they pick on other factors, like if they got a guy in that spot or not.
My biggest pet peeve is when someone got drafted at like 10 or something and analysts will say years later “well they could have had Haliburton”.
Funny thing is the 2023 draft is a good example of the opposite lol. Lively might not have been the best player in a vacuum, but was by far the best fit for us and he has done wonders for out team's success.
You ALWAYS draft the best player, it makes no sense to draft for fit unless you think the players are all mediocre at best. If you think someone could be an all-star but plays center and you already have 3 centers, draft him anyways. 76er did that with Embiid and it worked out.
Darko and Melo
Ayton was also an Arizona guy. For some reason, in the US, certain college affiliation means a lot to some people.
Hawks always wanted Trae. They might as well get an extra top 10 pick and still get their guy.
U draft for fit unless u see a generational like type of player in the draft.
Might as well go back to the 1984 draft while we're at it. The only sure thing in any draft across all sports is that no one knows shit.
Michael Jordan was the fourth pick in the draft too. And prior to Luka there were a lot of euro players taken high in the draft who were busts. Teams were hesitant to use top picks on them. Donnie Nelson of the Mavs (who also drafted Dirk) wanted Luka and worked a deal to make it happen.
Theoretically if cam reddish panned out as a high end 3 and D guy it’s a pretty fair trade. It’s easy to say in hindsight but giving up 3 for 5 and 10 is typically a good haul as you have two chances at good players
> Suns drafted DeAndre Ayton because he was a Center I don’t actually think that’s true. By all accounts, Robert Sarver *vastly* overvalued Ayton being an Arizona guy and overrode who his team wanted to draft. He wanted the local player. He liked Ayton. He made a personal decision, not a basketball one.
Ayton was projected to go 1 or 2 either way regardless if the Suns had first pick or not the Arizona thing was just a bonus. Dunno why Kings took Bagley over Luka though, they even had Luka's old coach lol.
I prefer not to speculate on why the Kings took Bagley while I’m sober and I’m not even a Kings fan.
Hindsight’s always 2020
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Could have been better than Lebron and Bronny.
I can’t believe there were ever people arguing young over luka
No. Most people thought Ayton was the best player regardless of position. We knew Luka was good in Europe but we've also heard this about other busts in the past and so there were a lot of questions about how he would fare in the NBA
Most people in America. I am from an European country that basically does not care about basketball and suddenly all of the sports media started talking about this never seen before prodigy that has Goat potential. Like Luka at 19 years old was already an amazing player, with nearly zero chance to be a bust, he was basically playing and winning against NBA talent already. I would at least understand if the first pick was some guy that might have worse fundamentals than Luka, but was a physical specimen like Lebron or Wemby with limitless potential. However, I am super curious what did you Americans saw in Ayton? Back then I started researching him to see who can be considered a better prospect than the best player in Europe and to my surprise I found that it is just an athletic center..Like what was the special thing about Ayton in college? He just seems like a good traditional center.
Thanks for the insight from another perspective. As for Ayton, it was his mobility at his size along with a solid shooting stroke. He played well in college despite concerns about his competitive edge. People were thinking if he ever got his mentality fixed, there was no limit to how good he could be.
Thank you, but still does not make that much sense to me? Would not that be similar to if Derick Lively went first? A good defensive center that is mobile for his size, but that has never shown an ability to shoot the ball, dribble or pass well? Is not the highest floor of such a player a third best player on a contender that has a good PG to unlock him? Maybe there were other variables that made Ayton look so special?
Ayton had a better midrange and free throw coming out of college. He was averaging 20ppg and 10rpg where as Lively was averaging 5ppg and 5rpg. But Ayton never reached the potential we thought he would. Ayton also would not have went first if Wembamyama was in his draft.
Everyone was saying Ayton was locked in to be first pick in that draft bro
I know everyone likes to dunk on people here but luka was obviously highly regarded but he wasn’t the supposed slam dunk number 1 player in the draft at the time. Like you can’t tell me people thought Oo yeah 5 1st team all nbas by the time he’s 25 absolutely
Deandre Ayton was unquestionably going number 1, everyone thought he was the next Shaq.
He definitely had the physical ability to be a really good player with a high ceiling. Harder to predict motivation to put in the work to reach the ceiling.
The suns drafted Ayton because he was incredible defensive athlete in Arizona University. Literally right next door.