2015 NBA DRAFT

http://i.imgur.com/XpLVsCO.png

#2 prospects skipping college to play in china for a cool milli http://sports.yahoo.com/news/will-emmanuel-mudiay-s-jump-to-china-be-the-start-of-a-trend-for-recruits-203740980-nba.html

"I think the new snack money will convince kids to go to school," joked Louisville coach Rick Pitino as he watched the AAU Nationals here earlier this month, referencing the NCAA initiative to provide unlimited food to players.

"We've got free Power Bars," he continued.

Kristaps Porzingis is an intriguing and somewhat pynchonian name.

wow Oubre in the top 5 is surprising

Todd Wright ‏@Twright502 2m
Willie Cauley-Stein 21 points 12 rebounds 3 steals & 5 blocks.

Brow: TNG

http://i.imgur.com/HLRBfWi.png

wow lol

haha this guy is so terrible he goes through a whole list of being wrong then misunderstand why it was wrong, literally wrong about being wrong http://grantland.com/the-triangle/ncaa-tournament-x-nba-draft-looking-to-last-year-for-a-reality-check/

The part about Brandon Knight being some fringe guy who only went high because he went to UK is really bad

This draft is really good but I kind of hate okafor and towns, it's weird

haha this guy is so terrible he goes through a whole list of being wrong then misunderstand /why/ it was wrong, literally wrong about being wrong http://grantland.com/the-triangle/ncaa-tournament-x-nba-draft-looking-to-last-year-for-a-reality-check/
--lag∞n

this dude is the fucking worst, prob the strongest argument you could have against that site's non-Lowe NBA writing

haha this guy is so terrible he goes through a whole list of being wrong then misunderstand why it was wrong, literally wrong about being wrong http://grantland.com/the-triangle/ncaa-tournament-x-nba-draft-looking-to-last-year-for-a-reality-check/

― lag∞n, Tuesday, March 31, 2015 3:13 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is just so lazy...no shit most nba rookies are pretty bad, could you possibly be bothered to look back 3-5 years?

my early take:

Okafor: boring
Towns: boring
Mudiay: cool I guess but what can you really tell from CBA ball?
Stanley Johnson: really awesome
Mario Hezonja: sex on legs

look at this gazelle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUcrZ4y_Ccg

Okafor: boring
Towns: boring

Well, they aren't Anthony Davis, if that's your point.

lol never change matt armstrong.

i do think towns is more of a high floor guy than a high ceiling guy and okafor is maybe just improved greg monroe

yeah exactly. Very unsexy number 1 picks.

think there's a decent if not definite chance cauley-stein goes higher than towns but who knows

lol Matt that hezonja clip is aight but slow yr roll

That hezonja clip shows some good athleticism, but the opposing defenses are not so active that hezonja's athleticism was decisive in getting the shots off, so it only shows he knows a bit about showmanship.

i have sort of a bad feeling about cauley-stein

That hezonja clip shows some good athleticism, but the opposing defenses are not so active that hezonja's athleticism was decisive in getting the shots off, so it only shows he knows a bit about showmanship.

― Giant Purple Wakerobin (Aimless), Saturday, April 11, 2015 7:08 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

idk the takes off the dribble are pretty good man

good athleticism is kinda underselling what those clips show too

he's a fucking beast you guys. Might be a bust cuz he seems like a flake but come on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d4vqiqSMOY

cauley-stein old

I feel like the Twolves really don't need another big man, but then again they don't really "need" anything since they have young talent at every position.

Do you see Muhammad or Wiggins as a SG? Otherwise they could use someone there. They both seem like forwards to me.

yeah but not really a true SG in this draft

lavine probably their future SG

Right now I have it
1. Towns
2. Hezonja
3. Okafor

Okafor looks realllly vucevic/Al Jeff/Eddy Curry to me.

Towns is wacky and I hate watching him but he does a lot of things

http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2015/05/nba_draft_lottery_2015_how_to_fix_the_broken_nba_draft_system_and_prevent.single.html

that is actually brilliant

wouldn't this lead to 2nd level tanking that's even more flagrantly awful tho

I guess it prevents a team from being systemically bad which is boring compared to thrown games

one cool think is it wld create grudges between the teams that got picked to be the worst and those that picked them

could you trade for the YTW pick that named you, ie if the Knicks picked the nets as the worst could the nets trade for the Knicks' pick and then tank

yeah morey picking the mavs as the worst every year no matter his position would be great theater

I wish there was some way to make the lottery totally transparent so we could have the full gamble experience

these dudes will be reppin' their teams on lottery night
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CE-4Fs6UUAAFzGi.jpg:large

lottery 2nite

kinda want like a team like detroit to win this lottery for watch-the-world-burn reasons, i am just imagining hinkie's face (wherever he will be lurking) if he doesnt get in the top 5

sadly it's almost impossible for him not to

this isn't a draft where you really need to get number 1 or number 2 though, I could see the best player going 10th for sure.

hopefully the lakers win to prove its all rigged

to me the big question of this draft is: how high can you draft a guy who changed his middle name to Trill?

as high as a team wants

"best player" is mattarm-speak for that hezonja doofus i'm guessing?

to me the big question of this draft is: how high can you draft a guy who changed his middle name to Trill?

― Matt Armstrong, Tuesday, May 19, 2015 4:10 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

def passes the psych test

as high as a team wants

"best player" is mattarm-speak for that hezonja doofus i'm guessing?

― slothroprhymes, Tuesday, May 19, 2015 8:13 PM (40 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

highly unlikely he slips to 10

Singh has some Steven Adams qualities about him

so happy that Pat Connaughton justified my one Blazers t-shirt. but he might still just play baseball?

he looks sluggish, but they showed him shooting long range so he's basically new dirk

I see we've moved into the ignoring picks portion of the draft on ESPN

the hawks picked an extremely skinny swedish shooting guard who recently suffered a torn ACL

http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/Marcus-Eriksson-6114/stats/

Stephen A Smith live via satellite to dis the Porzingis pick

i have to turn the volume down about 50% as soon as he starts talking.

cliff alexander was a consensus top 5 recruit last year, went undrafted http://247sports.com/Season/2014-Basketball/CompositeRecruitRankings?InstitutionGroup=HighSchool

Chad Ford ‏@chadfordinsider 4h4 hours ago
Here’s the problem with replacing your front office right before the draft. Vlade & Karl had never seen Mudiay play. Mudiay > WCS

for the love of god man

#TrustTheProcess is a pretty fun hashtag to search for Philly gallows humor

https://twitter.com/cjzero/status/614279771850051584

https://twitter.com/CardboardGerald/status/614467376055107585

riles getting the last laugh at ainge's expense once again

I love how Adam Silver was doing bro hugs with the players last night
http://media.sunherald.com/smedia/2015/06/25/23/20/647-1Mit3.AuSt.55.jpeg

i was trying to figure out why the nba is bro-hug on draft night and the nfl is full-on hug

riles getting the last laugh at ainge's expense once again

― J0rdan S., Friday, June 26, 2015 12:30 PM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sure man

truth hurts

i support yr heat fandom jordan :)

"Hollis-Jefferson can defend three to four positions, is a terrific athlete, a solid playmaker and a great teammate. Stacey Augmon might be his floor, but someone like Andre Iguodala could be his ceiling."

This seems like a small room.

Heat fans should focus more on Hassan Whiteside continuing to be a top 5 center and less on celebrating drafting a guy who was projected to go almost exactly where they got him.

yeah hard to imagine winslow is underrated considering where he played def a couple goofball pick above him tho

on Hassan Whiteside continuing to be a top 5 center

which is contingent on him managing to not have a full-on rage meltdown on the court, which is aaaaalways in play - i think it's reasonable insurance lol

Heat fans should focus more on Hassan Whiteside continuing to be a top 5 center and less on celebrating drafting a guy who was projected to go almost exactly where they got him.

― Matt Armstrong, Friday, June 26, 2015 3:20 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark

how do you focus on a player in the offseason? is he doing open workouts?

lol I mean what exactly are you doing other than swallowing Heat PR about Winslow, watching some Whiteside 2015 mixes isn't really different

u can appreciate two players at once it cool

i guess I'm just sick of people falling for the "we had him 4th on our board!" thing

it's more a function of mock draft culture

like the Heat saying that they thought the knicks would take him, give me a fucking break

there isn't any mock drafts that had winslow falling, that's all it is

he only fell a couple few spots tho

dude every mock had him in the 6-10 range and that's where he went xp

anyway it was a good pick up for miami imo he seems like a very low downside guy

mudiay prob a bigger steal tho

he fits Miami's team needs perfectly

Winslow would have been a pretty odd pick for the Hornets really.

The Pistons are the team that rolled the dice. Stanley Johnson and Winslow are very close imo. I was more into Johnson but then I saw those hideous finishing numbers.

this is a really dumb convo but

At their draft-night availability, the Heat handed out a sheet of 20 mock drafts by prominent NBA writers or websites, and 19 had Winslow slotted between fourth and seventh; only one writer had him as low as eighth.

it's not true that winslow was in the 6-10 range. he was in the 4-8 range charitably, but really between denver and detroit. there wasn't a single mock draft, probably since april, that had winslow falling to the heat. every mock draft had the heat taking booker or johnson aka [wing player who isn't justise winslow] or myles turner.

in mock drafts, which is how people who read about the draft get information, winslow was in the tier of wing player above where the heat were drafting. he was too good to fall to the heat. but then he did! it's pretty easy to understand.

There was no way Winslow was going in the top 4 and if there really were mocks out there that had him there they were very bad mocks. Porzingis was a top 5 lock, and the Magic weren't gonna pick Winslow.

I guess Winslow going to the Knicks was just a wild guess based on the fact that the knicks were the only team that basically had no leaks

looking at the mocks you're right, Winslow made a late push at the end to get in the 4-8 range. But throughout much of the process 6-10 was about where he was.

I'm amazed by all the mocks that didn't have Kaminsky to the Hornets, they telegraphed that pretty hard.

im most surprised that the knicks didnt do something stupid

celtics apparently offered 6 picks, including 4 potential firsts, to move up to charlotte's spot for winslow.

yeah, but the hornets don't get frank and don't roll off six straight finals appearances

the second round grades here are a great example of the worst kind of draft analysis. Reflexively insulting whenever a player hasn't been scouted by the writer:

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/draft/drafttracker

celtics apparently offered 6 picks, including 4 potential firsts, to move up to charlotte's spot for winslow.

― call all destroyer, Friday, June 26, 2015 7:21 PM (55 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is literally insane

Frank must gonna be a hall of famer.

if the celtics wanted to be in the lottery so bad they cldve just not made the playoffs

its funny they didnt even want to take the same player, they just both really didnt want all those draft picks

tbf they were prob all terrible picks but still so many

that celtics stuff is unfathomable to me, if any team 6-9 really turned this down....

yeah that story honestly does not scan to me

sportscenter just showed this segment on isaiah austin and it's getting pretty dusty in here, my typical cynicism be damned that was a great moment in last year's draft